Web server and mail service outage as at 21.5.2024
Deutsche Version: Ausfall Webserver und Mail-Service Stand 21.5.2024
Version française: Panne du serveur web et du service de messagerie Situation au 21.5.2024
Versione italiana: Interruzione del server web e del servizio di posta elettronica a partire dal 21 maggio 2024
English version: Web server and mail service outage as at 21.5.2024
Web server and mail service outage as at 21.5.2024
The odyssey with METANET has come to an end. We have now moved the uska.ch website to a new provider. This was a complicated undertaking, because the old provider METANET really never missed a chance to prove that it no longer had its situation under control. After we received a general block on our entire subscription for no plausible reason on Whit Sunday, we had to take the step of moving immediately after all. We actually wanted to do this calmly, but the total lockdown left us with no other option. Of course, this was always done in close consultation with the Board of Directors and the GPK.
See: https://support.metanet.ch/statusMessage-499.html
As we no longer even had access to our data and the support team was not impressed by deadlines, we first had to carry out a trial migration based on the last complete backup, which we download daily, before finally carrying out the final migration. As we work with our private upload rates, this takes a few hours with 16 GB of compressed data. As soon as this was done, even the domain transfer was tedious and slow (“within one working day” we received the transfer codes). Finally, we managed to make the website available again this afternoon, May 21, around 6 pm.
The next steps are as follows:
Access to the email inboxes is currently available somehow. These are still running at METANET. As long as they are running, we’ll come up with a clever strategy. However, it may well be that we have to make a hard cut and the contents of the mailboxes will expire. A migration of the mailboxes is hardly conceivable for us given the state of the provider METANET.
The log server will also have to be migrated. However, this should not be a problem as soon as we can download the data. Here we have relied on METANET’s backup procedure.
Still on METANET
As a web editor, I have no intention of disparaging a service provider. However, since the beginning of the year, we have had to put up with a lot of tedious support emails, some of which were even outrageously worded. It was difficult to work constructively with this provider. However, since the blocking on Saturday/Sunday, the ignorant and brazen approach of METANET support, and METANET’s complete incompetence in getting their own servers under control, they have lost all goodwill with me. They even blocked us again today, even though the domain had already been moved and the web hosting was deactivated. In my opinion, this company is totally overwhelmed by the situation at the moment. What a shame for this former Swiss company.
On behalf of the USKA, I would also like to thank the many offers of help, which I do not want to name here now, so that these people are not overwhelmed with requests 😉 Furthermore, of course, the webmaster HB9FEE and the board for their work over Pentecost.
Ralf Doerendahl
USKA web editor
