BWD Server down (host.bwd-graphics.com) - RESOLVED

May 24, 2022 6:27pm EDT - BWD server is down. Determining cause, and attempting reconnection.

May 24, 2022 6:35pm EDT - Server is back online; self-resolved. Investigating potential cause.

May 24, 2022 6:38pm EDT - Server load looks fine, potential traffic issue with one user. All is well.

RESOLVED

BWD-Graphics.com Server Offline - May 2 [RESOLVED]

The main BWD hosting server is down since ~5:30am EST today, May 2nd. The technicians are aware of the issue, and working to resolve it. At this time there is no solid estimate for when the server will be back online. Will update this post when it has been restored.

RESOLVED: Server is back online at 7:15am EST

Server Offline - July 14th, 2015

The data center where the BWD server is located is currently offline. Top-tier support techs are working to restore service. It should be back online "within the hour" (not sure which hour).

Will update this post when service is restored.

UPDATE: Service restored at 4:05pm ET

Data Center Down—Sites Offline

Wednesday morning, November 26th, 7:15am ET, the data center hosting all BWD sites (and email) is temporarily down/out of service. The current status predicts the service will be back online "within the hour”.

UPDATE: Issue resolved 7:17am ET.

Slow or Offline Websites/Email ** UPDATED **

Hi folks

You may have noticed that your website or email have been fairly frequently going down the past few weeks. We have been investigating and attempting to correct as soon as we become aware of it (which has been sometimes nearly instantly). The hosting company has also been very quick to respond, and has assured me every time that the culprit is not a BWD-hosted account. (All BWD-hosted accounts are on a shared hosting server, meaning there are other "accounts" on the same machine. That's where the problem was originating.)

The culprit appears to be some malicious (and over-active) scripts on another account on the server. They've been deleting/removing them as soon as they discover them, but they have not successfully removed all of them until (they are fairly certain) today. Here's the message from the hosting company.

There have been so many script problems on your server recently. I see that we disabled one script on the 13th and two scripts yesterday. I was seeing a higher than normal load on your server right now and I contacted one of our team of experts that monitor your server. They found yet another script to disable. The load average is coming down and things appear to be getting back to normal. He is not seeing any other problems at this time.

I'm very sorry that you are having to deal with other users' script problems. Our team of monitors are viewing our shared servers around the clock, making sure that all services are running and users are "playing nice". Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I know that some of you have had trouble sending email (hitting the mail server at one of the times it was overloaded/down). Hopefully the problem has been (finally) completely corrected.

Thanks,
Greg Campbell
BWD-Graphics.com

UPDATE: Issue Re-Opened

The issues are apparently not completely resolved. I am working directly with level II tech support with the hosting company to resolve this as quickly as possible. Again, the issue is not with any BWD-hosted account, but with a handful of other accounts hosted on the server. When the source is discovered it is immediately disabled, but the original source has not yet been discovered as new scripts are constantly surfacing and bogging down the server, at least hourly or more! Will update again when a final resolution has been reached.

UPDATE Jun 23 10:55am ET: The server was down AGAIN today... this issue has obviously not been corrected. Working on it again with the hosting company. Very sorry for the inconvenience.

High Server Load - Resolved

The server that hosts all BWD-hosted accounts was experiencing unusually high loads over the past few days. This was causing at least slowness, and sometimes websites and email were intermittently down. After investigation, the cause seems to be an account owned by another reseller on the same server. The account has been brought under control now, and you should not have any further downtime for your websites or email.

Please contact us if you are still having trouble connecting to the server for either.

Thanks,
Greg Campbell
BWD-Graphics

Servers Down

It would appear that as of about 1pm ET the BWD server is down. I am checking into it, but am unable to reach tech support at the moment. Past experience says that this will be remedied in 5-10 minutes, but I'll keep on top of it and update this post if I learn of any more delay than that.

Thanks,
Greg Campbell
BWD

UPDATE:
A couple bad signs are that the tech support line is "busy" (or, when I did get through a message said they are not accepting calls at the moment) and most of their own access points are down as well. So it's the hosting company, or a large chunk of it, not just the BWD server.

UPDATE:
And, right on cue, at 1:06pm ... the server seems to be operational once again. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Old Hosting Accounts Closed

As was stated previously, all (nearly all) BWD hosted accounts have been closed/deleted from the old server. I am in the process of moving the old (main) domain name [bwd-graphics.com] to the new hosting service. That should be completed by the end of this week. All of your domains should be pointing to the new servers. If you are unsure, please contact me via the email address in the left sidebar.

Thanks everyone for your patience through this. I am very happy with the new hosting service and hope that the months and years ahead will be very, very stable!

Greg Campbell
Basic Web Design & Graphics

Continued Server Issues

As you may have noticed, there was another good chunk of time that the [old] BWD servers were down/inaccessible today. That will be the last straw. About 40-50% of the BWD accounts were moved to a new hosting service over the past several weeks. Tonight and the rest of this week I will move ALL accounts to a new hosting service.

Ideally you will not notice the change. If you have changed your email password since I created it for you then I will not be able to set that up for you. That will be a simple password "change" once the domain is pointing to the new server. You will not miss any mail. I will send you a link to check mail on the old server in case any does get directed there.

(In fact, I'll post it here: http://bwd-graphics.com/webmail ... login there with your email address and password to get any mail sent to the old server once the domain points to the new server.)

I'll send an email to everyone once all have been officially moved.

So sorry for the past month of at best inconvenience, at worst giant headaches. (I know I have one...)

Thanks for your patience.
Greg Campbell
BWD

Server Downtime [Conclusion?]

The hosting service has decided that the problem is a hardware issue that is not repairable, and are currently moving ALL of their accounts (including all BWD accounts) to brand new servers. This will result in a bit more downtime this weekend, but by Monday, all should be smooth sailing.

Here is their message in response to a support ticket yesterday:

I am transferring your sites now... Your nameservers for ns1.bwd-graphics.com / ns2.bwd-graphics.com will be updated towards the end of the transfer. Please note that it could take some time for propagation, and it will probably be a rough transition as a result of the old server occasionally going down, but when it's all done it should be very nice.

Because of this, I have suspended any migrations that were in process to the other hosting service. Probably about 20% of BWD accounts have been moved from the company who has had the hardware trouble for three weeks now to the new hosting company. You have been notified if yours was one of these accounts.

I will be watching very closely over the next week to see what will happen with the current hosting company (on the new hardware). If there are still issues, I will have to continue moving accounts.

If you would prefer me to move your account anyway, just let me know. Use the email address in the left column of this page.

Thanks.
Greg Campbell
BWD

UPDATE:

FYI, as of this afternoon (Jul 10), All BWD accounts have been moved to the new hardware (but with the same hosting company, except for those mentioned above who have been individually contacted about being moved to a new hosting company). There may be some domain name server propagation issues (being directed to the wrong server) but overall it seems the switch has been made and this should resolve all of the downtime and slowness issues. Please contact me if you're still experiencing problems after Monday. (A couple of days to make sure any name server issues are resolved.) Thanks.

MAJOR Issues Continue - Moving Accounts

The main BWD hosting company has not resolved the issues that have plagued the servers hosting most BWD hosted websites and email accounts, and though we have a long-standing and excellent relationship with this company, it has been nearly a week of intermittent connectivity (plus a day where the sites were inaccessible for a couple hours just before this past week) and many times the sites and email have been completely down for even hours.

This problem does not affect everyone, but the highest-traffic sites are being moved over and configured so that you will experience very little (or no) server move related downtime. Hoping to have all such sites moved to a new hosting service by the end of this weekend.

If you are having issues, please contact me using the alternate address in the left sidebar.

So sorry for the past week of very sub-par service. Looking forward to using the new faster, more reliable service.

Thanks for your patience, and your business.

Greg Campbell
BWD

BWD Servers Down for up to Four Hours

If your site relies on databases to deliver some or all of your content, you may have noticed today that that delivery is quite intermittent. We have been looking into any and all reasons this might be occurring, and the data center finally decided it could be a hardware problem. This will require shutting the servers down for up to four hours today.

VERY sorry for the inconvenience. Things break, to be sure, but added to the ongoing issues described below, this has been a very frustrating week for everyone involved.

Will update this post as updates are available.

Thanks,
Greg Campbell
BWD

UPDATE - 5:04pm:
The servers have been restored, and there do not appear to be any more database-related errors. Again, sorry for the inconvenience and downtime. Let me know if you are noticing any more issues.

BWD Hosting Down: 4:14pm ET 23 Jun

It has come to my attention that the BWD hosting servers are completely unavailable at the moment. Websites and Email are down until the service can be restored. I'll update this post as there are any developments, or when the service is restored completely.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

RESOLUTION:
At about 5:15pm, service was completely restored. Let me know if you're having any trouble with website access and/or email sending and receiving.

Server Down - Feb 13 [RESOLVED]

The BWD server was rebooted earlier today (about 1.5 hours ago) to correct some issue, but unfortunately, that seems to have caused greater issues. The server is down and they are working on getting it back up. As of 6:50pm, still not back up, but will update this post when the issue has been corrected. Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: (7:31pm ET)
This is a very serious issue. We will continue to monitor it and update you here.
The following update was posted by the hosting company:

February 13, 7:20 PM (NY time)
ACCELEX SERVER UPDATE:
The server had to be rebooted due to an overload. Unfortunately, the reboot left the file system of the entire server in a state of disrepair, which has led to a loss of data for all web sites on the server. At this time, the DC techs are attempting to repair the damage and recover the data. More information will be posted here when it becomes available.
If the data can not be recovered as-is, we will begin restoring the most recent backups available. Please note that the MySQL partition was not damaged, so database information will still be up-to-date. It is only files that will have to be restored.

February 13, 8:42pm (NY time)
The file system check is currently at 43%. Updates will be posted as they become available.

February 13, 10:42pm (NY time) (BACK ONLINE)
The server had to be rebooted due to an overload. Unfortunately, the reboot left the file system of the entire server in a state of disrepair, which led to a loss of data for all web sites on the server. The DC techs were successful in repairing the damage and recovering the data in a relatively short period of time. Thank you for your patience while the problem was resolved.

Google Warning: Phishing Scam [Resolved]

Some BWD clients may have recently received an email notifying you that Google has tagged your site as a potential host for a phishing scam. This is not true. (Well, it's not completely true.) There was an issue with another account on the same server as BWD hosted accounts, and somehow Google identified any domain associated with that server/IP address as harmful.

However, as you'll notice, all of your pages are still up and not blocked by Google's phishing scam filter (As the link in the email was.) This is because BWD-Graphics.com accounts were NOT affected by this scam.

The issue has been traced and resolved. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at support.bwd-graphics.com.

Here's an example of the email you may have received.

From: noreply@google.com
Date: November 5, 2009 1:06:03 PM EST
To: abuse@yourdomain.com, admin@yourdomain.com, administrator@yourdomain.com, contact@yourdomain.com, info@yourdomain.com, postmaster@yourdomain.com, support@yourdomain.com, webmaster@yourdomain.com
Subject: Phishing notification regarding yourdomain.com

Dear site owner or webmaster of yourdomain.com,

We recently discovered that some pages on your site look like a probable phishing attack, in which users are encouraged to give up sensitive information such as login credentials or banking information. We have begun showing a warning page to users who visit this site in certain browsers that receive anti-phishing data from Google, as well as users redirected to this site from various Google properties.

Below are one or more example URLs on your site which appear to be part of a phishing attack:
http://www.yourdomain.com/~dbean/components/com_letterman/images/hsbc.co.uk12personal/httpwww.hsbc.co.uk12personalcredit-cards;jsessionid=0000pDFvvK08lyoIpQOFOAhC_Ct11j74l29q/

Here is a link to a sample warning page:
http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http%3A//www.yourdomain.com/~dbean/components/com_letterman/images/hsbc.co.uk12personal/httpwww.hsbc.co.uk12personalcredit-cards%3Bjsessionid%3D0000pDFvvK08lyoIpQOFOAhC_Ct11j74l29q/

We strongly encourage you to investigate this immediately to protect users who are being directed to a suspected phishing attack being hosted on your web site. Although some sites intentionally host such attacks, in many cases the webmaster is unaware because:

1) the site was compromised
2) the site doesn't monitor for malicious user-contributed content

If your site was compromised, it's important to not only remove the content involved in the phishing attack, but to also identify and fix the vulnerability that enabled such content to be placed on your site. We suggest contacting your hosting provider if you are unsure of how to proceed.

Once you've secured your site, and removed the content involved in the suspected phishing attack, or if you believe we have made an error and this is not actually a phishing attack, you can request that the warning be removed by visiting
http://sb.google.com/safebrowsing/report_error/ and reporting an "incorrect forgery alert." We will review this request and take the appropriate actions.

Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

UPDATE: Google continues to send the warning emails, so I checked with the hosting company to verify that your accounts are clear, and they are. Here was the response:

Nov 11, 09:24AM
Hi Greg,

Yes, I can verify. Those messages should be ignored. If [you] click the link in the email [you] will see that it doesn't go anywhere. It is a total mistake on google's part.

Data Center Outage Affected Some BWD Hosting Accounts

There was a fairly lengthy downtime yesterday for some BWD hosting accounts, which I was made aware of. I checked with the company that hosts the affected accounts, and sure enough there was a major problem yesterday. Very sorry for the loss of service yesterday. All seems to be mostly back in order. Let me know if you are having any more problems (website/email down).

Here's the notification they released.

Data Center Outage October 1, 2009.
Yesterday, October 1, 2009, we experienced an outage at one of our datacenters. Customers that were housed in that datacenter experienced total connectivity loss for a significant portion of the day.

The outage was caused by a failure of one of our core routers, which caused an overload in our network connections. Due to this overload, we experienced a series of secondary issues that caused connections to our servers to drop.

At this time, we have brought the network traffic back to a nominal state and expect to have 99 percent of our customers up and running with all services running normally. However, we do expect to have a small degradation of services while we continue to make adjustments to our Network. These services may include, CGI, FTP, Mail, or MySQL.

In addition, we are in the process of making improvements to our Network Topology to ensure that we don't experience this type of failure in the future. This will require us to schedule a Maintenance window of down time, so that we can implement the changes. We will schedule this downtime at some point next week, and we will schedule it at a point in time with the least amount of network traffic, to minimize the effects to you.

We thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

- 10/02/09 at 14:27 ET

Trouble With AOL Email

Several BWD clients have expressed concern regarding emails sent to or received from AOL users in the past week or two. AOL has changed their mail processing structure so that email generated by BWD clients is being rejected and also not delivered to any domains with BWD hosted IP addresses. This is a poorly planned attempt by AOL to manage and filter SPAM, which has resulted in a frustrating incapacitation of legitimate email traffic.

The hosting company that we use has and is taking measures to remedy this by purchasing new IP addresses that will be assigned to the accounts of anyone who is affected by this issue. If you are unable to send to or receive from people using @aol.com email addresses, please let me know and we'll get your domain on these new IP addresses which should resolve the issue.

Sorry for the trouble. AOL is often on the wrong side of these frustrating issues. Thanks for your patience.

Greg Campbell
BWD

Slow Server, E-Mail

The BWD-Graphics servers have been slow today due to a migration of another account on the shared server. This has caused slow web page loading as well as slow or dropped email connections (requests to re-enter your password as well).

The process has almost completed as of 1:20pm ET and all web and email functionality should be restored within the next hour or so.

Thanks for your patience,
Greg Campbell
BWD-Graphics

Service Restored

Web hosting and email are once again operational. Will post any details I can regarding downtime here at this post.

Thanks,
Greg Campbell
BWD

UPDATE:
(from the hosting provider)

One server experienced 45 minutes of downtime today, while the other server was down approximately 30 minutes. The second server is functioning perfectly and was involved by mistake. The first server may have a problem with one of its drives, as it was exhibiting an audible alarm. After reboot, however, all seems to be fine. If additional downtime is required for this server, every effort will be made to conduct hardware upgrades during a period of low traffic (3:30am to 4:00am, New York Time).

May 12th, 2009: Reason for Service Outage

FYI, I received this response from the hosting company regarding the outage today from 5:45 ET to 6:21 ET:

An entire data center went down, ([located] in Dallas, TX). It was a router issue.