Plesk 8 Licence Frustration, TP Not Installing Plesk Licence Keys Options

[customer]

Hello,

I'm a new customer with The Planet who is currently in the process of migrating my dedicated machines from another provider.

I thought I'd share some of the mixed experience I've had since provision my first servers less than a month ago:


The initial provisioning process appeared to go well and was done fairly quickly. Good so far!

However when I attempted to login to the Plesk control panel using the passwords provided in Orbit I found I could not login. So I opened a new trouble ticket asking for the login.

1.5hrs later the ticket was replied to saying the password had been updated to reflect what was in Orbit, but that the tech also noticed that Plesk 8 was missing it licence key and that he was forwarding this on to be corrected. It took another 3-4 hours for this to be done.

Ok, a few bumps but no big deal. Things got fixed up.



Fast forward about three weeks later. I'm behind on my migration plan and have been configuring the server. As part of this I decided to have the OS Reloaded so I could change flavours of linux.

So I fill in the OS Reload Form which opens ticket 4037735PLNT. My ticket appeared as:
--------
(name removed) Saturday May 5th, 2007; 4:11 PM CDT
This is a request to reload the Operating System on my server. The request details are as follows:

Hardware Name : (removed) (Server)
Location info : Tile : AE15 (Tile)

Operating System: CentOS Enterprise Linux, Version 4
Comments : Please include Plesk Unlimited Domains w/PowerPack and verify the licence key is installed correctly - when I first had the server provisioned the key was missing).

Thank you!
-------


Note the comments. I put that in just to be sure there were no problems with Plesk this time 'round.


I get a reply:
------
(removed). - Saturday May 5th, 2007; 5:00 PM CDT
We have your update. We will be checking your hardware object to ensure it is correct (making sure the correct o/s and license for plesk are included), please stand by for updates.

Thank you
(removed)
Datacenter Technician
Houston Datacenter 2
The Planet

(removed) - Saturday May 5th, 2007; 5:04 PM CDT
I have edited your object to ensure you are getting cent o/s and that the plesk license is included. Proceeding with o/s reload, please stand by for updates.

Thank you
(removed)
Datacenter Technician
Houston Datacenter 2
The Planet
------------


Perfect! Wonderful! In less than an hour they're working on, and have specifically verified that the Plesk key will be included. I got several status report replies as well, which I appreciated (thank you!).



Upon completion of the re-install I receive:
-------
(removed) - Saturday May 5th, 2007; 6:24 PM CDT
Your server has completed loading Cent o/s and plesk . Your server is online responding to ping and ssh. Sending to sales for completion. Please stand by for updates.

Thank you
(removed)
Datacenter Technician
Houston Datacenter 2
The Planet
------------



Great I think and go off to login to my newly rebuilt machine... only to find Plesk won't let me in. Password isn't what's in Orbit. Uhh oh.
(note my ticket says still as I'd attempted to login earlier before receiving final confirmation that it was complete and couldn't login. I made a note of it at that point and appologized if I was jumping the gun in trying to login too soon)

-------
(removed) - Saturday May 5th, 2007; 8:08 PM CDT
Hello,

Plesk is still not accessible. The Admin password for the server is NOT the password listed in Orbit.

Please advise.

Thanks,
(removed)
-----------


Being impatient I logged in via SSH and manually retrieved the password... it was "password". Uh oh x2.

Get into Plesk, find the Power Pack isn't installed.... update my ticket.... look some more, realize Plesk AGAIN doesn't have a licence key installed!

Now the first time round, ok, things happen. But to have specifically mentioned this problem AND had the rep say they'd verify the key was installed only to get my system back without the promised key was quite frustrating.


Over the course of many hours I continued to update my ticket trying to get someone to install the darn Plesk key. By 10pm I was getting rather irritable. The whole process had "finished" at 6:30.

Not long after 10pm I finally realize that my ticket replies were being sent off to accounting, not tech support. Now to be fair the rep did say he was forwarding it on to Sales for processing... and it does say at the top of the ticket that it's queued for Accounting. But I was looking at the bottom of the ticket. Can't blame TP for that though I'd personally prefer if the transition was more clearly indicated within the transferring ticket itself.


So now it's open a new Tech Support ticket. Which I did at 10:20. The key was finally installed at 2:05am.



I'm not sure why Plesk wasn't installed correctly, but it has happened to me twice now within 3 weeks.

Otherwise things are going fairly well!

[customer]

Whoa.. hadn't realized how long my message actually got there.


So, let me say quickly:

- New to The Planet
- Been mostly happy with everything so far
- Impressed with how quickly OS reload was done and with great progress reports
- Was a bit frustrated with the whole Plesk issue particularly given it'd happened before


So far I have to say I'm pretty happy with The Planet!

Thanks

[James Erickson]

It would appear that this has been corrected, please feel free to PM me if you experience any further issues.