Serious GoDaddy Hosting Problem

[bdtcomp]

Hi, I have a problem with my hosting on GoDaddy. I have had a Simple Machines Forum for 10 yrs, anniversary in a couple weeks.

In that time I haven't had a major problem like I have had in the past week. It started last Friday, maybe earlier My websites, including this forum are all going down, after they run for maybe 1 to 5 or a few more minutes. I have Frontier DSL and maybe not the best ISP, does a decent job. But even on my Verizon 4G it goes down. I've run tracert reports for GoDaddy and myself & the failure happens near the end as the request time outs occur. GoDaddy says they reject those anyway. They say my site works fine in Arizona and no problems.

So they say on my end or somewhere in the middle.

We have customer near London, England and she has had the same problem. She sent me an error message The remote computer isn't responding to connections on port 443, possibly due to firewall or security policy settings, or because it might be temporarily unavailable. Windows couldn't find any problems with the firewall on your computer.

My other sites, PHP code, but mostly HTML, and not a lot of server requests. I also wasn't able to access my cpanel for a while or FTP. I did try a free VPN and when I log on to USA, Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, even the Ukraine, I connect okay. Then again the connection doesn't usually last long.

When I use our forum, when I try to go to like a member page, when they last logged on, it usually starts to bog down and spin and then an error. When that happens all my websites stop working.

My current version of Simple Machines Forum is SMF 2.0.15 | SMF © 2017, Simple Machines. I should update, but would this be causing the problem?

Could my PHP code be too old?

BTW I created a website two years ago, with HTML 5 for a client. It is also on GoDaddy Servers and Linux like mine. His works perfectly all the time. When I run a tracert on his site, it usuall is quicker, and it doesn't go to Arizona, but rather to Washington D.C. servers that GoDaddy most have there.

I am seriously thinking of going to another hosting, such as BlueHost. I do have a lot of content on GoDaddy, not sure how many gigabytes, though much of it could be removed. I also use a couple of email addresses for my websites on GoDaddy.

It will take some time to migrate my sites. I have at least four domains that I need to keep running. I also would have to setup MySQL databases for a few WordPress blogs, that aren't currently too active and also are down when my site is up. Most or all of them have been uploaded manually to GoDaddy, though I think I might prefer to have WordPress work automatically for me.

This has been exhausting with GoDaddy. They haven't been a super superb company. But I used to get some great service from the techincal team in the past. Now it seems that I'm either getting the runaround or I'm just been in the computing field too long!

Going to retire because it's been a long week already, but will be working from home tomorrow, so will respond to any responses & can offer more info if needed.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Not on my computer, so will be brief.  You need to migrate everything off GoDaddy asap, but you must make local backups of all files and databases, everything is at risk when GoDaddy screws up.  If you can, do a full cpanel backup and download it to your computer.  Migrating to a better host is not a big deal, can be done in a few hours, but you must have complete local backups in case your GoDaddy account goes ****up.

[Kindred]

Leave godaddy

I have switched 4 client sites out of there since godaddy couldn't ven handle a basic site

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Can only echo the others here. Moving to another host, and updating your install, would be a good plan forward.
I would also avoid hosts in the EIG Group, when searching for the new host. (BlueHost is EIG)

[Dave J]

I wonder if it's worth checking to see if GD have upgraded you to PHP8, if so then see if you can reverse that in your cPanel and go to 'Software>MultiPHP Manager' and see what it's set at.

[Steve]

Good thought Dave. It would be nice to know what PHP level they have you at.

Not everyone can switch hosts at the drop of a hat but you (talking to the OP now) will find that GoDaddy is intensely disliked because of the number of problems they cause and the lack of real support. So we recommend switching hosts at your earliest convenience. You can find a number of good ones here:

https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=4.0

Kindred can give you the name of one (don't PM him) he's been very happy with for many years. And there are more recommendations.

[bdtcomp]

Thanks all. I have PHP 7.3.

I have found another page of Non-EIS Hosting. It looks like it can even be cheaper.

I'm not going to get rid of GoDaddy Hosting though for a couple of months while I migrate and I tried to see whether I could upgrade my 2.0 versions, but I think best to wait till migrated.

I have backed up the several blogs & am downloading the Backup GoDaddy generated. It is about 8 gigabytes. Though I don't know if I will put it all up on the new site, I may remove some content first so the backup is smaller.

 

[Illori]

You may want to do your own manual backup just in case as well. Never hurts to have more than one backup, of course you also want to confirm it is completely usable.

[efk]

Can only echo the others here. Moving to another host, and updating your install, would be a good plan forward.
I would also avoid hosts in the EIG Group, when searching for the new host. (BlueHost is EIG)

May I suggest that you or someone with access upload that image in 1st post of this topic https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=117303.0 ?
And link from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfold_Digital

[bdtcomp]

That's my dilemna, which Hosting to choose. If it were cheap enough I would choose a dedicated IP. But it isn't.

So I just want to be sure that I don't go over any usage. GoDaddy did allow pretty much unlimited, though when I first went with them, they didn't, but I monitored.

I started with GoDaddy sometime about 2005 +- a bit. I was on a Windows Server. I switched about 2014 or so to a Linux environment. I thought that would be better. On GoDaddy, my forum ran better on Windows.

I prefer to stay on a Linux Server.

I may remove the large video files I have on GoDaddy and then redo my total backup. Then I can just put in the needed video files one at a time.

Right now 8 gigabytes backup file would take probably a day or so to upload, which I could do, but it just seems like it would be best to put my forum & my letters from a soldier site, which are my most important.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Crocweb is very good, inexpensive, excellent support.  They will do the migration for you.  I've moved approx. 20 forums to CW, several from GoDaddy.  Kindred has had good results with ICDSoft.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

May I suggest that you or someone with access upload that image in 1st post of this topic https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=117303.0 ?
And link from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfold_Digital

Not a bad suggestion as such, but with GoDaddy and EIG Group the issue is actually a little different. They aren't necessarily always overselling like that, they are just truly bad. Will think about that though.

[bdtcomp]

I'm going to download my forum and backup the database and try to update form 2.0.1.15 to 2.0.1.18 one version at a time. Haven't done in a year or so, so I think I just install each package one at a time.

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Yes, at it's simplest: Click on the link in the admin panel to update to the next version, then repeat.
Alternatively, download patches from https://custom.simplemachines.org/index.php?action=patches and install like mods one at a time in version order.

[bdtcomp]

Thanks, I downloaded the first update and will try to install as soon as my forum is backed up.

[rcane]

May I suggest that you or someone with access upload that image in 1st post of this topic https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=117303.0 ?
And link from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfold_Digital

Not a bad suggestion as such, but with GoDaddy and EIG Group the issue is actually a little different. They aren't necessarily always overselling like that, they are just truly bad. Will think about that though.

I've got a friend who runs a site/blog through bluehost.  Their support has been real-time, polite and helpful.  I was surprised they were on that list.

[bdtcomp]

Well I couldn't get any update to work. It seems that GoDaddy server is straining when I run a server request from my Simple Machines Forum.

It will be the first to be migrated to a new hosting. I think my other sites will work if the forum site isn't on it. The server I'm on just is not able to handle it, whether intentional by GoDaddy or just bad hardware. It just takes a few server requests and all my sites stop working, including playing a video on another URL. It played for a short time after the server stopped working, maybe because the video was buffered.

I thought of the time I spent talking to GoDaddy. Then I get a new ticket number, hey maybe I can win the lottery with enough!

Anyway, I need to take care of my own home & business, GoDaddy has just turned into a piece of lousy hosting.

I just haven't been able to pick a good Hosting. I don't really want my site hosted in Europe. I guess I can try a new one, probably at a cheap intro rate. Maybe the Canadian company will work for me, and it looks like the price is right.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Forum shouldn't be adding enough load to choke the server unless there's something wrong with it.  Do you have any huge tables in the forum database, or a large server errorlog? 

[bdtcomp]

there are a lot of errors in the log, the forum is 10 years old. Is it okay to clear them?

[Diego Andrés]

Yes, but try to fix them too they are appearing for a reason