Hired Alpha Services to update and patch server. Their team installs Atomic Rocket Turtle scripts to tweak Plesk. When I got rid of them due to problem as a result of Atomic Rocket stuff, the Planet tech support said they cannot help me as the patches to Plesk are "unsupported". This has been going on for a year!
Now that we have grown and desperately need Plesk Billing, guess what, it doesn't work! I cannot Suspend or Unsuspend a site, plesk is broken.
The Planet's Solution? Pay them to reinstall the OS, pay them to restore the data and fix the problem. Pay them to fix a problem that their Alpha Services team caused.
Simply amazing.
And we request management review, they say the same thing. Perhaps the CEO should stop sending out surveys and actually read some tickets...
Full Version: Avoid Alpha services
I'm looking through your tickets and trying to understand what exactly is going on.
ART is a supported part of our Advanced Services management packages, though you were told incorrectly that it was unsupported at the time. The representative responding to the ticket at the time was unaware of the policy difference between standard support and Advanced Services support. Upon getting this misinformation, the AS support was the easy target for the issue with webmail and passwords you saw a few months ago ... Plesk acknowledged these problems were a result of a software bug, not any changes made on the server.
In one of the current open tickets, Plesk's response recommends
http://kb.parallels.com/en/6171 as a possible solution after investigating, but the ticket turned to a request for management review at this point without any acknowledgment of that update ... were you able to attempt this fix?
I see that in subsequent updates, we've offered to waive the OS reload charges to get the server back to a blank canvas, but it's not possible to meet the request to do so without causing any downtime to users on the server (as the OS is wiped and replaced, the content has to be backed up and restored), so the next step is not exactly clear. Supervisors in Tech Support and Advanced Services have been involved throughout these tickets to assist, and I'm sorry that Plesk Billing has not worked as expected. I'll keep an eye on the accounting ticket (6144724PLNT) to see that it is handled correctly.
The phrasing of that ticket might cause some problems ... if you're looking to continue the troubleshooting process, you may need to update that ticket. The billing department read "removal of this service if its been added," and see it as "cancel this service on this server" instead of "make sure I don't get charged for this until it works" ... If you intended the former, no clarification is necessary. If you intended the latter, please update the ticket to clarify.
ART is a supported part of our Advanced Services management packages, though you were told incorrectly that it was unsupported at the time. The representative responding to the ticket at the time was unaware of the policy difference between standard support and Advanced Services support. Upon getting this misinformation, the AS support was the easy target for the issue with webmail and passwords you saw a few months ago ... Plesk acknowledged these problems were a result of a software bug, not any changes made on the server.
In one of the current open tickets, Plesk's response recommends
http://kb.parallels.com/en/6171 as a possible solution after investigating, but the ticket turned to a request for management review at this point without any acknowledgment of that update ... were you able to attempt this fix?
I see that in subsequent updates, we've offered to waive the OS reload charges to get the server back to a blank canvas, but it's not possible to meet the request to do so without causing any downtime to users on the server (as the OS is wiped and replaced, the content has to be backed up and restored), so the next step is not exactly clear. Supervisors in Tech Support and Advanced Services have been involved throughout these tickets to assist, and I'm sorry that Plesk Billing has not worked as expected. I'll keep an eye on the accounting ticket (6144724PLNT) to see that it is handled correctly.
The phrasing of that ticket might cause some problems ... if you're looking to continue the troubleshooting process, you may need to update that ticket. The billing department read "removal of this service if its been added," and see it as "cancel this service on this server" instead of "make sure I don't get charged for this until it works" ... If you intended the former, no clarification is necessary. If you intended the latter, please update the ticket to clarify.
Thank you for the response. But what I think you failed to mention is that the OS needs to be reloaded as a result of Advanced Services handiwork - that I paid for....
Anyway, I would like a refund for the Advanced Services "services" paid for, Plesk Billing to be removed and no charge (since it doesn't work and I am tired of paying for something that doesn't work and being told to pay to fix it because it is a self-managed server).
The Plesk SMTP issue is totally separate and has nothing to do with this concern and is rightly so a Plesk programming issue as you mentioned.
There is no reason that I have to backup data, OS Reload with downtime and hundreds of customers downtime and restore the data when this is a result of Advanced Services early handiwork when they first came on board with The Planet. Handling outside the normal protocol, whether setting up a separate server, setting up a mirrored live drive and working it that way, can and should be handled by the planet.
This is not an unreasonable request.
** As a side note, this is not the proper forum for handling this type of concern or resolution, but when tickets fail and there is a consistent backlog of non-sense from non-lead techs, my hands were tied. Feel free to continue this dialogue outside of the public forum.
Anyway, I would like a refund for the Advanced Services "services" paid for, Plesk Billing to be removed and no charge (since it doesn't work and I am tired of paying for something that doesn't work and being told to pay to fix it because it is a self-managed server).
The Plesk SMTP issue is totally separate and has nothing to do with this concern and is rightly so a Plesk programming issue as you mentioned.
There is no reason that I have to backup data, OS Reload with downtime and hundreds of customers downtime and restore the data when this is a result of Advanced Services early handiwork when they first came on board with The Planet. Handling outside the normal protocol, whether setting up a separate server, setting up a mirrored live drive and working it that way, can and should be handled by the planet.
This is not an unreasonable request.
** As a side note, this is not the proper forum for handling this type of concern or resolution, but when tickets fail and there is a consistent backlog of non-sense from non-lead techs, my hands were tied. Feel free to continue this dialogue outside of the public forum.
I touched on the concern that the Advanced Service work was to blame in the second paragraph:
The use of ART was not accidental and as I understand it, it is a part of the standard process of supporting servers with Advanced Services. The SMTP problems were also initially believed to be a result of Advanced Services and ART. The reason I reference it here is to remind that the work performed by AS was not the cause of the issues then, and there are no indications the work performed would have affected Plesk in such a way as to cause a disconnect between the control panel and the billing service ... in all likelihood continued correspondence with Plesk would have pinpointed the cause and we would have been able to resolve the issues as we did in the previous issue.
Because there's no indication that the AS changes (and subsequent reverted changes) from August of '08 could be the culprit, we have been working through this with Parallels to determine what the cause could be. If the knowledgebase article referenced above did not resolve the issue, we would continue to work with them to determine the best fix. In the SMTP issue, we were also initially provided with ineffective solutions, but after providing additional feedback, we were able to nail down exactly what was going wrong.
I'd be happy to continue providing insight and feedback via email: khazard @ theplanet.com ... If I haven't provided that in the past, I'm very sorry. As a customer, you can always consider any of The Planet's representatives here on the forum as your second line of support. We'll do what we can to help make sure the first line of support (tickets/phone/chat) is helping as they should. It doesn't have to be a thread to be important.
QUOTE
ART is a supported part of our Advanced Services management packages, though you were told incorrectly that it was unsupported at the time. The representative responding to the ticket at the time was unaware of the policy difference between standard support and Advanced Services support. Upon getting this misinformation, the AS support was the easy target for the issue with webmail and passwords you saw a few months ago ... Plesk acknowledged these problems were a result of a software bug, not any changes made on the server.
The use of ART was not accidental and as I understand it, it is a part of the standard process of supporting servers with Advanced Services. The SMTP problems were also initially believed to be a result of Advanced Services and ART. The reason I reference it here is to remind that the work performed by AS was not the cause of the issues then, and there are no indications the work performed would have affected Plesk in such a way as to cause a disconnect between the control panel and the billing service ... in all likelihood continued correspondence with Plesk would have pinpointed the cause and we would have been able to resolve the issues as we did in the previous issue.
Because there's no indication that the AS changes (and subsequent reverted changes) from August of '08 could be the culprit, we have been working through this with Parallels to determine what the cause could be. If the knowledgebase article referenced above did not resolve the issue, we would continue to work with them to determine the best fix. In the SMTP issue, we were also initially provided with ineffective solutions, but after providing additional feedback, we were able to nail down exactly what was going wrong.
I'd be happy to continue providing insight and feedback via email: khazard @ theplanet.com ... If I haven't provided that in the past, I'm very sorry. As a customer, you can always consider any of The Planet's representatives here on the forum as your second line of support. We'll do what we can to help make sure the first line of support (tickets/phone/chat) is helping as they should. It doesn't have to be a thread to be important.
Thank you. I noticed a tech has since logged into the server (prior to any of your responses) and removed/updated all Art files.
Plesk has had anomalies since AS - including the ability to suspend/unsuspend sites (doesn't work). It can only be deduced that the Plesk problems started happening after AS did their patches. I still stand behind my comments on this, cancelling it months ago never really got rid of them. I still have someone logging in server and producing "Security Audits". Its a problem that won't go away and has a lasting problem on the server.
"Below are the results for your monthly Advanced Services Security Audit....completed by shaque" as recent as Oct 3...
It would be nice to see it fixed and remedied, its the not the easy solution for the planet but the right one.
p.s. Kevin, thanks for the response, I know you are entirely too busy for this type of issue - I wish your time was better spent and you could pass this to someone to remedy it without spending more of your time. In following you over the years, your time is better well spent on more pressing issues for the broader community. Thanks for all your great work over the years.
Plesk has had anomalies since AS - including the ability to suspend/unsuspend sites (doesn't work). It can only be deduced that the Plesk problems started happening after AS did their patches. I still stand behind my comments on this, cancelling it months ago never really got rid of them. I still have someone logging in server and producing "Security Audits". Its a problem that won't go away and has a lasting problem on the server.
"Below are the results for your monthly Advanced Services Security Audit....completed by shaque" as recent as Oct 3...
It would be nice to see it fixed and remedied, its the not the easy solution for the planet but the right one.
p.s. Kevin, thanks for the response, I know you are entirely too busy for this type of issue - I wish your time was better spent and you could pass this to someone to remedy it without spending more of your time. In following you over the years, your time is better well spent on more pressing issues for the broader community. Thanks for all your great work over the years.
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