Lunarpages Web Hosting Forum

Suspended Account FAQ

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:06:58 PDT

What are you to do if you find yourself with a suspended account? I thought that I would setup this special thread as a Q and A for some of the questions you might have about the process so that you can gain more information on the issue. If you have any general questions to add please do so. Please do not make them account specific questions as those will need to be handled by official Lunarpages support. Click here to visit the Lunarpages "contact us" page.

Updated: Nov 2, 2007

Now lets get started...

Why was my account suspended?

Most account suspensions happen when a script or number of scripts on an account eat up so many server resources, they are effecting other clients on the same server. It is Lunarpages job to make sure everybody is kept happy so the offending account maybe suspended, and/or moved to another server until a solution can be found to the problem. Other suspension reasons my be because of billing related issues or disk space/bandwidth related issues.

What if I just ran out of disk space or bandwidth?

Then that should be a little less severe of a situation and should be dealt easier. With bandwidth you could purchase enough to last you out the rest of the month and with disk space and/or bandwidth upgrading your plan from one to the next could also help solve this. (situations might be different on a case by case basis)

What if my account was suspended due to a billing issue or late payment?

This can be taken care of by the billing team at billing@lunarpages.com. Most of the times, we can restart your charge - you pay the bill and then everything is back to normal in Lunar-land.

What is the solution (if not billing or bandwidth/disk space related)?

In most cases the offending script or practice can be removed from the account, and all can go back to normal. If the problem is more about usage of the account (such as to many people accessing the same script at the same time) you may be asked to upgrade to a VPS or dedicated hosting package.

Why should I upgrade to a VPS or dedicated hosting plan?

These accounts have fewer clients on them, so the server resources are more widely distributed. Also these account types allow for more advance features not found on your usual hosting plans that some people may find that they need.

I have a ticket in about my situation, but support is not answering me back?

Support will get to you as soon as they can. You must realize though that it takes time and effort to investigate each issue on a case by case basis. If we were to turn back on an offending account without checking it out form head to toe - then it took out a server, we would not be doing our jobs (and by our I mean Lunarpages).

Please wait as your issue is being investigated and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Working with support (by doing what they ask, and asking what you can do to help) is a good idea and will make the process go by faster.

Will the cPanel server status features give me any helpful information?

Watching the server stats via cPanel can often be misleading. Please check out this thread for more information on how to read these numbers and why they might not exactly be right. This is more of an issue with cPanel itself than something Lunarpages can prevent.

More Links to Helpful Information:

More Specifics on Server Monitoring and Loads (related to exessive usage)

This should be a good start for some of the general questions - if you have more please let us know here and we'll be happy to answer any general question you have about the topic. Any account specific questions will be removed form this thread so that we can hopefully keep it as a reference point for future customers that might find themselves in this same situation. Thanks!

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Disaster Preparedness Plan for Business and Other Web Sites

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:32:28 PDT

In the brick and mortar world, solid businesses plan for disaster. They know it can come at any time in the form of earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, volcanoes (if they are lucky enough to be in Hawaii ;-) ), fire, robbery, power outages, locusts, etc. There will likely be little or no warning and to survive the downtime caused by these, they plan for it. The online world is no different. Downtime happens. Computers and the Internet are not perfect. They too have their share of natural and unnatural disasters. With the amount of spamming and hacking ever increasing each year as well as the usual hardware failure, network failure, and so on, it is very likely that some part of your site will go down at some time. While 100% uptime would be ideal, the cost to reach very near that ideal would be rather expensive since more equipment, personnel, utilities, server space, etc. would be required and this cost would have to be passed on to hosting customers. But all is not lost. You can recover fairly quickly with a bit of planning.

First, don't expect your webhost to have a backup of your files even though they may. You are responsible for your own files, databases, and email. When you go to make changes on your website, backup first. When you finish making changes, backup again. You can backup easily in Cpanel at any time by clicking on Backups. In there you will find Full Backups which backup all files, databases, and email. Home Backups will save a copy of all files under public_html. Databases can be backed up individually under Backups by clicking on their names. Copies of all email forwarders (aliases) or filters for each of your domains can be saved under Backups. You may also restore your backups under the Backups icon in Cpanel but the Full Backups are best restored by support in most cases. Widgets/contributions can be installed to create backups from within some scripts like Wordpress or Oscommerce. Use a cron job to automate weekly to monthly backups depending on how busy your site is. There is an excellent post on automated backups at http://www.lunarforums.com/lunarpages_how_tos/site_and_mysql_backups_via_cron-t22118.0.html Again, backup, backup, backup! (Please be sure to delete unneeded/old backups now and then rather than permanently storing them on the account and wasting space.)

Don't expect your webhost to know what scripts are installed on your site. Keep a list of what is installed where, admin logins, and the database connection info. If you have a webmaster managing the site for you, ask them for a list. While we are on the subject of webmasters, if they can do what they need to do without full cpanel access, don't provide it. You can create an FTP account just for them, create an email account for them, provide remote access to databases. You can install Fantastico scripts for them. Be sure your domains and account are registered in your name with your email address and phone number on file. Most hosts can also let you place the webmaster's info on file as a second contact point.

Know what info your webhost will ask for to verify ownership of your account if you need anything changed on your account. Keep it handy. Be sure the email address on file is up to date at all times on both your account and your domain name registrations. For your account, it is better to use an outside email address that is not on your domains hosted here. Keep a valid phone number on file for the account.

For a business, consider using an outside DNS service such as ZoneEdit: http://zonedit.com if you do not have direct access to your DNS settings. With a service such as ZoneEdit, you can change the A record and MX records of your domains very quickly to point elsewhere (another web account, in-house server, or an outside email service such as Google Gmail App) until an emergency is over. Be sure to copy any file or data changes back over to the original server before changing them back after the emergency. You will also want to have your webhost note on your account that you are using outside nameservers in case of a load balancing move or other IP address change. If you receive a notice of a server move for your account, be sure to reply back and let them know you will need the IP address when they are done. You can also make arrangements to coordinate the move with you.

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Helping Each Other and Keeping Posts Respectful

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 07:53:09 PDT

Hi,

Recently, I've noticed a trend whereby some customers who are a great help on the boards to others have occasionally been borderline sarcastic to those who are not happy with hosting for one reason or another (downtime, phone support wait times, etc.). Please remember that if you have an issue and posted on this board about the issue that you would want to be treated respectfully. It is understandable that everyone would like to have 100% uptime and response times in phone support within 1 second or less upon calling, while this isn't always going to be totally possible under all circumstances.

While we do try our best to provide excellent support and services, and we do greatly appreciate the help everyone provides on this forum, please do let the moderators and staff handle any customers who step out of line or are disrespectful. If you are unable to help the customer or provide a positive experience, please simply refrain from replying to the thread or post. This is the best way you can help in such an instance rather than having an already upset customer become more upset or reporting your posts due to the response you might have made.

Please note the same holds true for any threads or posts by members on the forum whether the customer is upset or not. So if you cannot provide a positive return post for what they have asked about or noted, please refrain from responding entirely to the thread/post.

Again, we greatly appreciate all assistance everyone provides on this forum, so this is not intended to upset anyone but to ensure all posts are either positive or helpful from all who post.

To view and review the LunarForums rules, please check out this post:

+ LunarForums Rules - Please Read Before Posting!

Have a Wonderful Week

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Unexplained Increase in Disk Space Usage

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:55:01 PDT

today I checked CPanel and it says that my disk space usage is about 5GB but yesterday is was less than 15MB. I'm only hosting a wordpress blog and I didn't upload any huge files. I do not have any email accounts. wtf is happening?

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Addon domains?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:54:23 PDT

Hello! I have a domain and hosting account with Lunarpages, and I'm trying to add on a domain for my friend. She had already registered her domain with Yahoo/AT&T, so now I'm trying to change the nameservers. The problem is, I have no idea what to change the nameservers to! I tried doing a search on the forum but couldn't find anything to help me. Any chance someone could walk me through this? Thank you very much!!

XOXO
~MAlinda

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