[Dom]

Hi all,

Over the last week I've noticed that a few things aren't quite as they should be with my web hosting account.

Firstly, I tried to set up a new email inbox last night but got an error message. I cant remember the error message off the top of my head (I should have taken a screenshot really) but I think it said something like "error 503".

I've also noticed that my H-Sphere control panel has changed slightly. Some of the icons are different, and I could swear that there aren't as many options as there used to be. Perhaps this is due to an upgrade to the H-Sphere software or something, but I noticed that some sections of the main menu seemed to be repeated, such as the account info section. I had the same logos and menu options repeated twice on the control panel.

Lastly, my PHP scripts don't seem to work any more. I've not changed them in any way, but they just dont seem to run when I load a webpage that calls them. They use the Sablotron processor to process XML with XSLT, which is quite a specific thing to do really. If you've changed the version of PHP installed, or changed which XSLT processor the PHP installation uses, then that may be why my pages don't work.

If there are no current changes being made, do you have any idea why my bits and pieces don't work?

If there are changes being made, and these changes are causing the issues and they'll be resolved shortly, then that's cool. But I'd like to ask that we at least get emailed notifying us of the changes that are going to be made. Also, I know that there are mailing lists that we can sign up to, and I have done recently, but there was no word on any upgrades or maintenance on Golf, which is where my account is hosted.

I think that if maintenance is being carried out, everyone should receive an email in their 'postmaster' email address (which I never have) stating exactly what will be done, because if upgrades have been going on and they've caused my problems, then I'd like to have known about them beforehand incase they affect my websites.

Thanks in advance,

- Dom

[Kieran]

The e-mail issue sounds quite specific; if the problem persists then you should raise a ticket and ask support to investigate. A 503 error is "Service Unavailable" which is rarely returned if something is working properly.

Upgrades to control panels are common and are not supposed to result in downtime so these are not normally advertised. Such upgrades are usually behind the scenes and are run in order to update various facets of the panel for security reasons. If you feel that your control panel is not behaving correctly, due to a possible upgrade or otherwise, you should raise a ticket with support citing all the issues you are having so they can investigate into your account specifically.

Your PHP problems are likely to be due to a move from PHP4 to PHP5 for all H-Sphere customers. There was an announcement made on the Xilo blog about this. If you wish to be notified of such things then you can subscribe to the appropriate category on the blog.

Background to the PHP change can be read in the blog article on Xilo about PHP4 EOL (end of life)

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Dom

Firstly, I tried to set up a new email inbox last night but got an error message. I cant remember the error message off the top of my head (I should have taken a screenshot really) but I think it said something like "error 503".

Can you regenerate the error?

I've also noticed that my H-Sphere control panel has changed slightly. Some of the icons are different, and I could swear that there aren't as many options as there used to be. Perhaps this is due to an upgrade to the H-Sphere software or something, but I noticed that some sections of the main menu seemed to be repeated, such as the account info section. I had the same logos and menu options repeated twice on the control panel.

Is this still the case?

Lastly, my PHP scripts don't seem to work any more. I've not changed them in any way, but they just dont seem to run when I load a webpage that calls them. They use the Sablotron processor to process XML with XSLT, which is quite a specific thing to do really. If you've changed the version of PHP installed, or changed which XSLT processor the PHP installation uses, then that may be why my pages don't work.

The PHP upgrade was using stock PHP that SwSoft/Psoft provide (as they did with PHP4). I don't suspect they changed or removed any specific modules - just updated the version.

In what way do they not work - do you have any log output?

If there are changes being made, and these changes are causing the issues and they'll be resolved shortly, then that's cool. But I'd like to ask that we at least get emailed notifying us of the changes that are going to be made. Also, I know that there are mailing lists that we can sign up to, and I have done recently, but there was no word on any upgrades or maintenance on Golf, which is where my account is hosted.

I think that if maintenance is being carried out, everyone should receive an email in their 'postmaster' email address (which I never have) stating exactly what will be done, because if upgrades have been going on and they've caused my problems, then I'd like to have known about them beforehand incase they affect my websites.

Information at the time, was posted to our blog. We have also since added internal mailing lists with all ACTIVE packages to certain lists. Information will be cross posted via email to those lists. This is sent to the email on the account at the time of the email. The list is updated 24 times a day so if you change the email on the account it will update within an hour. There is no way to set an alternate address at this time.

Matt

[Dom]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies.

I'll have to wait until after 5pm before I can regenerate the errors I was getting with my email set-up, because I can't access my control panel at work (this is a work thing, not an issue with you guys!)

I'll also have to wait until I'm home from work to check that my control panel options are still screwy.

As I mentioned, I have already signed up to the mailing lists, and although I received three or so emails, I didn't notice anything related to the H-Sphere control panel. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention though.

As for my PHP problems, if you upgraded to PHP 5 from PHP 4 then I think that is what has caused issues with my pages. I don't have any logs as such, but the pages basically render some HTML after processing some XML, but the functions used to do this are probably depreciated in PHP 5, and so will no longer work. Although I'll have to look into that.

I appreciate all the work that goes into keeping everyone up to date and secure, I just think that everyone who has an account with you should be emailed automatically if you're conducting any changes, rather than making people specifically sign up to newsletters or subscribe to blogs to find out this information. Having blog entries and newletters might sound fancy, but I think it should be a bit simpler to get the information. I personally just forward all emails to one account that I check daily, so if I was emailed to my default 'postmaster' account, I'd get those messages forwarded on to another account I actually read.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting too whiney in my old age.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Dom

As for my PHP problems, if you upgraded to PHP 5 from PHP 4 then I think that is what has caused issues with my pages. I don't have any logs as such, but the pages basically render some HTML after processing some XML, but the functions used to do this are probably depreciated in PHP 5, and so will no longer work. Although I'll have to look into that.

OK. Let me know. I'd personally recommend that you move your account(s) to cPanel. We're going to be contacting everyone on H-Sphere in the coming weeks to move over to cPanel. One of the reasons is because of the instability of the latest releases of H-Sphere and the lack of support from the vendor since the take over by Swsoft.

I appreciate all the work that goes into keeping everyone up to date and secure, I just think that everyone who has an account with you should be emailed automatically if you're conducting any changes, rather than making people specifically sign up to newsletters or subscribe to blogs to find out this information. Having blog entries and newletters might sound fancy, but I think it should be a bit simpler to get the information. I personally just forward all emails to one account that I check daily, so if I was emailed to my default 'postmaster' account, I'd get those messages forwarded on to another account I actually read.

I agree which is why our new mail system is now in place. This is over and above what the blog does and is sent to all customers that have active packages on their product type. e.g. shared customers who have active packages will get emails for shared customers and so on.

Matt

[Dom]

Hi,

I've attached two screenshots to this post. One is of the error message that I get when trying to create an email, and the other is of the menu items I get in my main H-Sphere control panel.

I've yet to look into the PHP issue yet though. I need my dinner.

[Matt]

Dom,

Raised to Swsoft.

(I'd still personally recommend shifting over to cPanel).

Matt

[Dom]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for letting them know.

I do want to move over to cPanel for sure, but right now I dont have the time to backup my websites and databases to make sure I can restore them. I'm not sure how much work is involved...



EDIT: About the PHP thing - PHP: xslt_process - Manual

Looks like the function I was using is depreciated in PHP 5.

[decaydence]

Hi all
I get the same problem of icons with my H-sphere panel, would love to move to c-panel, just waiting for the nod from xilo to make the jump :-)

[black_angel]

Hi.

Just tried to access the H-sphere control panel (on golf) and I can't get into it. Also while I did spot the mail that we were moving to php5, something changed on this server. It no longer seems to pick up all the .htaccess options it used to. At least all the php value settings are ignored but it also seems to ignore AddDefaultCharacterSet, causing the pages to default to utf8 and pound signs to get all screwed up.

Do we have some sort of time scale for when everyone will be asked to move to cpanel? Should we all just wait a bit for that?

Sorry for hijacking this thread a bit.