Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing
Error 500 – Internal server error
An internal server error has occured!
Please try again later.
The connection has timed out
The server at potpolitics.com is taking too long to respond.
* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.
* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network
connection.
* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
Status: Connection attempt failed with “ETIMEDOUT – Connection attempt timed out”.
Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Resolving address of potpolitics.com
Status: Connecting to 74.208.84.24:21…
141665383<<<< reference # for their server being crashed LOL 
I guess it’s a compliment to get to the point where you really have to think about moving your blog to another host.
I have been using 1and1 since I bought my domain and overall it’s has been a profitable and great deal.
I also haven’t had to call them in along time and try to avoid doing so because their customer service went from a 10 to a 2.
As I wait on hold for way to LONG I’m thinking that a person that works in Tech support should understand BASIC server and php memory fixes. The reason I’m on hold is they are clueless.
Well now that I’m on hold to the Philippines what did I really expect. Ouch 
What they have to do basically is reset your domain which takes about 30 minutes for the cache and site to reset so you can get back into your blog. So I have no one to blame but myself because I wrote a few post and shot them around the world and one thing 1and1 can’t handle is traffic. Now their big sales pitch is unlimited traffic and bandwidth with all accounts. So they want to serve more people with less product.
Basically all the engineers have to do it’s update the site to php5 and allot more memory. I mean damn you want to advertise unlimited bandwidth and space and you can’t keep POTPOLITICS afloat LOL The first girl wrongly told me it was my .htaccess FAIL I knew when I couldn’t FTP it was their server
I just had to call back and this time the girl knew what a ping was and she was helpful and said basically You blew up the server and we are monitoring your site,we may have to move it and that can take up to 24 hrs So I said that doesn’t look to professional me running
a big ass 1and1 banner on my site and my site is down via 1and1 can I get a witness HOLLA
Well it has been a while so who can really bitch I make alot of money on commissions and they send it right to the BANK.
Plus who wants to pay hundreds of dollars a month for some server I don’t so please STOP STUMBLING ME AND PLEASE don’t ever digg this site LOL just kidding obviously.
I knew when I couldn’t FTP to the domain I blew that shit up and I have my blogging friends to thank for that
Also the site was down for an hour you know sometimes you have to roll with the punches
and look at the positive Now I probably won’t have another problem for a year So I wanted to tell you a few fixes if your blog is down because of YOURSIDE. First thing to do is ftp to your domain and rename your plugins folder. Many of the php errors happen from a drain on resources from plugins. You can then backtrack and get in your blog and deactivate the offending plugin.
I always have a FULL back up of all my sites on my hard drive so I just rewrite a .htaccess file if necessary but one thing I learned is RENAME it FIRST this way if the one you shoot up doesn’t work you can rename your way back, SIMPLE advice but it may save you from panicking one day if your Blog blows UP
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FAIL LOL
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That’s a good reminder to backup my sites too. Congrats on pushing the traffic like that! It doesn’t surprise me with all of the new articles you have on here everyday!
~ Kristi
There must be a real cost reason companies use Philippines tech support because it sure is not done from a quality support angle. I recently had to deal with Charter support which is in the Philippines. The first line support agent had absolutely no knowledge about anything and seemed to be reading her responses from a script. I think she typed in key words from my description of the problem and then her computer suggested possible solutions. What she was reading me often had nothing to do with what I was saying. Then I tried the tact of asking for a 2nd level tech support person. She said they had only one level. I then asked for a supervisor and got someone who spoke pretty much no English. Finally, in frustration, I made an appointment for a local repair person to come to the house, waiting 3 days without internet access. He easily fixed the issue and explained the weird coincidence of things causing it. He also could not believe that the phone support could not diagnose the issue. Phone support these days can be very frustrating.
Hmm, I’m actually only backing up my database at the moment (daily) – plus whatever backup the webhost might have, but I don’t think they care to help if I screw something up myself, they will probably only restore if the server crashes or they are to be blamed.
It’s pretty cool though that you have so much traffic that you crashed your webserver
Thanks John! I’ll look into a Twitter button and post back here so you can be the first to use it on my site. I have noticed that the Digg and Stumble buttons do not get used much anymore. Some of my posts used to get quite a few people clicking on those buttons and that brought in some new readers. As you can see from my most recent posts, the Digg and Stumble buttons are lonely these days. I wonder if the two sites themselves are being used less?
Anyway I do have a twitter account that I don’t use as much as I should. I’ll look for instructions on installing a Twitter button. Thanks for the suggestion!
@Will: http://help.tweetmeme.com/2009/04/06/tweetmeme-button/ you can use the script and just add it to your single.php
I ALWAYS make a copy of the file FIRST I cut and paste an email copy to MYSELF then
I make changes. and I always keep a FULL copy of my site on my HD so I can reup any files that get corrupted
I learned the hard way LOL
Thanks John! lol! Yes I learned the hard way a long time ago too. Now I have a system that prevents anything like that from ever happening.
I put the script code in the single file. It is not perfectly placed but will do for now. I am revamping the site with a new theme and custom files that will allow me to never have to hack the core files or the php files again. Then updating will be so much easier.
If you have a second could you try out the Tweet button to make sure it works as you think it should? Thanks!
We can’t just simply generalize that outsourced customer service in the Philippines is bad. India and China have larger outsourced US clients than the Philippines. India alone had the most high-end technical base clients dealing with computers and telecom. It’s just unfortunate that the issue wasn’t resolved right away and @Will had a pretty unlikely experience with customer service.
We all share the same sentiments and at some point, we can’t just point fingers to anyone. We must also do our part and cooperate. My blog is hosted in the US and the support is not outsourced in the Philippines but sometimes I find myself helpless, the chat service alone does not suffice whenever there are issues with uptime and connection errors.
None in the world of customer service will be ever perfect but it can be better unless companies outsourcing their businesses would focus on talent retention to prevent the skyrocketing attrition rates in the BPO industries.
This reminds me of the horrible 30 tickets I exchanged with my previous hosting, Lunarpages. I moved to HostGator since then and pfftt, no more problems
I agree; that much traffic is a good problem to have. By making more money, you can afford more server.
As for customer service, a good experience is almost unexpected nowadays. It’s just a sign of the times.
I learned the backup lesson a long time ago, still not the king at it but at least it gets backed up.
I had a real problem some time ago when I dunno what the hell I did and my whole wordpress installation was correupted. I tried uploading some wp core files i thought were bad and end up messing it all more. :S
I had backups only once a week at that time so I nearly lost about 1 week of the blog. From this time I set my backup to hourly.. Better using the server resource than getting pwn at the last time.
As for the server capacity, I am hosting at Doreo.com since May 2009 and till now I am very happy with their support and quick response whenever there is a problem. Yesterday I tried to get to another limit of my blog and succeed to reach the 9000 visits in one day
I was only fearing if my account will not be down lol…but all went fine.. so backups and a good host is the key to keep it all alive 