Fasthost Rock
In the way that Northern Rock...!
I'm a solo web developer hosting our small business site with FH + SQL database for postal addresses etc - obviously not doing much trading on Thursday night / Friday /saturday.
First I knew about all this was a kindly customer (maybe they'll come back..) emailing with sever error thursday night 7.30pm.
I had changed my FTP password previously and had access to Control Panel. FTP came back later Thursday night, SQL down. Call centre (1.5hrs) told me to change the SQL password via the panel -
Also given a reason ~'we couldn't inform people about the mass password scramble beforehand otherwise the baddies would have been alerted' . .
Then I realise why I didn't change the SQL password, it's not accessible in my control panel as it was associated with a windows package that I had to change to Linux as FH didn't support Perl DBI properly under Windows Server- but that's another protracted story...blast!
Rang back, eventually get through at midnight Thursday and then told no engineers were there that could trace my SQL database and hook it to my account.
So what are Fasthosts thinking?! They have the biggest cock up in their history and they don't even get all the technical people they can in to man the datacenter? It's beyond belief.
Remember the original email was:
"We therefore recommend, as a precaution, that you now change the following passwords on your account:"
"Recommend!" - not mandate etc.
The only thing they will take notice of is people leaving so it's time to look for something better.
Shame, as they were a lot better than previous hosts, if you can believe that!
It's affecting our little business and my stress levels, I really feel for you guys that develop for clients hosted on FH - I guess you are moving data across to other hosts etc as quick as possible...
Good luck all.