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I can't believe this. I have setup 1and1 exchange hosting and all I want to do is point my MX to them. Ok no problem... BUT for some stupid reason I can't have 5 nameservers on my domain! I called their Indian tech support and they are clueless "Sir you must contact the registrar and have the domain point to us" "No I just want to point my MX to you... and I already did and its working fine I just keep on getting these mails saying my domain is going to be deleted" "Sir you must contact the registrat and have the domain point to us"
Well I called their "Dedicated server support" and finally begged someone to listen to me (they pull the "this is dedicated server support, I need to transfer you"). Well when he finally looked at my domain he said that's the way their system works and unless I remove the 5th DNS server from my domain it would be deleted from their system.
TOTAL BS! 1and1 = utter crap.1&1 UK/Euro or US ?TOTAL BS! 1and1 = utter crap.Totally true. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. I would NEVER trust 1and1 with any of my hosting needs, especially exchange.1and1 USA.Oh and btw exchange has been down the ENTIRE day! They said it would be up by 2pm ET and that it "only affects webmail"... It's 7PM ET right now and they have no update and no ETA.Well guess what? This affects Outlook users when the only way to connect to the Exchange server is via HTTPS-RPC!Wow.. what a <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="jokehttp://status.1and1.com/vs">jokehttp://status.1and1.com/vs</a><!-- m --> <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://exchange.1and1.comAhh">https://exchange.1and1.comAhh</a><!-- m -->, I get the joke now, exchange.1and1.com is offline yet they show everything is functioning. Yeah, bad joke. :\I got ahold of someone at their datacenter... I asked for their exchange admin and they said "There's noone here... they're all in Germany"So did they just go home for the weekend? I guess on Monday they'll fix it?1&1 UK/Euro or US ?Does it matter brian?
Does it matter brian?
As far as I can tell, after my last call, the only difference is the website, the recording in the callcenter and the location of the datacenter.
I've emailed support in the past and the the response clearly stated it was from 1and1 UK.Does it matter brian?Well I had the impression that US was OK[ish] but UK/Euro was very 'rigid' in it's processes of dealing with customers, which certainly does not suit every body. But it looks like both 1&1s have there problems.But it looks like both 1&1s have there problems.Well that can happen when a company gets to that size, considering HostGator is having staffing issues, I can only imagine how hard it is for 1and1 to get enough people. And with the amount of clients they do have, the amount of issues looks even worse not taking into account that the amount of clients that have negative experiences, may be well within the acceptable range of the happy clients to unhappy clients ratio. While there isn't an exact formula, I am willing to bet that it is in the average, if it wasn't, 1and1 wouldn't be the size it is.I called dedicated server support again and begged them to help me. The man says it should be up and ruining and gave me the IP of 74.208.4.67 which is not what exchange.1and1.com resolves to. Their TTL is ~40 min so this makes no sense... So catastrophic server failure it seems... why don't they lower the ttl to 0 when that happens.. so when they restore on another IP everyone can get to it quickly??? Or use the same IP address?Ok if their TTL is 40min (it is) then they just did not update the DNS for exchange.1and1.com. I still can not sync on my mobile phone!Absolute incompetence./edit: they did lower the TTL to 10 minutes but the IP address is the same.... WTF....Totally true. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
Agreed!
Wow.. what a joke
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://status.1and1.com/">http://status.1and1.com/</a><!-- m -->
vs
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://exchange.1and1.com">https://exchange.1and1.com</a><!-- m -->
That’s interesting as it appears that it is still down today, how long can they leave it down without losing customers?Sorry I think I was a little quick to judge.It's still "down" (it works on MY pc because I called around got the new IP of the server and added it to my hosts file) but what I mean is the TTL's I've been reporting are that of my caching DNS server... so if I refresh the TTL goes down... Basically it caches the DNS entry and keeps it until the TTL expires, reporting the remaining TTL.So their DNS is working and so is mine and it's periodically refreshing... but 1and1 just hasn't updated it on their end or they have a very poor DNS cluster.I called dedicated server support again and begged them to help me. The man says it should be up and ruining and gave me the IP of 74.208.4.67 which is not what exchange.1and1.com resolves to. Their TTL is ~40 min so this makes no sense... So catastrophic server failure it seems... why don't they lower the ttl to 0 when that happens.. so when they restore on another IP everyone can get to it quickly??? Or use the same IP address?
Yup that works. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://74.208.4.67/exchange">https://74.208.4.67/exchange</a><!-- m -->. You obviously get a certificate warning. Alternatively could edit your hosts file until they fix their DNS f-up.
-GTBTW, When I called their tech support about an hour ago they reported that the service had just been restored but that some users would have to wait up to 24 hours because their ISP has cached info. I asked him to pass on to their admins that I thought they were incompetent - *they* chose the DNS TTL and *they* chose to change the IP address of their NLB cluster. 24 hours extra downtime is their fault, not my ISP's!
-GTIt's not your ISP it's 1and1 DNS server... And like I said above if I had a server go down for a few hours I would certainly take that time to lower the TTL incase the IP needs to be changed. Anyways their TTL is 60min and my DNS servers are respecting that and caching their entries only for 60min.root@srv04 [~]# whois 1and1.com[Querying whois.internic.net][Redirected to whois.schlund.info][Querying whois.schlund.info][whois.schlund.info]% The data in the WHOIS database of 1&1 Internet AG is provided by% 1&1 for information purposes, and to assist persons in obtaining% information about or related to a domain name registration record.% 1&1 does not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a WHOIS query,% you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that,% under no circumstances, you will use this data to% (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail,% telephone, or facsimile of mass, unsolicited, commercial advertising or% solicitations to entities other than the data recipient's own existing% customers; or% (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that send queries or% data to the systems of any Registry Operator or ICANN-Accredited registrar,% except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing% registrations.% 1&1 reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.% By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy.domain: 1and1.comcreated: 28-Sep-1997last-changed: 28-Sep-2007registration-expiration: 27-Sep-2008nserver: ns27.1and1.com 74.208.2.3nserver: ns28.1and1.com 74.208.3.3FWIW 1and1, 1und1, Schlund, Schlund+Partner, United Internet, etc are all the same company. So they are their own registrar even.root@srv04 [~]# dig @ns27.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> @ns27.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; (1 server found);; global options: printcmd;; Got answer:;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23425;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0;; QUESTION SECTION:;exchange.1and1.com. IN A;; ANSWER SECTION:exchange.1and1.com. 3600 IN A 74.208.4.65;; Query time: 45 msec;; SERVER: 74.208.2.3#53(74.208.2.3);; WHEN: Sat Apr 26 16:58:33 2008;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 52root@srv04 [~]# dig @ns28.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> @ns28.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; (1 server found);; global options: printcmd;; Got answer:;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 32743;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0;; QUESTION SECTION:;exchange.1and1.com. IN A;; ANSWER SECTION:exchange.1and1.com. 3600 IN A 74.208.4.65;; Query time: 27 msec;; SERVER: 74.208.3.3#53(74.208.3.3);; WHEN: Sat Apr 26 17:00:41 2008;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 52So their own DNS servers are returning the old IP address.Does anyone have a contact for 1and1 Exchange admin or 1and1 DNS admin?I have:610-560-1605 - Germany610-560-1610 & 484-347-4733 - Datacenter610-560-1616 - Switchroom610-560-1617 - Direct support line -- alot of times goes to a native English speaker. I think it's the dedicated server support queue.All of which have gotten nowhere.Yes I start wardialing when I need answers....BTW, When I called their tech support about an hour ago they reported that the service had just been restored but that some users would have to wait up to 24 hours because their ISP has cached info. I asked him to pass on to their admins that I thought they were incompetent - *they* chose the DNS TTL and *they* chose to change the IP address of their NLB cluster. 24 hours extra downtime is their fault, not my ISP's!-GTFWIW I talked to dedicated server support again and they claimed they are passing on the DNS thing to the Exchange admin. Hopefully this clears up soon... there's really nothing else we can do at this point.Also I'm thinking that the reason they moved the server to another IP is because they are trying to rebuild the original server/cluster and restore it on the original IP... so this could be an ongoing battle even once its "fixed"/edit: Yea I'm thinking that's exactly what's going on...<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://74.208.4.66/owa/https://74.208.4.67/owa/https://74.208.4.68/owa/https://74.208.4.69/owa/https://74.208.4.70/owa/https://74.208.4.71/owa/Why">https://74.208.4.66/owa/https://74.208. ... 71/owa/Why</a><!-- m --> they didn't have round robin DNS to begin with or why they didn't change the IP at DNS the instant they knew there was an issue with the server at 74.208.4.65 just baffles me. For all I know *NOTHING* at all has been done and they just gave me the 67.208.4.67 IP and it was just always up and running is what I think the situation is.Who are you all planning to switch your exchange hosting to? I have tired of the issues with 1and1. This one is just the last straw. Looking at sherweb. Any thoughts or opinions?Honestly if I didn't have to use a WM2003 phone (Motorola i930... only Nextel WinMo phone) I'd switch back to 01.com... it's not exchange but the function in the end is the same and they have EXCELLENT support. It will work just like exchange for WM5 & 6 phones.I left Sherweb because their support was less than responsive. I had been asking for 6 months to get moved from a Exchange 2003 to an Exchange 2007 server. 6 freaking months?!? Four different requests for support/trouble tickets. I'm not really happy with 1and1 either now but I'm beginning to feel like I'm running out of "cheap" options. I guess you get what you pay for...Still down this morning, and it looks like their DNS is still pointing exchange1.and1.com to 74.208.4.65. Unbelievable!
The reason they don't use round-robin DNS in the first place is because it does not provide detection of failed hosts. Most companies will use either a hardware load balancer or use Windows Network Load Balancing, both of which can detect failed hosts and remove them automatically from the cluster. However, assuming that this failure is related to their load-balancing, there is no reason they could not temporarily switch to round-robin DNS while troubleshooting/fixing their problem.
Looks like major incompetence to me and a complete lack of caring.
-GTLooks like something is up:
nslookup exchange.1and1.com
Server: mtrlpq02dnsvp1.srvr.bell.ca
Address: 207.164.234.129:53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: exchange.1and1.com
Addresses: 74.208.4.70, 74.208.4.71, 74.208.4.68, 74.208.4.67
74.208.4.66, 74.208.4.69, 74.208.4.72
If I try again I'll sometimes get:
nslookup exchange.1and1.com
Server: mtrlpq02dnsvp1.srvr.bell.ca
Address: 207.164.234.129:53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: exchange.1and1.com
Address: 74.208.4.65
I'm guessing this means my ISP has load-balanced their DNS server and at least one of them has been updated to a round-robin setup. Perhaps the rest will get updated shortly.
-GTThank you all for your continued updates to this thread as it has allowed me to access my email. I am in a difference scenario than most of you in that I have exchange for multiple members of my family... So I catch grief from my family but it is not as urgent as a business email system being down. I will be moving to sherweb as they now have Exchange 2007, support blackberries, and include sharepoint (which I was paying for separately with 1and1 until I cancelled that service and my VPS with them last night). I will be cancelling and moving my exchange service as soon as my family members confirm they have retrieved anything they need from their 1and1 exchange account.
In the event it is helpful to the rest of you...the latest I have recieved from 1and1 is:
Currently exchange.1and1.com is temporarily offline, please try to
access the link below as temporary replacement of exchange.1and1.com
website.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://212.227.126.13">https://212.227.126.13</a><!-- m -->
If you using Internet Exlorer browser in accessing the website
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://212.227.126.13">https://212.227.126.13</a><!-- m -->, you will promted "There is a problem with this
website's security certificate."
just choose the option "Continue to this website (not recommended). " so
that you can login.Yes I noticed that they finally fixed the DNS. I resorted to creating my own DNS server just so I could sync my mobile (if you enter the IP it complains of the certificate).
Anyways, Soderberg are you in the US becase that link you posted is for OWA 2003... I noticed 1and1 UK (exchange.1and1.co.uk) and 1und1 (profimailer.de) both still use 2003 but during this incident both of those were always online. There's also legacy.exchange.1and1.com and that seems to have also stayed online throughout this.
I will be switching elsewere to, mainly to speak with my wallet, as I can understand there is an outage fully, but the manner in which it was handled was absolutly unprofessional and outright unacceptable. To discover at the end of the outage that all this could have been fixed say 3hrs into the outage if the admin when it and set the DNS the same way they did this morning ( wouldn't expect them to jump the gun and switch the DNS the instant it went down, let them figure out first what is the issue).... I really needed my email on Friday and honestly it being down over the weekend was not an issue at all.
I'm not sure where I am switching to but if you have no need for wireless sync or are wanting to sync WM 5 or 6 or blackberries I can strongly recommend 01.com A big plus is their "enhanced" webmail is compatible outside of MS browsers.My domain got deleted from 1&1 cp which "deactivated" the exchange account. I tried to "reactivate" it and it shows "Exchange account ready" but I can't log in!I left Sherweb because their support was less than responsive. Yeah, definitely seems they are a bit overloaded because something has changed. But a switch to 1and1 is like suicide!Hope this works out for y'all.DNS server will update within 24 to 48 hours from the time you update the DNS records of the domainWill 1and1 respond to this situation? Historically they have not. In this day of consumer power, and internet time, can they afford not to??Will 1and1 respond to this situation? Historically they have not. In this day of consumer power, and internet time, can they afford not to??Certainly in Europe the seem to think there big enough to be very muchthere own masters, rather than serving there customers.I believe when the exchange server updated your ISP cache did not changed.
try to update your host file on your windows computer
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
open the file called "host" using notepad
add the line below on host
74.208.4.72 exchange.1and1.comI was querying, as mentioned above, 1and1's DNS servers directly. The ones listed in whois for the domain 1and1.com (the host in question was exchange.1and1.com)The issue was not my ISP it was 1and1's absolute incompetence. They had 7 alternate servers up and running they could have switched the DNS say 6 hours into the outage that lasted over 48hrs and probably noone would have noticed. Instead they were incompetent and did nothing from Friday at 3am when it went down to approx 10AM Sunday when someone got off their lazy *** and changed the DNS.Lol, some companys make it, some fail being crap thanks for the notice...Yeah I don't think 1&1 are a good business decision. Maybe ok for hobbyists but not business critical applications.Incompetence at it's finest...
A DNS transfer of your 1and1sucks.net domain to your 1&1 web space had been
initiated.
The necessary adjustment of the name servers has not yet been completed.
The nameservers for your domain are:
DNS1: dns1.nettica.com
DNS2: dns2.nettica.com
DNS3: dns3.nettica.com
DNS4: dns4.nettica.com
Therefore your website hosted on our server <b>cannot be reached under the
above domain name yet</b>. Also the <b>e-mail accounts included in your package
cannot yet be enabled.</b>
If you still like to link 1and1sucks.net to your website hosted on our
server, please enter the following name servers with your registrar by
May 19, 2008 at 02:26:00 AM:
DNS1: dns1.nettica.com
DNS2: dns2.nettica.com
Warning: At that time, if no further action is taken, we will remove the
1and1sucks.net domain from our systems. Removing the domain from our system
means that your website hosted on our server can no longer be reached by
your domain 1and1sucks.net. Also, any changes made up to this point to your
e-mail account and subdomains will be deleted.
Now... per 1and1 support support I can have only 4 DNS servers but it seems that per this email in reality I can only have two.
WHY!!??? Yes I understand it's really not a big deal, 4 should work fine and not have any issues at all....
<b>emphasis added to false statements</b>JOAKO You need to get that framed and auction it off for charity Still we need idiots like that, to demonstrate how clever the rest of us are !Finally I setup my own Exchange server (if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.)I was going to transfer the data BUT yesterday I get to the office at 745AM login check my mail and leave. When I come back around 2PM Outlook is asking for my password. Now all it does is ask for password. I tried to deal with their "support" which happens to be in the Philippines and they are clueless. They ask me to delete the PRF file I downloaded? Hello I'm using Outlook 2007.. no PRF File!I am still down. Can not log in via Outlook to copy all my data to a PST file.Everyone at 1and1 is clueless.Also I've been overbilled. It seems its not $6.99/mo but EUR 6.99 what they are billing me. I dunno thats the only logical way I can see ~20 charge turn to ~$40. They can't even explain it because there's no invoice on my account for anything but $20.97 (6.99 x 3)Is it ok for me to post phone number for 1and1 publicly?Yes its fineSo far I have called:610-560-1596 = Stefan? (forwards to a tmo phone)610-560-1593 = Stefan Ding?610-560-1592 = Rings + dumps queue 610-560-1551 = ring + queue1552 = nis1553 = nis1554 = nis1555 = nis1556 = nis1557 = nis1558 = nis1559 = nis560-1560 = ecom1561 = ecom1562 = ecom1563 = dead air1564 = dead air1565 = dead air1566 = dead air1567 = ecom1568 = ecom1569 = ecom560-1540 = ring + queue1541 = Ring + vm of German dude "Benjamin Schwartz"1542 = Ring + vm of American dude sounds like hes in data.c.1543 = "Welcome to voice information processing"1544 = Goes direct to queue for sales dept.1545 = ring + dumps in queue1546 = ring + dumps in queue1547 = dead air + UK ringback1548 = ring + dump queue1549 = ring + Vm box of " "560-1530 = dump queue1531 = erin garvner1532 = jannette oaks1533 = NIS1534 = ring + dump queue1535 = Joshua Sloan1536 = Issac Speevack1537 = Elizabeth Herach1538 = ring + queue dump1539 = ring + No helpAnyone know how I can reach Mr. Frank Andert? In email he claims to be one of the Exchange administrators.I noticed in Xadmin there's a backup option. Well 24hrs later it still has not emailed me where I can download a backup of my account.I found the personal webpage of Frank Andert who claims he is a "Windows system administrator" oddly enough the page is not hosted by 1und1 nor is the domain registered through them. I wonder why?I don't know how I didn't find this sooner....
Yes, 1and1 does suck. So does their support. But you don抰 have to go in circles and wait on hold for hours. Instead, contact this guy:
Richard Winslow
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><!-- e -->
610-560-1470
Now he called me and said hes heard of me calling many people... I doubt that... I wonder if he just saw his thread? I've been harrassing the poor dude at 610-560-1596 and if you google the number this page comes up. Isn't it a ****ing shame thats how you need to get the attention of a higher up at this craptastic company???1and1 is THE WORST OF ITS KIND, DONT EVER GO WITH THIS LOSER COMPANY, THEY ARE JUST EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL, HORRIBLE DEALYS, TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT, AND EXTREMELY BAD HOSTING BEWARE OF THIS FRAUD COMPANYI have become very aware of that, but I have all my data stuck on their servers.
In Xadmin the backup to PST feature does not work.
I've reinstalled Outlook 2007 twice and each time when I try to connect to 1and1 it just crashes. I created a new profile with POP3 mail account and Outlook 2007 does not crash in this case.
I've called their tech support and they've connected to my computer and manually setup the Outlook profile... still does not work. I've done this twice already.FWIW Richard Winslow is pretty worthless. Yes in the end it works but I have to call & email him 3x or more a day! And its a joke on the phone. His "direct line" sometimes goes to him, sometimes to the sales department, sometimes to the billing department and other times to a random person that works in his vicinity. INSANITY!!!! and when you call 2 or 3 times and get no answer the 3rd or 4th time it gets forwarded to Philippines support line.Total f***ing joke their customer service is. Why is it in the Phillipines? Probably because the former CEO thought it would be a nice vacation spot: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.andreasgauger.com/1265/10795.htmlAnd">http://www.andreasgauger.com/1265/10795.htmlAnd</a><!-- m --> he seems like a pothead, else why would he go in there? No wonder their company is left in ruins: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://andreasgauger.typepad.com/andreas_weblog/2008/02/amsterdam.html1AND1">http://andreasgauger.typepad.com/andrea ... .html1AND1</a><!-- m --> went down this past Monday. I've been with them for 4 years now and never a had problem. Not billing, outage or technical support. Now this.
What I'm expecting is for someone to tell me what's wrong, the impact and whether I can expect this to be a long outage or a simple hiccup.
Monday morning, the PI call center tells me they are aware and working on it. Ok fine, let's give them some time to figure out what's wrong. Ten hours later, no update other than the same; they are working on it. Fine, I'm sure Tues evening they'll have it up but no. Twenty-four hours later, still the same ****ing update. Now I'm pissed.
I've got a client, who I've put together a stellar storefront for him, and he's spent $20,000 on promotion for his grand opening ON THE MONDAY MORNING of this outage. Months of work down the tube. That's just one story of my 50 clients.
Tues, I'm gearing up for recovery but no, I go to bed pissed off that my company's reputation is swirling right down the toilet.
Wed afternoon, here we are. Still no service but now I have a name Richard Winslow, thanks to you guys. I called and left a message. Will he call me back? What's your money on?Well its interesting that his calls actually went to his voicemail.
Good luck but in my experience you will need patience to get your matter resolved even through Mr. Winslow.
I think your **BEST** option for recovery is to move to a new server ASAP (you do have a backup?)
Honestly if you want to get it done right, you have to do it yourself. I have an Exchange server I've setup in the past week and will be sending it off this week to the colocation... to replace 1and1's crap service (they did give me a free year of service... not going to use it) If it fails I will know immediately why and be able to recover within the hour. Maybe not recover the backups and get that particular server online but in general email delivery would not be affected. If your client can afford $20,000 in promotion can they afford an extra $1200 up front and $100/month because that's what you can buy a very decent 1U server (hell look on ebay for slightly older HPs or IBMs and you can get an excellent backup server for <$500) and colocation service for a few of them.. even if its just a backup server and you still host your stuff with 1and1 IF 1and1 (or whatever host or even your own colocated/leased machines) goes down how are you going to get back online? Including keeping recent backups and having planned ahead and even tested your disaster recovery plans. No need to do anything fancy with unicast or automatic fail-over load balancing systems (I'm not saying they don't have their merit) but at the very minimum keep backups, keep a plan and make sure you've tested the plan to make sure it works and you haven't overlooked anything.
If you can manage to build in 100% automatic fail-over that's even better... e.g one of my clients depends 100% on IP telephony for the business. If their PBX server goes down it automatically falls back to another server. Since yesterday their primary server has been down and guess what because we PLANNED ahead for the possibility of it going down there was 0 downtime, not a missed call or a missed second of a call. The primary server is still down, yes we want to get it back up and running today or tomorrow but guess what, we aren't stressing it.
Best of luck. I'm not saying you did wrong by choosing 1and1... I mean what would anyone else think? established multinational company you would expect they know how to manage things efficiently. Honestly I used to tell people 1and1's service was reliable until this incident but their support wasn't good but after this I've noticed their management is crap too1and1 is utter crap. I have an account with them sitting idle til October if anyone would like some free bandwidth. Just PM me and I would be happy to provide the login. I would love to see what they do when people actually use their limits.I head they would suspend accounts for "Too much CPU use, "too much RAM use," "using excessive resources," etc.I had some downtime problems with 1and1 also. More than the downtime I had some serious speed issues that ruined my hosting expirence with themgooglelady dot com /874/exclusive-1and1-hosting-interview/
Yes, I stepped in 1and1 long ago and the stink remains.Most of the million GB of HDD and bandwidth for $5/month hosts are not good IMO. You get what you pay for.So I no longer use their exchange account but keep it open for the hell of it -- they gave me one free year.
Can someone explain how if no MX is pointed at them, no email address is forwarded to them how I am still constantly getting spam to the account?
Also FWIW they sent me a broken PST file. ExMerge does not accept it! And their system DO NOT check MX when sending mail if the domain or account is local... it assumes because an account is on their system it is a local address and delivers it locally... NOT a good practice! I think I answered myself. All the SPAM I am still getting comes directly from a source within the 1and1 network.The bottomline is: there are no good hosts. I'm looking for a new VPS host and considered fastnext or 1and1 - now after reading your stories here I don't know what to do. ANY ADVICE? NO AD VICE, PLEASE!As I'm sure we've all experience, the Big Dogs of a industry take $... take $... and Take $... BUT never give.Find a smaller, more customer friendly hosting provider running Parallels Automation to MS Out 2007. The customer interface has tons of management and email tools, and is very user friendly. Most of the time the smalls guys provide FAST, friendly, reliable and HELPFUL service and support 24/7 over email. Remember HostingCon 2008 is almost upon us and hosting providers exhibit like crazy. Look on HostingCon's website under the exhibitors list for the companies offering Hosted Exchange services. The newer hosting providers will have implemented Parallels Automation.Good Luck in your search for service!CoryI've had a fairly decent experience with their dedicated servers until I left about a year ago. The support is non-existent, but their control panel lets you do everything you need, so I did not need to rely on them for support.However, I regret ever registering a domain with them. I canceled a domain just as an invoice for it was coming through and apparently they did not charge my credit card before I canceled. So about a 2 weeks later, I got an email telling me I owed them a few bucks, so I emailed them back asking how can I pay it if I don't have access to the customer portal. Surprisingly, I get an email back telling me I don't owe them anything. Another week and a half later, they send another email for payment. At that point, I was pretty pissed since there was no way I could access the customer portal they instructed me to go to in order to update my info. I called up their 800 number and finally was able to give someone my credit card information and they said it would be processed the next day. Guess what, another week or so later, a final notice telling me to pay it or face collections. Called up again, thankfully this time I got a supervisor who successfully put the charge through. He claimed the previous agent put in my info but failed to process it.Dear [redacted], (Cust: [redacted])Thank you for contacting us.At this time, there is no reason to change your billing method on file,as there is no outstanding balance.If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.--Sincerely[redacted]Billing Department1&1 Internet Inc.Right!
Well I called their "Dedicated server support" and finally begged someone to listen to me (they pull the "this is dedicated server support, I need to transfer you"). Well when he finally looked at my domain he said that's the way their system works and unless I remove the 5th DNS server from my domain it would be deleted from their system.
TOTAL BS! 1and1 = utter crap.1&1 UK/Euro or US ?TOTAL BS! 1and1 = utter crap.Totally true. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. I would NEVER trust 1and1 with any of my hosting needs, especially exchange.1and1 USA.Oh and btw exchange has been down the ENTIRE day! They said it would be up by 2pm ET and that it "only affects webmail"... It's 7PM ET right now and they have no update and no ETA.Well guess what? This affects Outlook users when the only way to connect to the Exchange server is via HTTPS-RPC!Wow.. what a <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="jokehttp://status.1and1.com/vs">jokehttp://status.1and1.com/vs</a><!-- m --> <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://exchange.1and1.comAhh">https://exchange.1and1.comAhh</a><!-- m -->, I get the joke now, exchange.1and1.com is offline yet they show everything is functioning. Yeah, bad joke. :\I got ahold of someone at their datacenter... I asked for their exchange admin and they said "There's noone here... they're all in Germany"So did they just go home for the weekend? I guess on Monday they'll fix it?1&1 UK/Euro or US ?Does it matter brian?
Does it matter brian?As far as I can tell, after my last call, the only difference is the website, the recording in the callcenter and the location of the datacenter.
I've emailed support in the past and the the response clearly stated it was from 1and1 UK.Does it matter brian?
Well I had the impression that US was OK[ish] but UK/Euro was very 'rigid' in it's processes of dealing with customers, which certainly does not suit every body. But it looks like both 1&1s have there problems.But it looks like both 1&1s have there problems.Well that can happen when a company gets to that size, considering HostGator is having staffing issues, I can only imagine how hard it is for 1and1 to get enough people. And with the amount of clients they do have, the amount of issues looks even worse not taking into account that the amount of clients that have negative experiences, may be well within the acceptable range of the happy clients to unhappy clients ratio. While there isn't an exact formula, I am willing to bet that it is in the average, if it wasn't, 1and1 wouldn't be the size it is.I called dedicated server support again and begged them to help me. The man says it should be up and ruining and gave me the IP of 74.208.4.67 which is not what exchange.1and1.com resolves to. Their TTL is ~40 min so this makes no sense... So catastrophic server failure it seems... why don't they lower the ttl to 0 when that happens.. so when they restore on another IP everyone can get to it quickly??? Or use the same IP address?Ok if their TTL is 40min (it is) then they just did not update the DNS for exchange.1and1.com. I still can not sync on my mobile phone!Absolute incompetence./edit: they did lower the TTL to 10 minutes but the IP address is the same.... WTF....Totally true. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.Agreed!
Wow.. what a joke
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://status.1and1.com/">http://status.1and1.com/</a><!-- m -->
vs
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://exchange.1and1.com">https://exchange.1and1.com</a><!-- m -->
That’s interesting as it appears that it is still down today, how long can they leave it down without losing customers?Sorry I think I was a little quick to judge.It's still "down" (it works on MY pc because I called around got the new IP of the server and added it to my hosts file) but what I mean is the TTL's I've been reporting are that of my caching DNS server... so if I refresh the TTL goes down... Basically it caches the DNS entry and keeps it until the TTL expires, reporting the remaining TTL.So their DNS is working and so is mine and it's periodically refreshing... but 1and1 just hasn't updated it on their end or they have a very poor DNS cluster.I called dedicated server support again and begged them to help me. The man says it should be up and ruining and gave me the IP of 74.208.4.67 which is not what exchange.1and1.com resolves to. Their TTL is ~40 min so this makes no sense... So catastrophic server failure it seems... why don't they lower the ttl to 0 when that happens.. so when they restore on another IP everyone can get to it quickly??? Or use the same IP address?
Yup that works. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://74.208.4.67/exchange">https://74.208.4.67/exchange</a><!-- m -->. You obviously get a certificate warning. Alternatively could edit your hosts file until they fix their DNS f-up.
-GTBTW, When I called their tech support about an hour ago they reported that the service had just been restored but that some users would have to wait up to 24 hours because their ISP has cached info. I asked him to pass on to their admins that I thought they were incompetent - *they* chose the DNS TTL and *they* chose to change the IP address of their NLB cluster. 24 hours extra downtime is their fault, not my ISP's!
-GTIt's not your ISP it's 1and1 DNS server... And like I said above if I had a server go down for a few hours I would certainly take that time to lower the TTL incase the IP needs to be changed. Anyways their TTL is 60min and my DNS servers are respecting that and caching their entries only for 60min.root@srv04 [~]# whois 1and1.com[Querying whois.internic.net][Redirected to whois.schlund.info][Querying whois.schlund.info][whois.schlund.info]% The data in the WHOIS database of 1&1 Internet AG is provided by% 1&1 for information purposes, and to assist persons in obtaining% information about or related to a domain name registration record.% 1&1 does not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a WHOIS query,% you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that,% under no circumstances, you will use this data to% (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail,% telephone, or facsimile of mass, unsolicited, commercial advertising or% solicitations to entities other than the data recipient's own existing% customers; or% (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that send queries or% data to the systems of any Registry Operator or ICANN-Accredited registrar,% except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing% registrations.% 1&1 reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.% By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy.domain: 1and1.comcreated: 28-Sep-1997last-changed: 28-Sep-2007registration-expiration: 27-Sep-2008nserver: ns27.1and1.com 74.208.2.3nserver: ns28.1and1.com 74.208.3.3FWIW 1and1, 1und1, Schlund, Schlund+Partner, United Internet, etc are all the same company. So they are their own registrar even.root@srv04 [~]# dig @ns27.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> @ns27.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; (1 server found);; global options: printcmd;; Got answer:;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23425;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0;; QUESTION SECTION:;exchange.1and1.com. IN A;; ANSWER SECTION:exchange.1and1.com. 3600 IN A 74.208.4.65;; Query time: 45 msec;; SERVER: 74.208.2.3#53(74.208.2.3);; WHEN: Sat Apr 26 16:58:33 2008;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 52root@srv04 [~]# dig @ns28.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> @ns28.1and1.com exchange.1and1.com; (1 server found);; global options: printcmd;; Got answer:;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 32743;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0;; QUESTION SECTION:;exchange.1and1.com. IN A;; ANSWER SECTION:exchange.1and1.com. 3600 IN A 74.208.4.65;; Query time: 27 msec;; SERVER: 74.208.3.3#53(74.208.3.3);; WHEN: Sat Apr 26 17:00:41 2008;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 52So their own DNS servers are returning the old IP address.Does anyone have a contact for 1and1 Exchange admin or 1and1 DNS admin?I have:610-560-1605 - Germany610-560-1610 & 484-347-4733 - Datacenter610-560-1616 - Switchroom610-560-1617 - Direct support line -- alot of times goes to a native English speaker. I think it's the dedicated server support queue.All of which have gotten nowhere.Yes I start wardialing when I need answers....BTW, When I called their tech support about an hour ago they reported that the service had just been restored but that some users would have to wait up to 24 hours because their ISP has cached info. I asked him to pass on to their admins that I thought they were incompetent - *they* chose the DNS TTL and *they* chose to change the IP address of their NLB cluster. 24 hours extra downtime is their fault, not my ISP's!-GTFWIW I talked to dedicated server support again and they claimed they are passing on the DNS thing to the Exchange admin. Hopefully this clears up soon... there's really nothing else we can do at this point.Also I'm thinking that the reason they moved the server to another IP is because they are trying to rebuild the original server/cluster and restore it on the original IP... so this could be an ongoing battle even once its "fixed"/edit: Yea I'm thinking that's exactly what's going on...<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://74.208.4.66/owa/https://74.208.4.67/owa/https://74.208.4.68/owa/https://74.208.4.69/owa/https://74.208.4.70/owa/https://74.208.4.71/owa/Why">https://74.208.4.66/owa/https://74.208. ... 71/owa/Why</a><!-- m --> they didn't have round robin DNS to begin with or why they didn't change the IP at DNS the instant they knew there was an issue with the server at 74.208.4.65 just baffles me. For all I know *NOTHING* at all has been done and they just gave me the 67.208.4.67 IP and it was just always up and running is what I think the situation is.Who are you all planning to switch your exchange hosting to? I have tired of the issues with 1and1. This one is just the last straw. Looking at sherweb. Any thoughts or opinions?Honestly if I didn't have to use a WM2003 phone (Motorola i930... only Nextel WinMo phone) I'd switch back to 01.com... it's not exchange but the function in the end is the same and they have EXCELLENT support. It will work just like exchange for WM5 & 6 phones.I left Sherweb because their support was less than responsive. I had been asking for 6 months to get moved from a Exchange 2003 to an Exchange 2007 server. 6 freaking months?!? Four different requests for support/trouble tickets. I'm not really happy with 1and1 either now but I'm beginning to feel like I'm running out of "cheap" options. I guess you get what you pay for...Still down this morning, and it looks like their DNS is still pointing exchange1.and1.com to 74.208.4.65. Unbelievable!
The reason they don't use round-robin DNS in the first place is because it does not provide detection of failed hosts. Most companies will use either a hardware load balancer or use Windows Network Load Balancing, both of which can detect failed hosts and remove them automatically from the cluster. However, assuming that this failure is related to their load-balancing, there is no reason they could not temporarily switch to round-robin DNS while troubleshooting/fixing their problem.
Looks like major incompetence to me and a complete lack of caring.
-GTLooks like something is up:
nslookup exchange.1and1.com
Server: mtrlpq02dnsvp1.srvr.bell.ca
Address: 207.164.234.129:53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: exchange.1and1.com
Addresses: 74.208.4.70, 74.208.4.71, 74.208.4.68, 74.208.4.67
74.208.4.66, 74.208.4.69, 74.208.4.72
If I try again I'll sometimes get:
nslookup exchange.1and1.com
Server: mtrlpq02dnsvp1.srvr.bell.ca
Address: 207.164.234.129:53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: exchange.1and1.com
Address: 74.208.4.65
I'm guessing this means my ISP has load-balanced their DNS server and at least one of them has been updated to a round-robin setup. Perhaps the rest will get updated shortly.
-GTThank you all for your continued updates to this thread as it has allowed me to access my email. I am in a difference scenario than most of you in that I have exchange for multiple members of my family... So I catch grief from my family but it is not as urgent as a business email system being down. I will be moving to sherweb as they now have Exchange 2007, support blackberries, and include sharepoint (which I was paying for separately with 1and1 until I cancelled that service and my VPS with them last night). I will be cancelling and moving my exchange service as soon as my family members confirm they have retrieved anything they need from their 1and1 exchange account.
In the event it is helpful to the rest of you...the latest I have recieved from 1and1 is:
Currently exchange.1and1.com is temporarily offline, please try to
access the link below as temporary replacement of exchange.1and1.com
website.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://212.227.126.13">https://212.227.126.13</a><!-- m -->
If you using Internet Exlorer browser in accessing the website
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://212.227.126.13">https://212.227.126.13</a><!-- m -->, you will promted "There is a problem with this
website's security certificate."
just choose the option "Continue to this website (not recommended). " so
that you can login.Yes I noticed that they finally fixed the DNS. I resorted to creating my own DNS server just so I could sync my mobile (if you enter the IP it complains of the certificate).
Anyways, Soderberg are you in the US becase that link you posted is for OWA 2003... I noticed 1and1 UK (exchange.1and1.co.uk) and 1und1 (profimailer.de) both still use 2003 but during this incident both of those were always online. There's also legacy.exchange.1and1.com and that seems to have also stayed online throughout this.
I will be switching elsewere to, mainly to speak with my wallet, as I can understand there is an outage fully, but the manner in which it was handled was absolutly unprofessional and outright unacceptable. To discover at the end of the outage that all this could have been fixed say 3hrs into the outage if the admin when it and set the DNS the same way they did this morning ( wouldn't expect them to jump the gun and switch the DNS the instant it went down, let them figure out first what is the issue).... I really needed my email on Friday and honestly it being down over the weekend was not an issue at all.
I'm not sure where I am switching to but if you have no need for wireless sync or are wanting to sync WM 5 or 6 or blackberries I can strongly recommend 01.com A big plus is their "enhanced" webmail is compatible outside of MS browsers.My domain got deleted from 1&1 cp which "deactivated" the exchange account. I tried to "reactivate" it and it shows "Exchange account ready" but I can't log in!I left Sherweb because their support was less than responsive. Yeah, definitely seems they are a bit overloaded because something has changed. But a switch to 1and1 is like suicide!Hope this works out for y'all.DNS server will update within 24 to 48 hours from the time you update the DNS records of the domainWill 1and1 respond to this situation? Historically they have not. In this day of consumer power, and internet time, can they afford not to??Will 1and1 respond to this situation? Historically they have not. In this day of consumer power, and internet time, can they afford not to??Certainly in Europe the seem to think there big enough to be very muchthere own masters, rather than serving there customers.I believe when the exchange server updated your ISP cache did not changed.
try to update your host file on your windows computer
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
open the file called "host" using notepad
add the line below on host
74.208.4.72 exchange.1and1.comI was querying, as mentioned above, 1and1's DNS servers directly. The ones listed in whois for the domain 1and1.com (the host in question was exchange.1and1.com)The issue was not my ISP it was 1and1's absolute incompetence. They had 7 alternate servers up and running they could have switched the DNS say 6 hours into the outage that lasted over 48hrs and probably noone would have noticed. Instead they were incompetent and did nothing from Friday at 3am when it went down to approx 10AM Sunday when someone got off their lazy *** and changed the DNS.Lol, some companys make it, some fail being crap thanks for the notice...Yeah I don't think 1&1 are a good business decision. Maybe ok for hobbyists but not business critical applications.Incompetence at it's finest...
A DNS transfer of your 1and1sucks.net domain to your 1&1 web space had been
initiated.
The necessary adjustment of the name servers has not yet been completed.
The nameservers for your domain are:
DNS1: dns1.nettica.com
DNS2: dns2.nettica.com
DNS3: dns3.nettica.com
DNS4: dns4.nettica.com
Therefore your website hosted on our server <b>cannot be reached under the
above domain name yet</b>. Also the <b>e-mail accounts included in your package
cannot yet be enabled.</b>
If you still like to link 1and1sucks.net to your website hosted on our
server, please enter the following name servers with your registrar by
May 19, 2008 at 02:26:00 AM:
DNS1: dns1.nettica.com
DNS2: dns2.nettica.com
Warning: At that time, if no further action is taken, we will remove the
1and1sucks.net domain from our systems. Removing the domain from our system
means that your website hosted on our server can no longer be reached by
your domain 1and1sucks.net. Also, any changes made up to this point to your
e-mail account and subdomains will be deleted.
Now... per 1and1 support support I can have only 4 DNS servers but it seems that per this email in reality I can only have two.
WHY!!??? Yes I understand it's really not a big deal, 4 should work fine and not have any issues at all....
<b>emphasis added to false statements</b>JOAKO You need to get that framed and auction it off for charity Still we need idiots like that, to demonstrate how clever the rest of us are !Finally I setup my own Exchange server (if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.)I was going to transfer the data BUT yesterday I get to the office at 745AM login check my mail and leave. When I come back around 2PM Outlook is asking for my password. Now all it does is ask for password. I tried to deal with their "support" which happens to be in the Philippines and they are clueless. They ask me to delete the PRF file I downloaded? Hello I'm using Outlook 2007.. no PRF File!I am still down. Can not log in via Outlook to copy all my data to a PST file.Everyone at 1and1 is clueless.Also I've been overbilled. It seems its not $6.99/mo but EUR 6.99 what they are billing me. I dunno thats the only logical way I can see ~20 charge turn to ~$40. They can't even explain it because there's no invoice on my account for anything but $20.97 (6.99 x 3)Is it ok for me to post phone number for 1and1 publicly?Yes its fineSo far I have called:610-560-1596 = Stefan? (forwards to a tmo phone)610-560-1593 = Stefan Ding?610-560-1592 = Rings + dumps queue 610-560-1551 = ring + queue1552 = nis1553 = nis1554 = nis1555 = nis1556 = nis1557 = nis1558 = nis1559 = nis560-1560 = ecom1561 = ecom1562 = ecom1563 = dead air1564 = dead air1565 = dead air1566 = dead air1567 = ecom1568 = ecom1569 = ecom560-1540 = ring + queue1541 = Ring + vm of German dude "Benjamin Schwartz"1542 = Ring + vm of American dude sounds like hes in data.c.1543 = "Welcome to voice information processing"1544 = Goes direct to queue for sales dept.1545 = ring + dumps in queue1546 = ring + dumps in queue1547 = dead air + UK ringback1548 = ring + dump queue1549 = ring + Vm box of " "560-1530 = dump queue1531 = erin garvner1532 = jannette oaks1533 = NIS1534 = ring + dump queue1535 = Joshua Sloan1536 = Issac Speevack1537 = Elizabeth Herach1538 = ring + queue dump1539 = ring + No helpAnyone know how I can reach Mr. Frank Andert? In email he claims to be one of the Exchange administrators.I noticed in Xadmin there's a backup option. Well 24hrs later it still has not emailed me where I can download a backup of my account.I found the personal webpage of Frank Andert who claims he is a "Windows system administrator" oddly enough the page is not hosted by 1und1 nor is the domain registered through them. I wonder why?I don't know how I didn't find this sooner....
Yes, 1and1 does suck. So does their support. But you don抰 have to go in circles and wait on hold for hours. Instead, contact this guy:
Richard Winslow
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a><!-- e -->
610-560-1470
Now he called me and said hes heard of me calling many people... I doubt that... I wonder if he just saw his thread? I've been harrassing the poor dude at 610-560-1596 and if you google the number this page comes up. Isn't it a ****ing shame thats how you need to get the attention of a higher up at this craptastic company???1and1 is THE WORST OF ITS KIND, DONT EVER GO WITH THIS LOSER COMPANY, THEY ARE JUST EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL, HORRIBLE DEALYS, TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT, AND EXTREMELY BAD HOSTING BEWARE OF THIS FRAUD COMPANYI have become very aware of that, but I have all my data stuck on their servers.
In Xadmin the backup to PST feature does not work.
I've reinstalled Outlook 2007 twice and each time when I try to connect to 1and1 it just crashes. I created a new profile with POP3 mail account and Outlook 2007 does not crash in this case.
I've called their tech support and they've connected to my computer and manually setup the Outlook profile... still does not work. I've done this twice already.FWIW Richard Winslow is pretty worthless. Yes in the end it works but I have to call & email him 3x or more a day! And its a joke on the phone. His "direct line" sometimes goes to him, sometimes to the sales department, sometimes to the billing department and other times to a random person that works in his vicinity. INSANITY!!!! and when you call 2 or 3 times and get no answer the 3rd or 4th time it gets forwarded to Philippines support line.Total f***ing joke their customer service is. Why is it in the Phillipines? Probably because the former CEO thought it would be a nice vacation spot: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.andreasgauger.com/1265/10795.htmlAnd">http://www.andreasgauger.com/1265/10795.htmlAnd</a><!-- m --> he seems like a pothead, else why would he go in there? No wonder their company is left in ruins: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://andreasgauger.typepad.com/andreas_weblog/2008/02/amsterdam.html1AND1">http://andreasgauger.typepad.com/andrea ... .html1AND1</a><!-- m --> went down this past Monday. I've been with them for 4 years now and never a had problem. Not billing, outage or technical support. Now this.
What I'm expecting is for someone to tell me what's wrong, the impact and whether I can expect this to be a long outage or a simple hiccup.
Monday morning, the PI call center tells me they are aware and working on it. Ok fine, let's give them some time to figure out what's wrong. Ten hours later, no update other than the same; they are working on it. Fine, I'm sure Tues evening they'll have it up but no. Twenty-four hours later, still the same ****ing update. Now I'm pissed.
I've got a client, who I've put together a stellar storefront for him, and he's spent $20,000 on promotion for his grand opening ON THE MONDAY MORNING of this outage. Months of work down the tube. That's just one story of my 50 clients.
Tues, I'm gearing up for recovery but no, I go to bed pissed off that my company's reputation is swirling right down the toilet.
Wed afternoon, here we are. Still no service but now I have a name Richard Winslow, thanks to you guys. I called and left a message. Will he call me back? What's your money on?Well its interesting that his calls actually went to his voicemail.
Good luck but in my experience you will need patience to get your matter resolved even through Mr. Winslow.
I think your **BEST** option for recovery is to move to a new server ASAP (you do have a backup?)
Honestly if you want to get it done right, you have to do it yourself. I have an Exchange server I've setup in the past week and will be sending it off this week to the colocation... to replace 1and1's crap service (they did give me a free year of service... not going to use it) If it fails I will know immediately why and be able to recover within the hour. Maybe not recover the backups and get that particular server online but in general email delivery would not be affected. If your client can afford $20,000 in promotion can they afford an extra $1200 up front and $100/month because that's what you can buy a very decent 1U server (hell look on ebay for slightly older HPs or IBMs and you can get an excellent backup server for <$500) and colocation service for a few of them.. even if its just a backup server and you still host your stuff with 1and1 IF 1and1 (or whatever host or even your own colocated/leased machines) goes down how are you going to get back online? Including keeping recent backups and having planned ahead and even tested your disaster recovery plans. No need to do anything fancy with unicast or automatic fail-over load balancing systems (I'm not saying they don't have their merit) but at the very minimum keep backups, keep a plan and make sure you've tested the plan to make sure it works and you haven't overlooked anything.
If you can manage to build in 100% automatic fail-over that's even better... e.g one of my clients depends 100% on IP telephony for the business. If their PBX server goes down it automatically falls back to another server. Since yesterday their primary server has been down and guess what because we PLANNED ahead for the possibility of it going down there was 0 downtime, not a missed call or a missed second of a call. The primary server is still down, yes we want to get it back up and running today or tomorrow but guess what, we aren't stressing it.
Best of luck. I'm not saying you did wrong by choosing 1and1... I mean what would anyone else think? established multinational company you would expect they know how to manage things efficiently. Honestly I used to tell people 1and1's service was reliable until this incident but their support wasn't good but after this I've noticed their management is crap too
1and1 is utter crap. I have an account with them sitting idle til October if anyone would like some free bandwidth. Just PM me and I would be happy to provide the login. I would love to see what they do when people actually use their limits.I head they would suspend accounts for "Too much CPU use, "too much RAM use," "using excessive resources," etc.I had some downtime problems with 1and1 also. More than the downtime I had some serious speed issues that ruined my hosting expirence with themgooglelady dot com /874/exclusive-1and1-hosting-interview/Yes, I stepped in 1and1 long ago and the stink remains.Most of the million GB of HDD and bandwidth for $5/month hosts are not good IMO. You get what you pay for.So I no longer use their exchange account but keep it open for the hell of it -- they gave me one free year.
Can someone explain how if no MX is pointed at them, no email address is forwarded to them how I am still constantly getting spam to the account?
Also FWIW they sent me a broken PST file. ExMerge does not accept it! And their system DO NOT check MX when sending mail if the domain or account is local... it assumes because an account is on their system it is a local address and delivers it locally... NOT a good practice! I think I answered myself. All the SPAM I am still getting comes directly from a source within the 1and1 network.The bottomline is: there are no good hosts. I'm looking for a new VPS host and considered fastnext or 1and1 - now after reading your stories here I don't know what to do. ANY ADVICE? NO AD VICE, PLEASE!As I'm sure we've all experience, the Big Dogs of a industry take $... take $... and Take $... BUT never give.Find a smaller, more customer friendly hosting provider running Parallels Automation to MS Out 2007. The customer interface has tons of management and email tools, and is very user friendly. Most of the time the smalls guys provide FAST, friendly, reliable and HELPFUL service and support 24/7 over email. Remember HostingCon 2008 is almost upon us and hosting providers exhibit like crazy. Look on HostingCon's website under the exhibitors list for the companies offering Hosted Exchange services. The newer hosting providers will have implemented Parallels Automation.Good Luck in your search for service!CoryI've had a fairly decent experience with their dedicated servers until I left about a year ago. The support is non-existent, but their control panel lets you do everything you need, so I did not need to rely on them for support.However, I regret ever registering a domain with them. I canceled a domain just as an invoice for it was coming through and apparently they did not charge my credit card before I canceled. So about a 2 weeks later, I got an email telling me I owed them a few bucks, so I emailed them back asking how can I pay it if I don't have access to the customer portal. Surprisingly, I get an email back telling me I don't owe them anything. Another week and a half later, they send another email for payment. At that point, I was pretty pissed since there was no way I could access the customer portal they instructed me to go to in order to update my info. I called up their 800 number and finally was able to give someone my credit card information and they said it would be processed the next day. Guess what, another week or so later, a final notice telling me to pay it or face collections. Called up again, thankfully this time I got a supervisor who successfully put the charge through. He claimed the previous agent put in my info but failed to process it.Dear [redacted], (Cust: [redacted])Thank you for contacting us.At this time, there is no reason to change your billing method on file,as there is no outstanding balance.If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us.--Sincerely[redacted]Billing Department1&1 Internet Inc.Right!