Nildram "upgrade" freezes sites for 10 days

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 7 Feb 2008 at 10:00

Nildram customers have been unable to update their websites for as long as 10 days following an "upgrade" of the company's servers.

PC Pro reader, Ian Evans, says his website was effectively crippled for over a week, whilst the company upgraded its shared Windows servers.

Evans first noticed he couldn't FTP his website on 24 January. "I run a sales wesbite," Evans claims. "I was selling stuff I didn't have any more, and wasn't able to sell stock that I had."

He claims he was given "no warning whatsoever" of the server upgrade and that when he rang Nildram's customer support desk to complain, he was told "he wasn't the only person with the problem."

Evans says the helpdesk was particularly unhelpful. "They said 'we're dealing with all of these calls on an individual basis'. I said 'where am I in the queue?' and they said 'we can't tell you'."

The hapless site owner was told to monitor the company's support site for updates. He was eventually able to update his website on 6 February - a full eight days after the last support update on the Nildram site. "It's an absolute shambles from my point of view," Evans says.

A spokesperson for Nildram says the web host is addressing the problems. "We have been working with our supplier to upgrade and move the web hosting and VISP platforms to a new fully managed hosting facility," he says.

"Over 3,500 sites have migrated successfully and without issue and we are currently working with customers directly on 10 sites that we know still have issues varying from FTP access to PHP scripting problems.

"This has been escalated with our supplier and we are aiming to have all services back up and running within 48 hours. We assure you that no effort is being spared to rectify any remaining problems and we will continue to provide updates to our customers directly. We apologise for any of our customers affected."