Whisky Forum - Website Problems Web Hosting Company Recommendations Wanted

William · Last edited by William on Tue May 19, 2020 1:02 pm; edited 3 times in total

Hi All,

As you may have noticed I have been experiencing problems with the site and forum recently so my apologies for the site being inaccessible.

The idiots at the company I use for hosting the site went ahead with a migration to a new server for the site which had been pre-scheduled and it hasn't went well and the site keeps going down and I due to covid 19 they are lacking in knowledgeable staff to sort what they have done wrong.

If anyone has any recommendations of trustworthy reliable web hosting services let me know, I would appreciate it.

Cheers

William
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

BigShing · Master Of Malts Joined: 21 Feb 2019 Posts: 281

I can't think of one off the top of my head, but an online friend of mine runs a popular forum so I've sent him a message to see if he has any advice.

BigShing · Master Of Malts Joined: 21 Feb 2019 Posts: 281

My friend recommends Stablepoint, he says they'e fantastic. The site and forum he runs is a fair bit bigger than this place (80,000 members) and I assume he's using them, so they should be more than capable of meeting Scotch Malt Whisky's needs.

William · Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 5:13 pm Post subject:

Thanks BigShing, I will have a look at them.
_________________
There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

Quaich1 · Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 9:04 pm Post subject:

Hi William. I had a look at the Stablepoint web hosting site Big Shing suggested. It looks pretty good to me and the reviews are excellent even by some independent assessments. Original founders of global hosting brands Tsohost, Vidahost and SpeedyDot, the Stablepoint team came together in late 2018 to create the new hosting company. I like the prompt technical support they offer. Worth looking into I think. Cheers.
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"Always carry a large flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."
W.C. Fields (1880-1946)

William · Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 10:38 pm Post subject:

I had a look at it Murray, the reviews do look good, I have a couple of others to compare it to and will probably give them a call.
_________________
There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

GM70047 · Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 9:22 am Post subject:

@William... something mobile friendly would be good :-D

lowlander · Double Malt Member Joined: 19 Jul 2019 Posts: 83

Hi William,

I hope you don't mind me asking a site related question, will you be upgrading the forum software to something more mobile friendly at the same time?

Hopefully your new hosting provider will be able to provide default https level for secure logins.

William · Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 10:31 am Post subject:

I am still monitoring things for the moment with my current hosting company, they seem to have got themselves into gear and I haven't had any problems in 24 hours now but as I said I am still monitoring it.

I am well aware of the design issues but hosting and design are two different things, design changes are being planned but it is an enormous task as the site is thousands of pages which have been individually hand coded and will take some time to transfer to a new design, as well as updating all the pages and adding more which I have written the content for already, like a good whisky it will take time.
_________________
There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

lowlander · Double Malt Member Joined: 19 Jul 2019 Posts: 83

Good to hear William. Smile

William · Posted: Mon May 18, 2020 3:58 pm Post subject:

Due to ongoing problems with the hosting company I use for the site I have decided to move the site to a new server, hopefully all goes smoothly. I have now pointed the domain name scotchmaltwhisky.co.uk at the new server and it can take anything up to 48 hours for this change to propagate around the internet, during this period you may see a feed from the old server or new server, I have no control over this but I will transfer posts from the old server that are posted during the change over, hopefully none are lost in the changeover.

On a side note I am going to serve the site via a secure connection from the new server and have a couple of problems beyond my limited knowledge, if there are any web design experts amongst you with knowledge of html, php, mod rewrite and .htaccess and you don't mind me picking your brains drop me a line.

Cheers, William
_________________
There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

John · Moderator Joined: 21 Apr 2006 Posts: 876 Location: UK

William I am seeing the site on a secure https connection now, no problems from what I can see so far.

Bookie · Master Of Malts Joined: 15 Sep 2008 Posts: 939

The site has been coming and going for me this morning, all pages showing with a wee padlock in my browser that it is secure, I cant see any problems.