webspace servers down, no http or ftp access

[#1]

http and ftp access to homepages.force9.net appears to currently be broken

Typical website access attempts result in:

" Service Unavailable

The service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. "

Typical ftp access attempts result in:

host homepages.force9.net: not found

ftp.plus.net and plusnet websites various appear OK at the mo ... famous last words and all that.

[#2]

PS: For quick a check on progress in resolving issue ...

<----- No animated Avatar here = f9 webspace still down cos that's where it's hosted !

[#3]

Hello @mikeb

Thanks a lot for reaching out. We are aware of a few service outages at the moment which is also affecting our webmail service. Our team are working hard to get these resolved as soon as possible. Please accept y apologies for the inconvenience caused.

[#4]

Same problem for me. Weirdly a few pages for one website hosted on the Plusnet hosting servers are loading okay (I've cleared the cache, so the couple of pages are "new")  - but most pages are displaying an error message. Attempts to use ftp.plus.net to upload new material fail to connect.
Just a thought... does Plusnet use backup servers  for hosted websites? If not, might be a good idea.

[#5]

Same issue for www.hbs.org.uk which is a hosted site on Plusnet - having been migrated from Madasafish and previously from Freenetname.

Is this the same for others affected by this issue?

Niall...

[#6]

Hope you're all well.

Customers should now be able to log in their Plusnet email, however they may experience a delay when sending and receiving emails. We’re working to fix this as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused. Plusnet broadband and mobile services are not affected

[#7]

I have the same problems with my webspace in Plusnet, what is going on?

[#8]

Hmmmmmmmmm ......grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Just swap the text "homepages.force9.net" and "ftp.plus.net" in the initial post in this thread for an update !!!

Today, plusnet webspace isn't accessible via http or ftp but force9 webspace is.  The complete opposite of what was happening yesterday when the problem(s) were first noticed

On webspace I can access, there are no webstats/logfiles as I sort of expected would be the case. I haven't even dared to try mail because it will no doubt be completely swamped with everyone else DLing GB's of (mostly unnecessary) IMAP data. However, mail access appears flakey and intermittent at best using telnet for a quicky looky see.

    Sorry, but it's really not a good start to the day chaps

[#9]

As a footnote, every time I visit this page Bitdefender sends me this.......

"Online Threat Prevention

chrome.exe attempted to establish a connection relying on an unmatching security certificate to www.twowheels.force9.co.uk. We blocked the connection to keep your data safe since the used certificate was issued for a different web address than the targeted one. "

Add to exceptions

[#10]

That's no doubt because this stupid forum software doesn't quite seem to understand that when I upload an image from http://www.something then I *REALLY* do mean http://www.something and I definitely DO NOT mean https://www.something 

Alternatively, it's your browser trying to force an https connection which will always fail because any certificate that might be available will be for for the force9/plusnet hosting server and not for the hosted website.

Either way, it's just a silly animated gif emoticon in the post and/or my avatar which are both hosted on force9 webspace so nothing of any consequence ... unless plusnet have something *really* serious going on with their cranky old webspace servers of course !

Sorry, perhaps PN can add the issue to the todo list if it's down to them

[#11]

Just checked my hosted website again today (at 11.30am on 11 November) and nothing has changed. Most pages on site showing "unavailable" error message.  Plusnet (or should it be renamed [-Censored-]?): This really does need sorting out.

[#12]

Looks like things are running again now @4pm, can access my website ok

[#13]

I don't see any positive change here I'm afraid

Sites on homepages.force9.net do appear to be (sort) of accessible but with intermittent problems

Sites on ftp.plus.net do not appear to be accessible at all via http or ftp

<----- No animated avatar here = still problems hotlinking to webspace on homepages.force9.net ... and I currently see no avatar, but it has been there at various other times during today.

With what appears to be over-optimistic status posts, it's beginning to look like this problem will be dragged out until the weekend and then continue into next week doesn't it.

[#14]

Well, this is apparently the reason for the intermittent results and continually changing status of force9 & plusnet hosted websites.  

Both homepages.force9.net and ftp.plus.net (homepages.plus.net) allegedly each consist of 2 different servers, one of which is accepting connections and seems to be working the other is NOT accepting connections and is therefore not working in any way. Presumably, a load balancer somewhere (or just the DNS lookup itself) selects one of the 2 possible server IP addresses so it's very much hit 'n' miss which you get on any particular attempt !

Whether homepages.plus.net servers and homepages.force9.net servers are actually one and the same is anyone's guess. Whether all roads actually lead to one server, to BT equipment rather than PN equipment or even to some outsourced 3rd party equipment is also anyone's guess.

Someone's been tinkering and/or moving servers around, breaking things by making changes or generally playing silly b*ggers somewhere methinks

I've not checked at all yet but am definitely kinda thinking perhaps very much the same kinda situation with mail servers various as they also still appear to be very much hit 'n' miss ...

homepages.plus.net servers

212.159.8.91    Accepting connections and appears to be working
212.159.9.91    NOT accepting connections


> ftp 212.159.8.91
>
> Connected to 212.159.8.91.
> 220-PLEASE NOTE: If you have a non-subscription account you
> will only be able to login to this ftp server if you are
> dialled into our network.
>
> A Maximum of 4 concurrent connections are allowed to this
> server, each session is limited to 256KB/s downloads.
>
> 220 Plus.Net FTP Server #1 ready
> User (212.159.8.91:(none)): xxxxxxxx
> 331 Password required for xxxxxxxx
> Password:
> 230 User xxxxxxxx logged in
> ftp> quit
> 221 Goodbye.


> ftp 212.159.9.91
> Connected to 212.159.9.91.
> Connection closed by remote host.


homepages.force9.net servers

212.159.8.90
212.159.9.90

> ftp 212.159.8.90
>
> Connected to 212.159.8.90.
> 220-PLEASE NOTE: If you have a non-subscription account you
> will only be able to login to this ftp server if you are
> dialled into our network.
>
> A Maximum of 4 concurrent connections are allowed to this
> server, each session is limited to 256KB/s downloads.
>
> 220 Force9 FTP Server #1 ready
> User (212.159.8.90:(none)): xxxxxxxx
> 331 Password required for xxxxxxxx
> Password:
> 230 User xxxxxxxx logged in
> quit
> 221 Goodbye.


> ftp 212.159.9.90
> Connected to 212.159.9.90.
> Connection closed by remote host.


I'm at least a million miles away from being even remotely close to being any kind of expert in these things so I may well be wrong and all that. However, some good old fashioned Yorkshire honesty is clearly needed here please ... rather than what appears to be more like typical BT/PN PR BS in the service status posts

[#15]

Well Quelle Surprise and all that ...

The intermittent problems with the plusnet outgoing mail servers appears to have exactly the same cause as the intermittent problem with webspace servers.  There are 2 possible servers, one of which is mostly working, one of which definitely isn't hence the hit 'n' miss results

See details HERE 

It's "interesting" to note that all SMTP/HTTP/FTP servers with an IP address 212.159.9.xxx do not appear to be accessible at all or are just not accepting connections and/or not working sensibly in general.

Come PN, it really is time to stop the creative, over-optimistic and somewhat disingenuous service status posts ... tell the truth and shame the devil