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Hosting Hell for Moms in Business

That’s right, I lived in Hosting Hell for a few months…

 

HOSTING HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Keep reading if you have or had these hosting problems or issues too, such as:

 

*Problems & Issues: Emails from WordPress that your are out of disk space

*Problems & Issues: Hosting service from a Reseller

*Problems & Issues: Too large for a complete back up of data base and files

*Problems & Issues: Proving your problems exist to your hosting service and support people

*Problems & Issues: Pages loading with strange blue “menu bars” at the top

*Problems & Issues: Server down error pages

*Problems & Issues: 307 error pages

*Problems & Issues: Other error pages

 

These technical web hosting issues and hosting problems take me back to my days in Madrid…

hosting problemsThis is actually Barcelona. I couldn’t find a Madrid shot.

I remember standing in the train station in Madrid, and since I had taken Spanish in school, it was my turn to communicate, and figure out which train my husband and I needed to take.

 

My husband is a seasoned traveller, plus speaks German, and he is quite accomplished at negotiating all of those little challenges you have in a foreign land.  In Madrid, I had the reins, and the pressure was on.

 

The train station was under construction, and everything that I could read in Spanish didn’t actually apply.  All of the frustrated locals were lined up with me to ask the train director questions, and with each step forward, I prepared in my head the proper verb tenses and vocabulary to the best of my ability to present my question, and get an answer we needed.

 

Problem was, the verbs and vocabulary I expected back from the director didn’t come, and were beyond my comprehension, and all of those foot tapping locals, rolling their eyes at me to get a move on didn’t help.  You can only ask someone to repeat something so many times. 

 

Ultimately, we made it to our destination with quite an adventure–getting on the wrong train, and fumbling through even more awkward Spanish conversations. I clearly was the sub par support technician of the two of us.

 

My Madrid tale came to mind after struggling recently with the technical support people from my web hosting service, and to fix the data base and disk space and page loading issues.

 

Even though we are conversing in English, there is vocabulary and jargon that is just downright foreign to me.  That tech guy may as well be speaking Spanish, and just like being lost in a foreign place, you have to trust complete strangers speaking an unknown tongue to guide you.

 

I’m sure many of you breeze through all things in web developer computerland, but I thought I could help those of you in my shoes by telling you what not to do from my recent mistakes–and in layman’s terms…
hosting problems

 

If you are in hosting hell too, with hosting problems like any of the problems spelled out above, I’ll spell out some steps to fix them, to hopefully help my fellow Moms in business in hosting hell too.

   

I’m sure my low tech aptitude is first to blame, but like my performance in Madrid as our guide, not all technical support is created equally.

 

It’s not safe to assume that just because you’re talking to a technical person, means you’re going to get proper advice. Which takes me to out first step to help yourself with hosting issues.

 

hosting problems1: Hosting Problems: Not Communicating or Proving Your Problems Effectively

Do this:

 

*Always try again, and get a different person on the phone or support ticket, if you’re not getting anywhere with the current person.

 

Eventually, you will get someone who is truly knowledgeable, and will guide you appropriately, so just keep trying until you reach that person.

 

*Take screen shots of everything as proof, and attach them on your support ticket communications.

 

To do this: Hit “Print Screen” on your keyboard on the screen shot you want.  Then go to “Paint” and “Page Set Up”.  Make your “Page Set Up” 1 to 1, then hit “paste”.  Your screen shot should appear as your file, and just “save as” a jpeg file.

 

hosting problems2: Hosting Problems: On Shared Reseller Hosting and Getting Out of Disk Space Messages

 

Do this:

 

*Ignore the advice to upgrade to a Reseller Account yourself or to purchase a VPS account.

 

These accounts are not for the technically challenged, because you are the support for yourself, and for any clients or customers you enlist on your Reseller account.  If you can handle that, great, but if you’re like I am, stick with being able to call for help anytime.

 

If you’re a busy Mom in business, don’t insource.  Always outsource as much as possible.  It’s worth it to pay for important services that take your headaches away, and keep you running and operating smoothly.

 

*Purchase more shared hosting accounts instead.

 

Your sites may be getting too big with more traffic and hits, and your hosting can’t handle the disk space and back ups.  A solution is to pull your bigger sites out on their own individual shared hosting plans.

 

For example, I have 3 hosting accounts with Hostgator.  My 2 big ones are on their own separate accounts, and the 3 sites that are smaller share an account.  Even with the 3 separate accounts, my monthly costs are less than purchasing a Reseller account, which is the advice you’ll get from your hosting initially.

 

hosting problemsHosting Problems: Your Data Base and Files on Your Hosting cPanel are Too Big for Back Up

 

Do this:

 

*If using WordPress Back Up plugin, get rid of it.

 

This plugin was the source of my problems.  It created extra back ups that were stored on my servers, even with the lowest settings.  There were many repeat files and back ups in my home directories that could be deleted.

 

To find these, and know which to delete, get on the phone with your support, and walk through it.  It took me awhile to get the right person to specifically tell me which ones to delete.  I finally have cPanel back ups of all of my sites after targeting these duplicate or unnecessary files, and deleting them.

 

When you pull out sites from one account to a new account on its own, those old files and data base remain on the old account until you delete them as well.  Make sure you know from support, which you can delete.

 

My data bases were all named the same, but with a different number, so support needed to identify which data base was the one newly migrated to its new server, to be able to delete that in the old account, and create more space.

 

hosting problemsHosting Problems: Strange Looking Pages Loading and Many Types of Error Pages

 

Do this:

 

*If using W3 Total Cache, get rid of it, and change to WP Super Cache.

 

In general, there are many plugins, WP updates, etc. these days that just aren’t agreeing with each other anymore, but if you’re using Hostgator Hosting, change to WP Super Cache.  It just agrees more,  and all of my loading issues with big blue menu bars at the top, and only showing the blog without any navigation menu went away.

 

There were also a multitude of error pages found in our beginning list of problems and issues, that seem to have cleared by changing over to WP Super Cache.

 

There are a few glitches with WP Super Cache on only one of my sites.  I deactivated it, and will wait for the update to try it again.

 

hosting problemsFurther Problems & Issues:

 

You may find that you must go back to an earlier WordPress version to have it agree with other very important plugins, until those catch up with updates.  For example WP ecommerce does not agree with any recent WordPress versions yet.  Also, membership plugins might not agree yet with the new WP updates.

 

Initially, the first advice with all of these hosting problems from my hosting, was to get rid of as many plugins as possible, and I found other plugins that seemed to be culprits that you may want to consider deleting as well, like…

 

*Google Analytics (Yep, hugely important, but was causing huge loading issues.  I’m currently using other sources to look at my stats and information, like hosting and webmaster tools. I don’t have a solution on this one yet.)

 

*SEO All in One (This one gave me 307 redirect error pages, and no one could figure that one out at all. When it’s gone, the problem doesn’t happen. It also gave me errors on my site maps.  Currently, I submit RSS feeds to webmaster tools instead.)

 

 

*You should always strip down as much as you can on your plugins.

 

Especially these days, with multiple updates and plugin disagreements, it’s better to have less.  If you are having these same problems and issues, know that you are not alone.  I’m a Mom in business too, figuring out as much as I can, and trying to help all of you.

 

hosting problems

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Don’t be all alone and wrongfully taken out, like our famous, ultra creepy Psycho shower scene…

 

 

That still makes me cringe to this day, but at least my Hosting Hell is gone for now.

~Courtney


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Hosting Hell for Moms in Business