Where, Oh Where has Cihost.com Gone?

Nelson Weiderman writes "For about 36 hours (as of 9 a.m EST 12/31), cihost.com and the domain names it serves have been off the air with attempts to access them getting "the server does not have a DNS entry" message. Calls to their customer service (when you can get through) have a recording indicating that they attempted an equipment upgrade and that they tried to restore a backup NameServer, which apparently failed. They are trying to reassure customers that none of their data has been lost. Anybody know what's happening there or what the prospects are for recovery? I chose CI Host because they were rated in the top five web hosting services by three separate rating organizations. " We've been getting a huge amount of submissions about this, especially in light of the Masslinux Disappearing Act. Click below for more details - but from what research I've been able to do, it appears that they've been hit with a terribly timed series of mishaps and problems, and are working on getting back online.

This e-mail came to me as well: Hi,

Below is a copy of a post to alt.www.webmaster by Graham Wideman. I confirm his comments in every detail. I personaly have five domains (addresses below) with CiHost which are currently totaly unavailable (http,ftp,mail you name it)..

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Major Hosting service provider (28,000 domains?) CI Host has been attempting to move their servers for the last 10 days, with one problem after another, including webmasters unable to access their sites for update, and old backups being restored over new data.

Now we are up to 24 hours during which all sites, plus the email they support, are completely inaccessible due to CI Host's name servers being off the net. For many, this means they cannot even transfer their sites elsewhere (due to the way Network Solutions requires transfer email to come from the registered webmaster's address).

Adding spice to this picture is the fact that CI Host is a charter member of, and "certified" by the Web Host Guild, which is the main activity of Sumo Inc, now owned by CNet.

For further info on CIHost downtime, see alt.www.webmaster.
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Regards
Alan Cowderoy

Comments

My horrifying experience dealing with CI Host

[migs]

I became a customer of CI Host in July of 1998. Immediately after uploading my pages to their server, I started experiencing problems. My calls and emails to customer service were never answered promptly, so after 3 or 4 months I decided to switch providers.

As soon as CI Host found out I was switching, they deleted all my data, without further explanation. Attempts to recover data that I had not yet moved to my new provider were completely unsuccessful. I found out that their claims about having redundant systems and frequent backups were not true.

Anyway, I thought that was the end of my worst experience with a hosting provider. I closed my account with them, hoping to forget the whole thing. Two months later (February of 1999), CI Host charged my credit card as if I were still a customer. Once again, my many calls and emails were never answered. Finally, after I tried to reach the CEO several times, they admitted their mistake and issued a refund in May of 1999 (they even gave me a copy of the refund slip).

To my utter disbelief, the refund never reached my credit card company. To this date I'm still trying to get my money back. CI Host never answers my calls, and takes about a month and a half to answer any email I send them (my contact there is Edith "I'm not allowed to give you my last name").

After dealing with about 10 different hosting providers over the years, I found CI Host to be the worst ever. If you want to save yourself months of frustration, financial losses, fraudulent charges, etc.

DO NOT HOST WITH CI HOST!!!