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Don’t Use AN Hosting

by Josh Kenzer on June 7th, 2007

That’s a pretty strong title for this post, but let me explain why I feel this way. Back in mid-December of 2006, I was shopping for a hosting provider for my blog, http://www.disneyfrontier.com. The site was hosted at godaddy.com on their very economical $3.99 a month plan. It had achieved some small success in terms of traffic and I was ready to upgrade to the next level of hosting (usually costing between $6 and $10 per month). Rather then stick with GoDaddy, who I use for this site and many others, I thought I would use this opportunity to explore other hosting providers.

Since the site is run on WordPress, I started at http://wordpress.org/hosting/. After reviewing and comparing the providers on this page, I decided on AN Hosting. For the price ($6.95) per month, it seemed like a good deal. Transferring and setup were flawless. I worked with their technical support on a few trouble tickets to get everything setup quickly and easily. The only bummer was they charged for a full year up front. I did notice that AN Hosting is actually MidPhase Hosting and all billing and trouble tickets were handled in the MidPhase name.

So, while homeless during my move to Phoenix, I was shocked to received the following email:

Subject: We had to suspend your account
From: support@midphase.com
Body:

Hello,

We had to suspend the account with disneyfrontier.com due to high CPU and RAM usage.
Currently the web site is using about 25.41% of RAM.
Our limits are 10% of each resource.

Unfortunately we can’t afford to host so large account on a shared server it affects other accounts.
I strongly recommend you to consider upgrade to a dedicated or VPS server or limit your downloads.

More information for a VPS or dedicated servers you can find on the
following pages:
http://midphase.com/html_files/hosting_plan_vps.php
http://midphase.com/html_files/hosting_plan_dedicated.php

Thank you

This email was sent on May 29th at 9:34AM. I can understand why they need to do this. Shared hosting isn’t for big popular sites. With the recent release of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, the blog was receiving almost twice as much traffic as it normally does. However, I had just installed a few plugins that I thought might be increasing the CPU load. I inactivated the plugins and sent the following reply:

I disabled some wordpress plugins that I think may have been CPU and RAM intensive. Can you please re-check my usage?

The response was:

Dear Josh,

Current CPU usage is 26.96%MEM
Your site is too heavy to be hosted on shared server, sorry.

Thank you

And boom, my site was shut off. This was at 11:18 AM. Less then 2 hours from the first email. No time to upgrade. No time to find a different hosting provider. Nothing. Due to their shut off, my traffic obviously went down to zero. I lost all my Google juice. And because I was in the middle of the move, I couldn’t get the site back up until June 4th. That was seven days of downtime.

So, I switched back to GoDaddy (on their $6.95 plan). The Disney blog is a hobby site for me and doesn’t make enough money to cover hosting. Their is no way I can afford to pay for dedicated hosting on it. I understand where AN Hosting is coming from, but they should have given me some time to make the necessary changes.

I am trying to get a refund for the 7 months of service they charged me for but didn’t fulfill. I am also working on transferring the domain name back to GoDaddy.

Hopefully, wordpress.org will remove AN Hosting as a recommended provider. They were awesome during setup, but I feel they didn’t give me any options the first time an issue arose. For many who read this blog and someday hope to get a site on digg.com, think what would happen if you were hosted on AN Hosting. You’d get dugg and then shut off.

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From Internet

  • That is friggin Bullshit! They should have given you fair warning.
  • DisneyFans.com offers hosting space at low rates to Disney-related sites with no restrictions on storage or bandwidth. they've hosted Sorcerer's Workshop.org for years.
  • Michael Lankton
    I was just about to go AN when I read this. I've also read bad things about ix.

    Any thoughts on Blue Host or InMotion? Those are the two I'm looking at now.
  • Michael Lankton
    Found this post on Bloggertalk:

    "Bluehost has a cap on CPU, this goes for all web hosting clients that our hosted with them. Any site that succeeds 20% of the CPU is placed on a suspended list until the usage returns to a normal level."

    Perhaps the experience you had with AN wasn't any different than what you would have encountered with any of their competitors. It would have been nice for them to send you an email
  • Michael,
    I haven't had the CPU usage experience with godaddy.com although I have noticed slow downs from time to time. I'm not familiar with too many other hosting providers like Bluehost or InMotion.
  • Just this past week AN did the same thing to me. Sent me an email saying they shut down my website because of a spam complaint! Turns out someone from Belgium hacked into my cpanel and added a subdomain.
    I had to track the IP down to prove it to AN hosting. Took four days to get my site up and running again and they chastized ME for giving away my password!!
    They refuse to believe that I don't let my laptop out of my house or that anyone could possibly breach their security.
    I plan to switch to Host Gator..hopefully I will get some of my money back from AN.
    Avoid them at all costs..this is my second account with them an am not impressed.
  • Stop being such a pussy. What do expect from hosting that costs less than 10 bucks/month?
  • anonymous coward
    @elprezidente: How about professional service? Some time to find a new host or upgrade to dedicated? A refund for unused hosting?
  • Marcin
    Cheers, mate! They have all this promotional stuff going on at the moment, I guess they want to lure you without thinking. They set up a deadline on 22/11/2007, that's 11/22/2007 for the U.S. guys :]. The deadline should apparently force you into thinking that if you shouldn't waste time for the research because you may be late. Late for crap, that is.
  • richard
    Granted there can be slow downs with any cpu when you host a lot of sites on one server. My server cpu would jump to 75% durring heavy traffic times. I had my own stuff and a few small business' but I would never justify just suspending an account without a chance for making an resolution with the owner of the site. I have heard of horror stories from many people and guess that is why I use my own server.
    It pays to ask lots of questions when looking for a host. not just cpu usage but how hard will they allow a database to get hit before suspending as well.
  • Tim
    I read a some good things about AN Hosting, so I signed up for an account last week under the promotion that Marcin mentions. They advertise their regular rate as $6.95/month, reduced to $4.95 a month for the promotion. However, they charged me $95.40 for a 1-year commitment - $7.95 a month! I saw this charge before I finalized the order and I talked to them - they said to go ahead and place the order and they would adjust it later. That was a week ago, and they won't answer my e-mails about this issue.

    They have recently changed the promotion. While they still advertise $4.95 (reduced from a regular $6.95), they will only give you that rate if you commit for 3 years. The $6.95 regular rate was for a 1-year commitment, but under the "special" if you only commit for 1-year you now pay $7.49...

    Additionally, they promise a $25 Google AdWords credit which they haven't delivered. And they promise free self-signed SSL certificates (which I need for testing my e-commerce app), but now they tell me no, if I want to use SSL I need to pay extra for a static IP.

    See the package description for yourself at http://www.anhosting.com/november/package.php - the sale has an "ending date", but every time it ends they put on a new sale with the same terms - that's been going on for a week now.

    I have put up a web site for testing, and I am satisfied with the performance. That's the best I can say. But I made one support request - to enable the PHP SOAP extensions (a standard part of PHP 5). Their answer was "no way". So my app won't run with their configuration.

    It's hard work finding a hosting company to meet all your needs, and very disappointing when you finally chose one that won't provide the advertised price and features.
  • I've been with AN since Christmas and have another issue I'd like everyone to know about. It would appear they7 have a rather ignorant anti-virus program and it blocks viewers (and me) if I log into the site to often within a specified period of time.

    I have an online garage sale going and with new pages being added daily I entered some code to a page that reflects recently added items. This code causes the viewers page to refresh once every 2 minutes so hey can see any updated postings I may have since they last logged in.

    I also kept this page open while designing and adding additional content. Well, after a few hours of work and updating (vieweing the page from my hard drive) I looked at this page from AN's server and I had been blocked, from my own website.

    When I contacted AN they explained that after 100 log-ins (or apparently page refreshes) their system automatically recognizes you as a potential threat and blocks you from viewing ANY pages from that particular site.

    They refused to undo this claiming it would be a hazard to their server. No telling how many customers have been permanently blocked from my site. Although, they did offer to remove from their "black list" any customers who's I.P. I could provide to them. Yeah, right!

    I had to immediately remove this code. However, I've still been blocked from my own site 4 times in the 3 months I've been with them.

    On a final note... I was with IPower for over 8 years prior to moving to AN Hosting. In all that time I never once received sam mail through my business site. Since moving to AN I've been swamped with spam. As many as 50 a day. I've also had emails arrive that originated from y own account which they say was not the case.

    Well, I can read email headers and although I've sent the complete header to AN they've refused to acknowledge it to be the case.

    STAY AWAY FROM AN HOSTING !!!
  • Kezins
    I wish I had found this page earlier.. they pulled just about the exact same stunt with me earlier today. Now my site is completely offline and they even locked me out of my files, so there's no way I can even grab my files to get another site up real quick.. They really do need to remove this host from the wordpress.org page, because that's the place I discovered the "deal".
  • Lazarus
    Thanks to all those who made a rather heavy claim about An Hosting. This firm is recommended by some internet marketers and many people are still using it. I have a horrible experience with a domain registration company. Well I do not mention name.

    BST RGDS
  • Jen
    I just moved my Wordpress blog and other family photo album site from AN hosting to Domainxi.com

    My problem with AN Hosting was that they didn't answered my single e-mail in last 15 days and suspended my account by posting a auto-email that my cpu limits exceed. No detail information and no explaination.

    So I thought to move my site.
  • Lazarus
    After reading some comments by others, I have noticed some things so I will post. Get ready for a shock.
    1. No all the so-called hosting company owe a server of its owen. There are many who are only a reseller group.
    2.Even pro mailing services companies owe their owe servers. You must check. If you can not, post is up so I will check. There are sites to do this work, but I am not allow to post it to make available for public.
  • Marc Bollinger
    Hey guys,

    I just wanted to chime in here with my position on this. We absolutely hate being forced to suspend an account, but sometimes we are left with little choice. Shared hosting is what it is, you're on a box with other people and we (as a host) have a responsibility to keep the service stable for everyone.

    I don't speak for all the web hosting companies out there, but I can assure you that *most* web hosts will suspend after a certain % is used. From our experience, most people who get suspended are either A) Too popular for shared hosting, or B) Have a large number of plugins and a non-optomized Wordpress Blog.

    We've made some real strides lately to try to alleviate the suspension procedure a bit. I wish I could do away with suspending completely, but it's just not possible in a shared hosting environment.

    If you had trouble with our service and needed to leave, I completely understand. We take feedback extremely seriously and will work to tweak this even more.

    Sorry for the trouble you guys had.. please holler at me if there is anything I can do.

    :)

    Marc Bollinger
    General Manager
    marcb@midphase.com
  • Josh Kenzer
    Marc,
    Thanks for chiming in. It's good to see you guys are listening and updating your suspension procedure. My biggest beef with it was level of communication. Something easily fixed on your side. Also, not being able to get a refund was incredibly frustrating.
  • Marc Bollinger
    Josh,

    No problem, again.. sorry for the trouble. Our new policy will issue you a pro-rated refund if you were suspended and ended up canceling. Just let me the details if that was the case for you. :)

    Marc
  • Perhaps they changed their policy in the last 30 days, because my experience with them only a couple months ago was terrible. As far as hosting goes, it's probably one of the worst I have ever dealt with. Fortunately, I went with GoDaddy.. pay less and receive great service.
  • Marc Bollinger
    Kezins,

    Seriously, I'm not here to pull a P.R. stunt, I honestly am trying to fix all of our problems.

    What sort of issues were you experiencing?

    Marc
  • Marc Bollinger
    Kezins,

    I read your earlier post about the issue you experienced, and I'm appalled to say the least. I'd really like to find out what happened here.. I assure you that our policy isn't to hold your files hostage or suspend you without cause.

    All web hosts have problems and without feedback like this, it's tough to tell where we're dropping the ball. If you were told you couldn't get access to your files, then I'm totally embarrassed and want to find out how this happened.

    Marc
  • Well i guess i can say I'm 1 happy customer. I find AN hosting to work for me because My site doesn't get that much traffic so it is perfect for shared hosting. And i can say An hosting and Midphase might suspend your account, but Blue Host Might completely DELETE your account for no reason. And BTW it is in AN hosting's TOS that they will suspend an account that uses to much web space. Go daddy I've also heard alot more Horror stories not only from Hosting but domains too. I guess it all depends on your luck
  • whoops before when i said webspace i meant CPU usage lol. And to add to An hosting, They have the best Customer Support I've ever come across.
  • got a very very bad experience with this company.
    they email me this

    Dear Customer,

    Due to the amount of CPU and/or memory resources used by your account, we were forced into suspending the account. Please understand that we only suspend an account as a last resort and want to help you track down the cause as quickly as possible.

    Shared servers (MegaPhase, Prophase, and ANHosting accounts) are only allotted 10% of the server's resources (CPU and Memory) at any given time. This restriction is put in place to keep balance on the server. The first step is to try to isolate what content on your website is causing the overage. If this seems unexpected, it could be a recent change to your site (such as installing a new wordpress plugin, mailing list application, etc). Any information you can provide about recent changes can help us to isolate the problem. However, we were able to retrieve the following files and/or scripts that likely caused the suspension:


    how can my site cause the rise in cpu usage when i only got max of 50 users in a singel given time.
    now they got my files/database in hostage.
  • We're not holding your files/database hostage, it would be stupid for us to do that.

    I saw your ticket come through. You were using nearly 25% of the overall CPU of our shared hosting server, that's just too much. We were receiving numerous complaints from other users on that box.

    Marc
  • Corey
    I've been on the other end of over-stressed servers & I can honestly say that I appreciate MidPhase's willingness to stop accounts from slowing servers to a crawl. Obviously, notification to the offenders would be advised, but when my site is almost non-functional - I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone that is maxing out the resources.
    I do wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea for MidPhase to use an overflow server that they could transfer the offending accounts to so that they can resolve their issues without all of the hard feelings.
    Having read this thread, I'm not going to install WordPress - which I was just about to do. It sounds like it is all to easy to push a server past its limits via plugins.
  • Edward
    I have been using AN Hosting for several sites and for some time now, and have not had anything but a rapid and personalised response to all my requests. Compared to previous hosts this has been a welcome surprise. Frankly, if you require the cpu load or traffic then you need to go for a server plan that can deal with it, its that simple.
  • Chris
    Fast forward to the fall of '08–

    Much like you Josh, I saw AN listed on WorPress's recommended hosts list (which AN is no longer on). I started a small blog for my employer with AN, beginning with a shared server. From the very first day, server outages and fellow shared accounts brought my site down on a weekly basis. A month later, I decided to try a VPS with AN (actually MidPhase) and see if things improved. No, they got worse. My site crashed weekly with only a few thousand hits, database errors, data loss, server outages, you name it. Since I paid for a year's service in advance, I started asking the billing department about cancellation and a refund for the unused months of service. After over a month, and numerous calls and emails to management, I finally coerced a billing rep to confirm that they would reimburse my unused payment, and canceled my service. Though I haven't gotten my refund yet, I'm happily blogging away with DreamHost. They're awesome. I wish I'd gone with them to begin with.

    I urge everyone not to make the boneheaded mistakes I did. MidPhase is a horrible company, with horrible servers, horrible tech support. They're one of the most absolute worst hosting services you could go with.
  • emily
    I'm glad I read this, I was actullay going to use AN Hosting, because I want my own website. I've been searching around like crazy, and found them thinking it'd work fine, but now I doubt it because I want a website with a blog attached. Any ideas on good sites? I'd want to add my own web layout also.
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