ThatAdamGuy

Andy, I just submitted a ticket, and Kris replied: I'm really at a loss as to what's going on. 1) Why wasn't I notified about this after my mail was lost the 2nd time? More to the point, why isn't this announced clearly on the cPanel interface of ALL TCH users? I'm sure that there would be quite a few upset members if they knew their settings were being changed by cron jobs without their knowledge or consent. 2) What the heck is this policy about, and how does setting everyone's default mail settings to :fail: instead of :blackhole: enhance security? 3) How can I get a waiver for this? All I want to do is have all mail sent to [whatever]-foo@bladam.com get through to me, while all other mail to the domain is rejected. I've already established dozens of addresses this way (unitedairlines-foo@bladam.com, cnetnewsletter-foo@bladam.com, etc.), and I created a filter rule -- if header contains 'foo' then forward to 'impersonal' at the domain bladam.com -- and then I download my POP account 'impersonal'. Weirdly, when the default address for a domain is set to :fail:, then my 'foo' rule is ignored, and *ALL* mail to bladam (except 'impersonal' directly) is bounced. But if I set the default address to :blackhole: then the filter rule works. Likely a bug in cPanel, but that's beside the point. Thanks for consideration on this issue...

Hi there, For the second weekend in a row, my cPanel default e-mail settings have been changed without my intervention or consent, causing me to lose e-mail. Specifically, the default delivery location for one of my domains was changed from :blackhole: to :fail:. Why is this such a big deal? Well, when it's the latter, my e-mail filter rules are overwritten, and all specially tagged mail is then bounced back to sender. At first I thought, hmm, maybe I just made the change without thinking about it. But now that this has happened for two weekends in a row, I'm absolutely positive that this is not my doing. As you can imagine, I'm pretty upset. When I first signed up with TCH, I lost mail because the techie transferring my account did not warn me that he was creating a copy of my cPanel that would stay in my old account, pushing me overquota on my old host and causing all incoming mail to bounce. The second time I lost mail with TCH, it was due to this change of my default mail address, though I originally thought it was a fluke. Now this is the third time. Had I not been reading so much good stuff about this host, this would have been the third strike, and I'd be outta here. If it were a problem with occasional downtime, that'd be a bummer, but understandable. Losing mail... and repeatedly? Completely unacceptable. I'm posting this here not to air dirty laundry, but rather in a plea that someone at TCH will figure out what's going on that's resulting in a reset of my cPanel each weekend, and find a way to stop it. And yes, I'll be filling out a support ticket, too (referencing this post). (As you can imagine, I'll be changing the incorrect setting ASAP... so if any techs look into my cPanel and see that bladam.com is set to :blackhole:, you won't think I'm going crazy )

Nope, even with all the helpful suggestions here, Earthlink apparently still blocks it :|

Yes, sorry, tried that, too

Hmm... but if I forwarded folks, then I'd have to use the IP address of my sites, right... because their DNS entry for my domains are outdated? And since I have a virtual IP... how would that work? Sorry, I'm a bit confused!

Alas, I tried port 26, sending to both **** and smtp.****, and it didn't work . Thanks for the suggestion, though!

I moved to TCH from BlogHosts and updated DNS pointers and such a week ago... but in checking my stats on BlogHosts, I still show about a dozen visits (and 100+ hits) on my old sites each day. Why might this be, and is there any way I can address this issue?

Hi there, I recently migrated -- in quite an urgent fashion -- from BlogHosts. My transition to TCH was rather bumpy, but I'm optimistic that I've made a good choice and I'm quite pleased with the performance of the server I'm using as a reseller. Let me get the bad stuff out of the way: 1) When the cpanel contents were copied from my old server to my account on TCH, the rep forgot to delete the file on the old server. This placed me severely over quota there, and resulted in my mail bouncing ("disk full") for nearly half a day until I realized what was going on. 2) Most of my accounts were not correctly set up on my TCH server, and -- though I was admittedly a bit impatient due to losing e-mail -- it took several queries and some persistence on my part to get this taken care of. Mail sent to me during this time went into a blackhole And now for the good: 1) My IM conversations with support folks (pre-sale and afterwards) were generally effective and enjoyable. 2) I did get pretty prompt responses to my support tickets even on the weekend. 3) As a Bloghosts refugee, I'm getting a stellar value for my money. I'll plan on checking back here in a few months and reporting on how things are going at that time.

Bill, I use Earthlink and have also had an awful time with them. Complete lack of reliability in mail delivery; sometimes their servers are spam-blacklisted, sometimes the servers simply choke on even 1 meg files, and so on. But since Earthlink blocks port 25 on my DSL connection, it doesn't seem possible to send mail via ****. Do you have any other suggestions?

InvisionBoard is notorious for having a flakey and poorly implemented e-mail notification system. I've tried respectfully prodding the team there and more vocally urging them to fix it, but despite my many protestations (and others' protestations), it remains broken even in 2.0. Here's the key issues: By default, if the system perceives you as active on the boards (e.g., visited ANY page on the forum in the last [x] minutes, where x is usually 15 or 20), then you will not receive an e-mail notification. For example: - Fred posts a note in an InvisionBoard forum. - He then browses other topics on that forum and during that time, someone posts a response to his query. - But he doesn't get a notification, because he's still 'active' on the board. The creators of IPB have argued with me that folks don't want to get innundated with e-mail notifications if they're active on the board. I replied that every other major forum system (vBulletin, phpBB, etc.) sends one reply on each topic replied to, regardless of the perceived status of the person's activity level, which is what people expect. So what did IPB do? They created a "compromise" whereby people using 2.0 can opt to receive an unlimited number of e-mail notifications when others reply to their topic. So if someone posts a reply in a topic and turns on notification in this context and 400 people reply while that guy is away at work, when he gets home, he'll have 400 e-mails in his inbox. This idiocy was the final straw for me (and exacerbated by IPB's reneging on an earlier promise to ALWAYS have unlimited-use free trial versions of their software). In advising a tech client recently, I convinced them to buy a vBulletin license, and they've been thrilled with the board. When I have a chance, I'll convert over my own site's board to either phpBB or vBulletin. I'd advise TCH to do the same with their board. IPB is a sinking ship.

Some advice (from experience) on setting up extra e-mail accounts not on one's main domain. I've found that [my-last-name]@earthlink.net gets a bunch of spam. But [my-first-name+random-word-or-two] has gotten zero spam for months. A lot of folks don't even realize that with most ISPs, you can configure 5, 6, or even more e-mail addresses on your account for free. Use 'em, discard 'em at will! Much of the spam folks get is from dictionary attacks, anyway, and setting up an e-mail address like AdamLindyHopFlop@earthlink.net (not a real address) is not likely to get hit.

Not to get a swelled head or anything, but I'm betting I was the one who let TCH know about the issue. Anyway, after quite a bit of research today, I've decided to throw my hat, er, sites into the ring here. And already I've been met with very helpful and friendly assistance from TCHGuruAndy and Mike Hermon. Definitely good signs. Plus, wow, I'm impressed with the pricing on the reseller accounts, especially with the free upgrade. Very cool! I will, admittedly, miss my shell access, and I think the name "bloghosts" is more warm-fuzzy than "totalchoicehosting" (sorry!) But I do believe that the pros nicely outweigh the disadvantages! Looking forward to a fresh start... especially not having to depend on just one well-meaning but beleaguered support fella.

Aw, bummer :-(. Are there are any plans to offer such servers in the near future, either as part of a package or for an extra fee?

Thanks! I appreciate the update.

I do have to respectfully note that the original poster's query was not strange by any stretch of the imagination. It'd be sort of like someone asking, "If I drive 60mph on your freeway, will I get pulled over?" The literalist says, "The speed limit is 55mph -- you're asking about an illegal practice!" The practical person, however, would respond, "Technically going over 55mph here is against the law. However, for all intents and purposes, no one is ever pulled over for going slightly over the speed limit as long as they are driving safely." Bootleg recordings fall under the same area. To my knowledge (and as a law student and musician I actually HAVE studied this), no one has been charged with owning or distributing "bootleg" recordings of live concerts from bands like, say, The Grateful Dead or Phish, both of which actually have encouraged such activities. Whether your hosting company wishes to be involved in a 'gray area' like this or not is certainly your perogative, but I did want to defend the original poster here and note that his/her request was hardly that extraordinary

Has this situation changed? Is mod_perl now available?

Has this changed? The reason why I ask is that I use a service called Fotki to store and serve my personal photos, and they allow for subdomain redirection.... in other words, I can have photos.mypersonalsite.com actually link to Fotki's server and serve up my photos with my own site's look and feel. An HTML redirect, however, will not do the trick. Thanks in advance for letting me know if true subdomain redirection is now available.

Boxturt, Your clips bring up an error message :-(

A note about keyword filtering... Even if you think your site is totally "innocent" (and it is!), the stupid filtering programs can block it because you had innocuous text like: "The mother held her infant to her breast" (oh no, BREAST!), or "All the kiddies went out to play" (kiddie is just one word short of kiddie p0rn) or even "The scientist was unable to determine the sex of the insect" (oh no, SEX! eeeeek!) I know, this may sound Goofy, but do a little reading on personal and business filters on the Interent, and you'll see example after example of stuff like this being filtered :-(

Hi there, Folks on the MovableType (blogging software) forum have been raving about your company, and I've been hating my current host (CIHost), so here I am A few (okay, maybe more than a few) questions 1) You mention that you support streaming media, but I wasn't able to note details. Do you have a RealServer or WindowsMedia server in house? And if so, what version? I do realize that it's possible to do http-streaming, but I like being able to create one multi-bandwidth clip and offer just one link to avoid extra hassle for me and my visitors 2) Do you own your data centers, or are you resellers for another firm? 3) I have my music compositions that I like streaming to my friends and site visitors. The bandwidth isn't high, but the clips take up some space. In one of their few generous gestures, CIHost offers me 3 gigs of space for $20/month. Do you offer or plan to offer any plans with more disk space? 4) Do you pre-filter incoming mail? This is my big beef with CIHost. I've had enormous troubles with receiving YahooGroups (requested, opt-in!) mail and even critical announcements from Google (!) because my host frustratingly filters much of this out as "spam"... without my consent. I'm really hoping you don't put any mandatory filters on incoming mail. I can filter my own mail, thankyouverymuch (and do, quite nicely with POPfile!) 5) Is it possible to customize your stats programs, or even run my own (licensed) one (Wusage)? Thanks so much in advance for the info! Edited because I belatedly RTFP (Read the Fabulous Posts) elsewhere in the forum.