Hi all

 

For the last six months we have had our site hosted by pagesgarden (www.pagesgarden.com) and it has all worked pretty well. We have had several bits of help from their tech services folks - usually an automated response in a few minutes and then a decent reply in a few hours. There is also a support ticket tracking system that works well.

 

However, after a few months without any contact I needed help to get a forum up and running on our website. Imagine my surprise when i got no response from tech support. I tried to create a ticket (Comes up as "Invalid License Key - Time Expired" whatever that means) having logged on to their cpanel using our logon details!

 

Never mind says I, I will email them. Well emails to techsupport, sales, feedback, webmaster and a few others just come back as undeliverable - no contact can be made with .... usually a specific named server.

 

Our website continues to be up and running but obviously we are seriously concerned.

 

Does anyone here use them as a hosting service and is there any news/rumour re possible problems? I have only found one other person (who has a blog) reporting no contact with pagesgarden. It did occur to me that such a low rumble around the net might be because sites are running normally, so only those with specific requests for service will be getting no reply.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Richard

Can you get into your FTP/Cpanel?

 

If it was me, I'd be a-moving before you can't access anything.

hosters are all over the show offering a wide range of prices and features. If they're looking dodgy which it seems they are get away and find a reliable hoster to avoid serious downtime.

Can you get into your FTP/Cpanel?

 

If it was me, I'd be a-moving before you can't access anything.

 

I can still get into cpanel - how does that help/ what is the significance of your point?

 

Unfortunately I am just the webmaster - I need the agreement of my car club committee to the change. They are not exactly computer-literate, Hence why they picked me as webmaster (in the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king!)

Well, can't you explain the issue to them? Without getting into the technical bits. Saying that there's a severe lack of support should be enough for them to agree on a change of host.

Well, can't you explain the issue to them? Without getting into the technical bits. Saying that there's a severe lack of support should be enough for them to agree on a change of host.

 

 

Sure - don't worry, the air is blue with emails flying around! Such a pain though, isn't it - we have only just (6 months ago) switched hosting services and there were problems then with getting the domain released and the DNS set up. The thought of having to go through it all again is not fun. Then there is the change of webmail software which i have just got the members used to using, and the change of email addresses - I could go on but no doubt you know it all to well...

Oh, yes. Just switched host myself.

I can still get into cpanel - how does that help/ what is the significance of your point?

 

My point (basically) is your host is rubbish, support is terrible and there is a chance that your website will disappear into thin air. If you can get access to the files, get a new host and move the files. Before it all disappears..and your left with nothing!

 

Moving email addresses and stuff is a major pain, but having no website and losing file is a bigger one!

*Nods at ^* I think you're quite lucky that your site is still up and running, actually. It's strange that everything else is down but they've left the sites up; if they're going out of business, wouldn't they take their servers and run? *Doesn't know*

 

Still, you should definitely back up everything now. Right now. We'll wait.

OK - I have managed to back up the complete site and it is now sitting on my local PC, so that is a relief. I am making some enquiries about changing host. A check of whois entry for solclassiccarclub.net shows that the status is "locked". I am trying to find out how difficult it would be to change hosts if i can't get any response from the current host. I have access to their cpanel but it doesn't have facilities like manage the domain, manage DNS - I wonder why ?

 

Thanks for the help and support.

 

Richard

Hi I have an account with PagesGarden as well and they were great up until a few days ago I've been trying to get a hold of them for 3 days now. Their support page and ticket system reports a message that sayd "Invalid License Key" and their billing system with 2CO reports another message "Parameter Error".

 

Nobody replied to my emails yet and last night while I tried backing up the FTP structure I couldn't log into my FTP server. Cpanel still works but not FTP. Is there any other wasy I can back up the files ?

There may be a "WebFTP" (File Manager?) option is Cpanel, so you could gain access from there?

There is a File Manager, but it doesn't let you download anything, however I found a Backup option that lets me download today's backup, full backup ( cannot be restored via CPANEL it says ), database backups and filter & aliases backup. Will downloading these be the same thing as doing it via FTP ?

 

I can't believe these guys to cop-out like that....that's just low.

OK - I have managed to back up the complete site and it is now sitting on my local PC, so that is a relief. I am making some enquiries about changing host. A check of whois entry for solclassiccarclub.net shows that the status is "locked". I am trying to find out how difficult it would be to change hosts if i can't get any response from the current host. I have access to their cpanel but it doesn't have facilities like manage the domain, manage DNS - I wonder why ?

 

Thanks for the help and support.

 

Richard

it should be in your domain registars panel.

Yeah if you want to manage the domains on PagesGarden go to domain.pagesgarden.com and login from there with your email account. And then send them a hate mail for being asses and dumping their accounts and forgetting about them.

There is a File Manager, but it doesn't let you download anything, however I found a Backup option that lets me download today's backup, full backup ( cannot be restored via CPANEL it says ), database backups and filter & aliases backup. Will downloading these be the same thing as doing it via FTP ?

 

I can't believe these guys to cop-out like that....that's just low.

 

 

Sure- the backup facility works fine. If you do a full backup it will literally backup everything in your account - all the files etc to a zip file on your own computer. You are correct, this can't be restored as is to your website. However, when you unzip the file, individual files can then be copied back to your website. If you do a partial backup - -.i.e this day's backup or databases etc. - it backs up to your website at pagesgarden. The purpose of this is so that you can make changes to your primary files but if you screw up, you can copy back from the online backup. Obviously NO GOOD if pagesgarden are going down the tubes!!

 

BTW - a full backup takes ages (literally 10's of minutes so be patient). Also, they are supposed to send an email to your email address when the backup is completed. After an hour, the backup progress bar still showed "backing up" but I just closed it and the backup was fine. Never got the email either.

 

Also - if you look at the Cpanel options there is one for "Web Disk". If this is still working, it is a pretty nifty facility. It sets up a password protected icon on your desktop that if you click on it, it displays all the contents of your web files. You can then simply drag and drop files to and from your own computer. No need for FTP.

 

I am so pleased to have found even one other person who has the same No Response problems - I thought I was just doing something silly.

 

If you have any other questions - just post

 

RJ

 

PS Thanks for the tip about the domain address.

Hi !

...and I thought I was alone....

Looking in Google one hour ago for "Pagesgarden Problems" I found Ariay post in the first place, registered the forum and here I am... I feel lucky to find company...

 

I have exactly the same history of Ariay, just that I am/was for 4 years with Pagesgarden, with 5 sites and I was one of the first clients ( the only one ? ) in their new SemiPrivate Program 4 months ago..... (perhaps this was the beginning of their end?)

 

The same history the three days ago, and now, knowing by way of the same support of PagesGarden that they are/were connected with Lunarpages:

 

I HAVE A TICKET OPEN FOR 11 HOURS 18 MINUTES INQUIRING IF THEY KNOW SOMETHING.... BUT I AM WAITING.... LUNARPAGES ARE DOWN TOO?

 

I really don't know at your level, and don't know exactly what to do first: I am reading attentively the posts and doing backs ups of the five sites downloading to my computer.... what more ?... worried... escape to another host ? is someone honest ?

Coacheduar - sorry to hear of your problems. I am really surprised that there are not more complaints by now on the internet about this company. I am sure there must be some problems even if the sites continue to run OK. I have everything backed up from our site and luckily there is not too much traffic on the site - a weekly backup is probably ok for us. But it must be a nightmare for those involved in sales, or who have forums running because of the constant updating.

 

My advice would be to look NOW for a new host. if your domains are registered with someone other than pagesgarden, you should be OK as getting the sites hosted with a new provider should not be too difficult. The new provider will be anxious for your business and usually can help with most of the changes that are needed. But if you registered your domains as new ones with pagesgarden or one of their affiliates, it might be much more of a problem as they hold them on your behalf and I think you need their cooperation to release them. NOT easy if they won't talk to you or your new host.

 

Perhaps someone else here has more knowledge and experience to help you.

 

Richard.

 

BTW I see that Google has picked up this thread, as you say, so we might see more people joining up here to help each other - not a good recruiting tool for the Web Design Forum!!

Hi, Richard !

So good you are here, and sorry for my span-english errors...

 

You said:

"Also - if you look at the Cpanel options there is one for "Web Disk". If this is still working, it is a pretty nifty facility. It sets up a password protected icon on your desktop that if you click on it, it displays all the contents of your web files. You can then simply drag and drop files to and from your own computer. No need for FTP."

 

Where is that "Web Disk" Option that I didn't succeed to find it in my cPanel ?

 

By this moment, I am backuping each site program (Joomla, Moodle, SMF Forum, B2Evo Blogs and Tiki-Wiki) by separate, it's right ?

 

You said:

"I am really surprised that there are not more complaints by now on the internet about this company."

 

Everything works fine at this very moment in pagesgarden and no so many people needs contact with support although through years.... no?

 

My domains are registered with pagesgarden..............

 

Thank You

 

Eduardo

Yeah I have a forum running on my site so I'm backing up my forum DB every night. I recently pruned it so it's not too bad in size only 30 megs. Full backup came up to about 1.5gb. I think I'm fine with just daily backup as I'm not updating anything on the site or the forum, so the files should be okay even if they are from months ago, the DB needs to be backed up daily though. WHat I found weird is...if I do DB backup from CPanel ( unzipped it comes to about 23 megs ), when I make a backup of the DB through vBulletin it comes out to 26megs. Then going to PHPAdmin and downloading it it only comes out to 20mb. WHy is there a difference ?

Noiselab: about your proposal about: domain.pagesgarden.com

this is the message currently received

 

Error Message: Invalid Password/Username, or your User account maybe Inactive or Suspended

 

The sites are running fine and all the options from cpanel are working.

Did you enter your email as the username ? That's what the username should be is your email address that you signed up with.

name='coacheduar' date='Sep 8 2007, 11:14 PM' post='10025']

 

You said:

"Also - if you look at the Cpanel options there is one for "Web Disk". If this is still working, it is a pretty nifty facility. It sets up a password protected icon on your desktop that if you click on it, it displays all the contents of your web files. You can then simply drag and drop files to and from your own computer. No need for FTP."

 

Where is that "Web Disk" Option that I didn't succeed to find it in my cPanel ?

 

Hmmmm... it is quite easy to see. Go to cpanel and on my system it is 4-5 icons along in the "FILES" area between "disk space usage" and "FTP accounts". If you have looked carefully and still can't find it anywhere, maybe it is not enabled in your setup?

 

By this moment, I am backing up each site program (Joomla, Moodle, SMF Forum, B2Evo Blogs and Tiki-Wiki) by separate, it's right ?

 

Not sure about this - maybe noiselabs can help out. Have you been downloading your backups to your computer as well as backing them up? I thought that when you choose a backup, it only backs it up to your websites files area. You can check and see if there are backups by logging into cpanel and then choosing "File Manager". This will show where all your files are. In the main list I have copies there of my backups. This is only good if you are sure the host is not going to go down - you will lose your files if they are only stored on-line.

 

If you find the backups, you need to right-click on each one and choose "Download". That will copy each file to your local PC and your data will be safe. If I were you I would do one FULL backup first - this backs up everything on your site in one file which you can download as I describe above. Then, you can do daily backups or whatever of just the files you know are changing because of traffic to and from your sites. Sorry if this is a bit basic, or if you have already done - it. It might still help others coming to this post!

 

Sorry to hear that your domains are registered with pagesgarden. Now, as far as I know, pagesgarden themselves do not actually register the domains themselves? I think it is an affiliate company. It is easy enough to check. Logon to www.who.is (no other letters). Here you can type in each of your domain names and see who it is actually registered TO and BY. All the details of the person/company holding the registration will be there. You can then contact that company about transferring the registration, or ask your new hosting company to start that process. they will advise you what steps to take.

 

Hope this helps

 

Richard

Yeah I have a forum running on my site so I'm backing up my forum DB every night. I recently pruned it so it's not too bad in size only 30 megs. Full backup came up to about 1.5gb. I think I'm fine with just daily backup as I'm not updating anything on the site or the forum, so the files should be okay even if they are from months ago, the DB needs to be backed up daily though. WHat I found weird is...if I do DB backup from CPanel ( unzipped it comes to about 23 megs ), when I make a backup of the DB through vBulletin it comes out to 26megs. Then going to PHPAdmin and downloading it it only comes out to 20mb. WHy is there a difference ?

 

Hmmm... strange huh? Are they all zip files? The only thing I can think of is a difference in the compression algorithms - or the way the files are packed for zipping. Me, I'm no expert in that area at all. Maybe someone else can help.

 

Richard

coacheduar :

 

Yes backup your databases separately. When you get a new host you can upload them to your FTP server and ask the customer service to re-instate them. If your new host has CPanel as well, you can re-install those SQL files by yourself directly from the Backup option. If you are going to download the "Today's Backup" you can later unzip it on your drive and FTP the contents of it to your new host. As I understand it FULL BACKUP is the same thing only it includes the SQL files as well, so it doens't matter how you download them separately or together, you can unzip later either way.

hi friends all:

 

i didn't said I am backuping databases.... i don't know where to begin..... how to do it ?

I don't find HOW to backup databases in the cpanel....

 

I am doing FULL BACK UP from cpanel, receiving the email at the end, download it to my computer. Paralelly I am downloading ALL the contents of the PUBLIC_HTML folder to my computer and doing partial backups for each site/program as as said above........

 

Where I am doing something wrong?

 

Thanks a lot for the help....

 

Eduardo

OK!

my things are running good...

pages garden goes on without problems till now...

http://www.navicat.com/

 

 

its not free but you get a 30 day free trail so it should be enough to make a backup

Hey Eduardo,

 

Don't worry about using a script, if you want to backup your database you can do it via phpMyAdmin which is in your cpanel account.

 

1. Login to Cpanel

2. Click MySQL® Databases (Has a picture of Dolphin on it normally)

3. Now within the MySQL section scroll to bottom and click "phpMyAdmin"

4. Click Export in the Menu to get to where you can backup you MySql database. Image showing the export menu.

5. Make sure that you have selected to export your entire database, and not just one table. There should be as many tables in the export list as showing under the database name.

6. Select"SQL"-> for output format, Check "Structure" and "Add AUTO_INCREMENT" value. Check "Enclose table and field name with backquotes". Check "DATA", check use "hexadecimal for binary field". Export type set to "INSERT".

7. Check "Save as file", do not change the file name, use compression if you want. Then click "GO" to download the backup file.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Regards

 

OK!

Finally I found at the bottom of the cpanel the option phpMyAdmin to the old fashioned work which I know....

and exported all the databases to my computer.... That's all ? It's possible to be quite for a while.....?

 

Honest Hosting ?

 

Ben, Thanks a Lot for the Help....

 

Eduardo

Eduardo - if you have a full backup downloaded to your computer you should be fine as long as things don't change too much on your site. If you are still concerned, unzip the backup file and check the contents. You should have every thing on your site - even stuff you don't need like some of the pagesgarden setup files etc. When you arer sure, check the contents against the individual backups you have done and make sure nothing in not included in the full one. Finally, make backups each day or every few days of files you think are changing - forums, databases etc.

 

Then move to a new host as soon as possible!

 

Good luck

 

Richard

Thank you Arjay, I am doing so....

 

Things change every hour in my sites... out of today and yesterday when I was/am occupied and worried making backups and looking for another hosting, after reading your first post..... now I have a live chat with Rackspace, but they are very expensive....

 

where are you escaping to ?

 

Thanks again

Coacheduar

where are you escaping to ?

I have another site with netpivotal.co.uk where they have been very helpful to me. I thought I might move the pagesgarden site to netpivotal as it is easier to look after two sites at the same host. One thing I like about Netpivotal is that they have UK offices (although they are US based) and that they even advertise their UK phone numbers on the website. Pagesgarden, of course, are very shy about putting up their phone numbers!

 

Netpivotal don't like to answer technical queries by phone but they have nice sales and general support staff on the phones. The prices are quite low which is often good (competitive) and bad (do they make enough money to stay in business!) What I have learned this time is to host with a company that is DIFFERENT to the one you registered with. It may make releasing the domain easier.

 

But you might do better to look at the threads here and elsewhere about a possible host to move to.

 

Richard

I've heard good things about DreamHost in us, but the fact that they have no CPanel makes me twitch. LyphaHosting offers 1TB of space...which is weird, seems like A LOT of space for such little price. Not only that 5TB of bandwidth seems ridiculous.

 

The website looks very legit however they have email phone and even ICQ support.

 

Those two are so far my targets.

For info of all who are hosted by pagesgarden - there are definitely problems there - see for example this link: Adoloma Web Hosting Guide

No doubts pagesgarden is going out of business... now LUNARPAGES with a red flag !

 

Lunarpages is hosted at the ThePlanet. Traceroute for PagesGarden definitely ends at Lunarpages and not ThePlanet as they suggest (http://pagesgarden.com/datacenter.php).

 

Pagesgarden.com is hosted into Lunarpages, and the best thing Lunarpages can do is to mantain the servers working till the last of the clients shut the light off and goes out at the end of their contracts......

 

Now, Lunarpages doesn't answer inquiries about pagesgarden because "we have a very strict privacy policy and we are not able to release any information concerning our hosting accounts....

If you open a new account, we would be happy to answer any questions. ...."

 

It is a RED FLAG on LUNARPAGES, if they were 100% honest, they must give the information about taking another hosting at once...so it is my right to think that LUNARPAGES IS CRASHING TOO.... or in the same pagesgarden business and not only their hosting provider...

 

I didn't asked about the internal particularities of "NBA.com", private, honest, living and working site... I wanted to know WHEN PAGESGARDEN BEGAN AND WILL COMPLETE THEIR FRAUD ! Make a search a Google with "pagesgarden" and "pagesgarden problems": everyday are appearing some new LUNARPAGES FRAUD' victims...

 

Therefore, I went to look for an honest host AT ANOTHER PLACE, NOT AT LUNARPAGES.....

 

NOT AT LUNARPAGES.....

 

Take care, my friends...

For all those who are hosted by pagesgarden AND have their domains registered by them as well. If you want to move your domains and are having trouble, see the excellent how-to guide at this link: How to transfer out of pagesgarden

 

If the Mods see this you might want to keep a note of it and maybe "sticky" it if there is a greater demand.

Yay I'm free ! Moved to HostGator a few days ago, got their started package with a coupon for 15 bucks and then paid the entire year. Great customer support, was a little weird at first but I got it figured out. Moved all my stuff, even though transferring Joomla between hosts proved to be a gigantic pain in the ass, all worked out in the end.

 

Goodbye pagesgarden, gooddbye domains. ( No I didn't want them anyway. )

Hey Richard,

 

(sorry for my bad english) I'm using pagesgarden for all my webhostings since 2003. All went well until april 2007. I started to have several server time-outs and lots of mailserver errors but the support always fixed it almost the same day... Since August 2007 I'm unable to contact the support. Since August the supportpage always gives the same error: Invalid License Key (Time Period Expired). I've also tried to sent mails and used the contactform but without succes. I have several mailservers on pagesgarden that don't work anymore: the mails don't come in and no errormessage is sent to the sender. Today another mailserver stopped working (nr 4!) and I've lost a mysql dbase on another pagesgarden server!!!

 

--

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) in /home/smonbv09/public_html/_db/db_connect.php on line 3

I cannot connect to the database because: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

--

 

Also I'm unable to download a backup!

I strongly advise to all pagesgarden users who are unable to contact support: Start backup your servers and look for new hostings!!!

Hi all!

 

I have no way to reach to my domains....

With this method from

 

http://miketolland.com/2007/09/12/pagesgarden-transfer-help

 

I receive

[r3] Error Message: Invalid Password/Username, or your User account maybe Inactive or Suspended

 

Somebody knows if the company for whom pagesgarden was domains-resellers

 

DIRECT INFORMATION PVT LTD D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM

 

is in problems too...?

 

Is there a way to reach them directly?

 

Eduardo