Easy Application Install (Gallery2) on IXWebhosting

Web hosting company IXwebhosting offer a number of one-click GPL applications that their hosting customers can implement on their websites.

I recently attempted to install Gallery2 using this facility. I had previously installed Gallery2 on my Startlogic web hosting account through its standard installation script.

Unfortunately my experience installing Gallery2 on IXwebhosting was not perfect. I ran into problems relating to file uploads. I had two distinct problems:

- Photos over 2 Megabytes in size were rejected with an "Upload Failed" error message

- File uploads would fail with the following error:

"filename.ext: You may need to set LimitRequestBody 16777216 and memory_limit=64M in /etc/php.ini and /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf on your Gallery server java.net.SocketException: Connection reset"

How I resolved this issue

The 2 megabyte file restriction appears to be a default setting from ixwebhosting which effectively blocks any web-based application from uploading files greater then 2 megabytes in size. (This wont affect you using FTP to upload content to your own site)

In the cgi-bin folder I created a new php.ini configuration file. In this file I added the following text string:

upload_max_filesize = 2048M

The other file upload problem was easily remedied by following the instructions within the error message. I followed the instructions relating to the php.ini file and the issue appears resolved. I added the following two lines to the php.ini file:

LimitRequestBody 16777216 memory_limit=64MB

It is a bit disappointing that this "easy application" required a bit of fiddling with in order to get in to operation under this hosting environment.

When installing on Startlogic the only extra configuration required was actually documented in the installation check of the Gallery2 installer itself.

Database Problems

NZTechie.com has been down for some hours today, reporting a ghastly looking error message when attempting to load the main page.

After some looking through the database I found that one of the tables was corrupt. I performed a repair within PHPMyAdmin which appears to have resolved the issue for now. The Startlogic repair facility within the Vdeck did not resolve the fault.

I am still experiencing a problem whereby my homepage is loading at an extremely slow rate. [Update: 28 Feb - Caching appears to have not been enabled for my feeds - Issue resolved]

Also the Startlogic Vdeck database backup facility is reporting errors stating you do not have permission to back up OR it provides invalid backups with no content in them.

Startlogic: The Outage Saga Continues

I have been a Startlogic customer since 2004 and have generally found the overall service to be somewhat satisfactory, unless you have an issue that requires the attendance of the Startlogic support desk. On the Startlogic homepage they claim to be 'trusted by over 100,000 customers'.

This report is intended to act as a record of the recent 32 hour outage that one of Startlogic's shared hosting servers (named st03) suffered, and the subsequent outages which took place after it was initially restored to service.

MY EXPERIENCE

Prior to 3:00pm (New Zealand Standard Time) the Startlogic shared web server st03.startlogic.com suffered a complete outage. All websites hosted on st03.startlogic.com were inaccessible during the this period.

Despite multiple chat sessions with the Startlogic helpdesk, the server was not operational for a total of 32 hours. I spoke with numerous technicians over this time period and they gave assurances that my website would be restored in certain time frames, with the most common being; soon, a few minutes, 2 hours and 6 hours respectively. Additionally, during one chat session the helpdesk person advised me of two hours and then later changed her mind to 6 hours for restoration (Melanie Evans).

After my website was restored (32 hours later) I found that Startlogic had reset all the directory permissions for my website to more restrictive settings. I queried this with the helpdesk analyst (Ivan Davis) who then told me to go in and fix them myself. I did this but am quite annoyed with the attitude in relation to something they caused. When speaking with him he terminated the connection as soon as I advised him that I could connect to my website. This is quite unprofessional.

Subsequently, my website experienced several additional outages to a lesser degree of varying timeframes since the initial recovery.

When I asked more details about the exact cause of the server outages, either the helpdesk staff were unwilling or unable to provide this information. I would not expect them to know the cause of the fault as soon as it occurred, so I did ask them well down the track while the server was undergoing the apparent 'recovery' process. If the server was being recovered then surely their engineers should have information on the root cause by then.

Information that I was able to glean from the helpdesk staff includes the fact that st03.startlogic.com hosts websites for approximately 500 customers and that the root cause may have been server overloading (Ivan Davis). Another Helpdesk Analyst (Christopher Kiplin) suggested to me that the outage could in fact be related to server maintenance being performed at the time. I received no prior notification of any server maintenance of any kind.

Of the five or so Analysts I chatted with I did seem to make the most progress when dealing with Ivan Davis. To his credit when I asked for compensation he forwarded my request and compensation was provided (An email from the Billing department advised me I was to be compensated).

In relation to the smaller subsequent outages he advised me that my website would be up within a few minutes. He was true to his word and my website did respond. I kept him entertained with random questions so I could keep him online to give it a few moments for the site to be recovered.

During my period as a customer since 2004 I have only experienced two major sets of website outages (this one inclusive), but I have always found that the recovery process is painfully slow.

Startlogic hosting packages are dirt cheap and perhaps you might think that you get what you pay for. When I signed-up to Startlogic the site advertised an uptime guarantee of 99.9%. With the events of late, Startlogic is no longer providing this uptime promise to me. I have also noticed that they no longer display any uptime percentage guarantees on their website.

OTHER PROBLEMS I HAVE EXPERIENCED

Listed below are other problems which I have experienced since 2004 with Startlogic:

• The premature closure of support tickets, with no response from the helpdesk

• Removing Anonymous FTP access. I can no longer host files via FTP for users unless credentials are created for them.

• Main account to connect to my site via FTP was disabled for no apparent reason. I had to log into my vDeck and create a new user.

• Lots of problems with the vDeck control panel and items refusing to load, or the entire control panel becoming inaccessible.

• Inability of the Startlogic Helpdesk to create a CNAME subdomain record correctly. They fail to put a full stop/period after the name of the server I am pointing the CNAME to. This is despite me advising them to use a full stop. This functionality is available in the vDeck Control panel, but only when it's working!

• Extensive delays in having my hard disk space increased. They would increase storage space for me and I would find the next day that it had reverted to the previous size.

• Failure of email services from time to time

• Inability for the Startlogic helpdesk to email me at my New Zealand ISP (Orcon) email address. Nothing ever comes through that they send to that address, whether it be from a person or any automated notification system they have configured. They can email me at my @nztechie.com address.

In my list of complaints I have stated that I am unable to receive email from Startlogic to my normal email address. When you create a support request ticket you are able to log into the members area of the Startlogic website and check on them though this portal.

THE NEW PLATFORM

For quite some time now Startlogic has been migrating customers to what they call their 'new platform'. This new platform is promised to improve the reliability and responsiveness of websites and provide better data security with improved backup.

Below is a snippet of part of my chat session with the Startlogic helpdesk where they promise no problems once I am migrated to the new platform.

Ivan Davis: Hayden, the issue is resulted due to the load on the server. Once you are upgraded to the new platform, you will not experience any issues.
Hayden Tennent: Do you guarantee that?
Ivan Davis: Yes, Hayden.

RELATED ARTICLES

32 Hour Startlogic Outage

Startlogic compensates me for the Outage!

Startlogic Outage for st03.startlogic.com

My Photo Gallery is Reborn!

After the recent problems with my photo gallery due to Startlogic disabling allow_url_fopen functionality, I decided to bite the bullet and have installed Gallery version 2.2. This version does not suffer the same limitations as version 1.5 which I had installed.

Installation was a breeze, with some fantastic instructions provided for full installation. After installation, I successfully imported all of my version 1.5 photo albums into 2.2. This worked well, however it did fail at one stage, which I resolved by individually uploading each album separately.

The main interface looks a lot cleaner. The only initial thing that bothered me was not being able to work out how to upload pictures in bulk! By default, the installation only provided uploading via web browser. This was quickly remedied after I located the plugins facility. A few moments of one-click installation, and the Java Applet I was so fond of in the past was back. I was also pleasantly surprised by the fact that there are now more options for uploading, ranging from WebDAV, Windows XP Publishing etc available.

One good new option was the fact if there are no publicly available albums, a user is prompted to log in with credentials. Previous versions of Gallery presented users with a page with no albums on it, confusing many of them.

I also like the fact that albums now display the total number of photos within them, even when they are within a nested sub-album! Everything is looking good so far!

My Online Photo Gallery is mangled

Important Security Notice about PHP Scripts

If your site employs PHP scripts, please note that we have disabled the allow_url_fopen functionality in php.ini files at a platform level for security reasons. More information about the security issues associated with allow_url_fopen is available on the PHP Security Consortium Web site.

If you experience PHP issues as a result, and your account is hosted on our new platform, you can enable allow_url_fopen for your php.ini file by using our php.ini editor. If your account has not yet been moved to the new platform, you will need to update your code. Learn more >>

http://www.startlogic.com/info/systemnotice.bml?id=5808