Here’s how it went with this problem:

The server problem started about 4pm. The event log showed that the ethernet port was flipping on and off. Finally it went off. I rebooted, it worked, then went down again. rebooted – same thing – down again. Called my rep at GoDaddy but he was out. Not a big deal – I put in a support ticket, which is what my rep probably would have told me to do anyway.

Got back an automated response with this:

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“We’ve received your question. You can expect a response within 24 hours.

Your Incident ID is: 11237453

Or, talk with our highly trained, courteous support staff – they’re waiting to take your call. Whatever time it takes to assist you, that’s the time you’ll receive: 24/7 Sales & Support: (480) 505-8877 – 24/7 Billing Support: (480) 505-8855.”

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Of course in my ticket I explained what I found in the event log. About 6pm I received a response from Godaddy that said “Your support Request is Being Reviewed” and then:

“Due to its complex nature, your issue has been relayed to our Advanced Technical Support Team. Our most skilled technicians will be working to resolve your issue quickly and completely. You will be notified promptly upon resolution.”

Sound reasonable, it’s only been an hour and a half, I could live with this. I’m thinking another hour or so I’ll get the server back or at least someone will tell me what’s going on.

A few hours later, about 1am I think, I’ve heard nothing, and right on my support login page it says I’m a VIP. So I call that “highly trained, courteous support staff” number. Got a very nice person that did some checking and told me it was at that time being reviewed by one of the advanced techs. So I’m thinking that someone is actually looking at it now and it shouldn’t be much longer. Around 2:30am I haven’t heard anything so off to bed I go.

Well the idea that one of my main servers is down isn’t conducive to sleeping so at 6:30am I’m up and back checking on the server. Nothing. At 6:42am I get a notice from my checking service that the server is backup. I figure I’m here, I might as well get some work done. I notice it’s not working so good – at 7:34 am I get notice the server is down again.

Freaking wonderful. It’s 7:30, the majority of my customers on that machine are on their way to work – to find out their web site is down. Oh Boy, this will be an exciting morning.

At 8:58am it’s backup. And stayed up. Nothing from GoDaddy. Not a @#% thing.

At 11:12 am I get a notice from Bill H. telling me:

“I understand that your server has been inaccessible intermittently. Our data center has researched this issue and have replaced the chassis on your server. I have verified your server is now accessible and you are able to log into it.”

Are you kidding? I am, by their own admission a VIP customer and my server is down with no notice as to what was going on? Does this mean that the guy at 1am was bs’ing me ? Or that it’s “being reviewed” means that he sent them an email and they’ll get to it when they can?

They couldn’t have someone let me know what was going on when they found out what the problem was? Or that they wouldn’t even look at it till the morning anyway?

Big BS. It shouldn’t come as a surprise I guess. I’ve been with them quite awhile now and have notice that over the years their interface has become all about marketing and pushing services they can sell you rather than service they can give you. This sucks. A change is gonna come.