Now it all becomes clear, I was wondering why I couldn't get at gmail.com.

As an aside, Firefox (latest patch) simply timed out and gave me a blank page, exploder however actaully got me to the page and my email. Never thought I'd say this but I owe a lot to exploder, as I was trying to fire a CV off for what could be a very lucrative job.

My physical server hosted with them has been fine all day.

having just spent the whole morning fart arsing around trying to sort out why I couldnt connect (i thought I'd just screwed the server I was installing)I eventually got to speak to an eskimo via a bean can and a bit of string who very very quietly told me that virgin media had blocked their ip range, although virgin medias support (another super quiet, distorted person a billion miles away) told me he knew nothing about it, this was obviously after the 20min (£10!!!) support call that told me it was my fauilt.

I've tried searching and this was the only bit of news I found ( for some reason I cant connect to news.google either).

sorry just had to rant - nothing of any real use here...... o hum red wine it is then.....

I have the misfortune of using 1and1 for hosting - in a 14 day period I have had 5 days of downtime, been kept on hold by disinterested support personnel for hours at a time, given conflicting advice on whether they support AJAX and was suprised to find out that AJAX is only supported on Linux Servers.

To call them useless is a complement.

http://www.evilscience.co.uk/?cat=8

FTP for fasthosts is also knackered. (Has been since 3pm according to their message - it's now just gone 5pm!)

All my 1and1 hosted ecommerce sites are down since around lunchtime - and still down.

Strangely it seems to affecting Virgin Media ISP users more than others as far as I can make out.

No problems here with my 1&1 hosted sites / email today, touch chipboard...

Why would this have affected gmail, anyway?

1 and 1 are usually very reliable - so this is unusual for them.

A previous customer used to have a server with 1and1 - they were impossible to get hold of. E-mails to their support/customer services team would often go unanswered, or when they were answered they would not be correct technically or have any proper use.

Their UK phone support teams never seemed to exist, with calls always ending up being transferred, in queues for literally hours, and on two occassions when they were got through to the call quality was very poor and was dropped on both occassions.

They are cheap, but they never seemed able to offer very good customer service. Of course, this was my customer's experience that I was involved with. It was just one account about a year ago - it may have been out of the ordinary or have improved since, but I've never had the urge to find out myself!

Hi

I've been experiencing problems today from sometime this afternoon. Amazingly I got through to someone at tech support at 1and1 who said they are experiencing difficulties with Virgin Media customers. I called Virgin who knew nothing about it. Meanwhile my business is without internet or email. Wonderful!

1and1 are German not English, although they do host at lot of UK sites.

Definitely not a total whoopsie for 1&1. A shared hosting site that I administer is working just fine. Had a slightly slow moment earlier but otherwise just fine.

My Business server (along with my email and gmail.com) has been, and still is, unreachable via Virgin Broadband.

However, connecting via next doors wireless connection (thank god for people who can't set up their modems!) is fine.

Erm, AJAX is client side javascript fetching a file from a web server. The server only has to serve files via HTTP for it to work (if it can't do that it's not a web server).

I had no problems today accessing my site, which is hosted on 1&1, from work. Now at home and using Virgin Broadband, I can't access it. If you call the Virgin Status Line they tell you that they have a problem with accessing sites located in Germany, which is were most 1&1 sites will be physically hosted.

More fool you for having to phone, AJAX is client side with some server request - which are done over HTTP, so the server has no idea if it's an AJAX request or just a normal browser request. Unless of course you were enquiring as to if they had the MS AJAX user controls available on .net

I just moved my web site to 1and1. paid that little bit more, thinking I was going to get better service than with Globat.com, who are unspeakably bad.

it looks like you don't get what you pay for after all. It's not a big ask is it? that your website is up and running.

I'm glad I don't rely on it to do business. F*&$^N£ B"*£s)%

How is 1 and 1 a UK web host?

Although it advertises like it is, it was based in Germany last time I looked!

Another ploy by Virgin to rip more money from their punters, when in fact it's them who've screwed up.

I can access my 1&1 server from a webproxy (over the Virgin Media network) and yet I cannot do so directly (on ports 25/80/110 etc).

Numpties have obviously killed something. Go figure.

You say 1 & 1 last went down in January, what about the massive outage the reg reported in October?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/31/1and1_dedicated_titsup/

Short memory?

One of my clients can't reach a 1&1 hosted site that's working fine for me. Trying to find out who her ISP is.....

Only five days they're e-shop consistently timed out paymenst over a 3 month period for us, took ten days and legal threats before they implemented the fix we suggested to them on the first day. Definetly not 99.9% uptime.

My 1and 1 has been working all day with no downtime. Maybe you should blame your crappy computer, which is no doubt riddled with Russian or Chinese spyware, which is trying to bring down Europe's critcal infrastructure. In your case, consider yourself already "down".

This is still an issue for me, I have been unable to connect to 1and1.co.uk and all my domains and emails all day. I am also a Virgin Media customer?

So who do we contact or more importantly who is going to fix this!?

we have 23 servers with fasthosts and 3 are down at present. we have been told its our fault these are down by one person and then after a 45 minute wait on phone was told they now looking into again - something very uncomfortable is going on with this company and looking at 1 and 1 etc i would suggest worryingly some kind of serious hack attack is happening . Fasthosts service by the way is simply shocking and we are now leaving the company.

"We are having connectivity problem across our network this will result connection problems for our customer. Our engineers are investigating."

Anything hosted by 1&1 has vanished off the map from my home virgin network. No email, no web, no pings.

But use Tor as a proxy, and suddenly it's all back.

Hmm.

I suspect it's a serious problem with international routing in Germany. At the moment I can reach only a small number of German and Austrian websites . I tried www.heise.de (which is likely to have information on the problem) but couldn't reach it. I am on Virgin (NTL), but I don't think it's their fault, at least not entirely. I tried traceroute to Germany from the Netherlands, the US and from Poland. Only Poland worked. This has been going on for at least 2 hours. I am also having problems with many Austrian sites, although all universities seem to be reachable. No problems with French sites. It really looks as if the major route to Germany (DE-CIX in Frankfurt?) is cut off.

As to the Gmail problem: Sometimes I can reach Gmail, sometimes I can't. I suppose it depends on which of the many IP addresses I am getting for it.

Hans

proxy gets round this

webcache.virginmedia.com

PORT 3128

go to internet options/connections/LAN settings/

Check The Proxy Server Box And enter the proxy details (address/port) click ok on everything

problem fixed

just uncheck the proxy sever box to go back to normal settings

9.99% uptime == 53 minutes downtime per year.

I moved from 1and1 about 3 years ago after having nothing but problems, do what I did, claim every penny of your money back and really stick it to them.

Despite claims, the UK supports is all but non existant, and if by some act of God, there is sombody you can talk to, they won't know their arse from their elbow. Also their management UIs are dreadful, and I don't know weather they've fixed it yet but their DNS management UI was broken for at least a month when I was with them.

1and1 are a dreadful host, in fact I can't think if a single other company (and I've been through a few) who were anything like as bad. I cannot denounce this company enough.

AJAX == Async XML + Javascript

Its nothing new, its not a special technology, and can be used on any OS that supports server side scripting and a client with an up to date browser.

Mods: I hate to bitch, but is it really beyond you to produce a working "Remember me" function?

Don't get me wrong, I love the form you've added, its really pretty and no doubt fools most people, but it'd be even better if it actually did what it says on the tin and worked.

Smokindope is spot on - I've just gone via Virgin's proxy and all my 1and1 sites are there.

I know 1and1 have shitty cust services but I've found their hosting to pretty reliable.

This is def a fubar by Branston's boys.

Virgin Media's web proxy has been fubared for the last week with periodic non-availability of a whole slew of websites, including, most SERIOUS OF ALL, El Reg :(

Knowing what a bunch of cock monkeys their support staff are, there was no way that I was going to call their premium rate "support" line to report the fault. It's been very obviously a fault with their systems as other ISPs have no issues. I'm certainly not going to call them just to be run through a poxy (unfortunately not a proxy) script regarding turning off all security, connecting via a USB connectionm restarting computer 5 times and the various other insane, inane and dumb things that they'll have you attempt before telling you that it's not their problem but yours and "thanks for the cash".

From Virgin Media's status page

Ticket

Ticket Number 604389

Time Stamp 29/11/2007 19:45

Priority P1

Status Opened

Department Outage Surveillence Team

Estimated Time Fix 29/11/07 22:44

Customers Affected Broadband Internet

Raised By Stephen Lipinski

Detailed Description

Some customers nationally may currently be experiencing difficulties accessing certain websites that terminate in Germany.

Popular websites include:

www.oneandone.co.uk

www.1and1.co.uk

www.space4k.com

www.eyevillas.com

Online games affected may include are:

OGAMES

World of Warcraft

Guild Wars

1-2-1

City of Heroes

City of Villains

Our support groups are now investigating this issue.

Virgin Media apologise for any inconvenience caused.

- Virgin Media Technical Support

----------------------------------------

It explains why I cant get to my webspace from my Virgin Media Broadband, but can via 3g on my mobile.

Talked to a few people and so far as I can tell these issues have only affected people using certain ISPs. Only people I know who experienced any issues are Virgin/NTL customers, everyone else I know (including myself) with various other ISPs have been fine.

My connection to 1&1 has been down since 10am today.

I spoke to a numpty at 1&1 (disinterested and half a sleep) who said it was a Virgin Media issue.

Spoke to Virgin who knew nothing of the problem and said that he could access 1&1.co.uk with no issue.

Back to 1& 1 who admitted a fault with their end of the network, and that it woudl be resolved WITHIN 24hours!

Shocking!

GK

I look after about three different hosting packages placed with Fasthosts, all using Linux and MySQL. The MySQL servers are now all innaccesible. Control panel and support login facilities are unavailable as well.

As soon as I regain control of my domain, I'll be on the next boat off Fasthosts' sinking island.

Being on Virgin broadband and having Fasthosts web hosting I was unsure which was causing my problems.

But it's good old fasthosts down AGAIN, no ftp, control panel or database access, the recording says emergency maintenance timed at 3pm and it's now nearly 9pm with no fix time provided.

How many times is that this year *sigh*

EMail from Support within an hour of emailing them...

Dear Peter Sparks,

Thank you for contacting us. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has cause you and yourbusiness however as of this moment we have a connectivity issue with Virgin Media. Please rest assured though that our system administrators are aware of the problem and that they are taking extra measures toresolve this the soonest possible time. Again, my sincerest apology. Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

--Sincerely,

Florence DoitTechnical

Support1&1 Internet

Nice quick reply.

Well thanks virgin - not only can I not do any work tonight, I cant even check my email cos you have blocked several IP address ranges - what the f**k is the point really?

There is no way I am calling tech support to have some ball scratching monkey tell me to reboot my computer, restart my modem (scratch scratch), check if there are any lights flashing on my cable box, talk to their manager (scratch) and then finally come back with some bullshit about it somehow being my fault.

Virgin can suck my balls! If there were anyone else with a half decent internet service id be there but alas there isn't.

Hi Bukey by the way!

I was enquiring if they had the AJAX .net controls installed on their windows servers, or whether they could be installed by a user.The morons I spoke to seemed unsure as to what AJAX was.

1 and 1 support is based in the phillipines for their first line, s far as I could work out, they're second line is in various places, I talked to someone in America, and their third .line is in Germany and Romania

Yes, I'm a Vergin Media user and I can only get 1and1.com. No 1and1.co.uk sites including admin. No French, Italian, German sites. None of my .co or .org.uk sites all afternoon. Email also down all afternoon so It took all this time to register on the Register to send this message with me eventually using another email account.

Thanks Smokindope, your proxy suggestion worked to access the effected sites, but how about email, can that by fixed in a similar way?

Thanks for the tip about using the virgin proxy. Browsing 1and1 now OK but still no email.

Well, it's 11pm and still not working - this is causing me major issues - how on earth do these companies manage to screw up big time??? Can we claim compensation of these retards? It's cost me £400 because I could not work today as I needed both 1&1 email access & another German webmail client.

Just been on the phone to Virgin Media Tech guy. The problem is definitely a downed router, possible a physical problem or could be software. Fix time is now 15:15 tomorrow 30th November. This is a national outage to most German based websites. Emails appear to be out until tomorrow. I can get my website http://www.timeless-moments.co.uk but only via Smokindope's brilliant bit of help. I would be interested to know if anyone else can get either my website or 1and1.co.uk. As an aside, 1and1 have been very good for me over the last two years with only one minor incident we noticed lasting a few hours. I think this is purely a VM problem, not 1and1.

Ian

I’ll add to David Mason’s comment about it being not just inside Germany. I too am a Virgin Media broadband sufferer, I mean, user. I’d like to add that I can’t get to: royalmail.com, which seems to be in an address block in Denmark; and vodafone.cz, in the the Czech Republic. This would suggest it could be a routing problem for traffic going through Germany, as well as that terminating inside that country. Packets to those two sites don’t even appear to make it out of Virgin Media’s network. At least those to sites within Germany make it to the country, before disappearing into the ether.

Like Tim, third comment from the top, I realised early in the day that there was a problem. Unlike Tim, I also realise the stupidity of calling Virgin Media broadband support. I knew full well the level of service, from before the introduction of the 09 number. I guessed I would spend many minutes being told that it’s a problem with my equipment, before finally being told I couldn’t have a refund for the 25p/min cost, for trying to tell them they had a fault. I just sat on my hands and waited for enough other people to waste their money or someone high up in Virgin Media technical support to find they too couldn’t access important websites.

I really am beginning to hate being a Virgin Media customer.

http://status-cable.virginmedia.com/vmstatus/summary.do

This shows the level of outages they have but does not indicate the national problem.

There is a status number to call for Virgin it is: 0800 561 0061.

Cheers

Ian

Just tried the proxy trick and it works great. But what was funny was that after I switched the Proxy settings off, everything seemed to be working fine now!! So apparently somewhere during my testing with the proxy trick, 1and1 had fixed the problem altogether. what's so intriguing is that when I called 1and1 to confirm whether the problem's solved, I was told that they were still working on it!! Maybe they had not been told about the latest development yet?

I mean, if I untick the Proxy box under LAN settings, that definitely would set everything back to normal right? In other words, if everything seems in order when this Proxy box is unticked, hat should mean the problem's solved, correct? And, changing this setting on one computer in the household, does it automatically change for the other computers on the same wireless network?

Anyway, horray!

Well it is 11:45 and all is back up and running, for the moment at least. So I don't know where they got their 15:15 time from, all very strange, I bet a wire fell out the back of the router or someone unplugged it to plug in a vacuum cleaner or something stupid like that. As for Someone's comment, a few quid on the tech line is worth it for we could lose a grand a day by being offline but I understand what you mean, it's a bit rich having to pay them to tell them they have a problem. I wonder if Sir Richard knows how poor a service cable has become since VM bought NTL? Perhaps we should write and tell him? Anyone got his email address?

Breathing a huge sigh of relief for now, goodnight to you all.

Ian

Yes it would be nice to find a petition site to Sir Richard to tell him his whole Virgin brand is getting a bad name because of Virgin Media!

"I wonder if Sir Richard knows how poor a service cable has become since VM bought NTL?"

Correction: NTL bought Virgin's name.

Well the reason we've been unable to access ftp, control panel and sql databases is because fasthosts have reset all the passwords.

But don't panic they are going to send the new ones out by royal mail, so websites should only be offline for a few days.

The email arrived at 1.10am and I was on the phone within a minute and after 30mins I've moved up from position 26 to 22, I pity the poor souls who are asleep, by the time they wake up in the morning the wait is likely to be longer than a tnt driver delivering cd's :)

I know some people like to blame 1&1.

But it is VM that are having issues.

Although I'm a VM customer (xTelewest) I've had no issues.

I'm also a happy 1&1 customer.

Don't bother calling, they have 1 person answering the phone and after 2 hours wait in the queue there is nothing they can or will do.

We HAVE to wait for royal mail to deliver the new password, if they are effecient and get them out today (friday) that could mean Saturday (2 days offline) or if not it's going to be next tuesday (5 days offline)

Needles to say I and no doubt plenty of other people are going to be seriously unhappy with this state of affairs.

Don't switch to easyspace guys - I'm still waiting for my password reminder after five attempts in eight weeks...... and they don't send them by royal mail or tell you over the phone!

I've been on a shared hosting plan with 1&1 for seven years. In all that time, I've had about 5 outages, ranging from 3 minutes to two hours. Once they had a database problem that was a bit dramatic, but we were able to collectively recover from that. These are not guesses either, as I have the web site remotely monitored.

So, my view of 1&1 is that they offer a stable, feature-rich service at fair prices.

Virgin Media, on the other hand, consistently disappointed me. All of their services have suffered a tangible decline in quality since the VM rebranding, to the point where they are utterly incapable of providing the service for which you're paying. I'm no longer a VM customer, being happier to pay £5/mo for an 8Mb internet service that runs at 5Mb than to pay £37/mo for a 20Mb internet service that runs at 11Mb. Virgin's problem is that they need to drop the best part of £20bn on a to-the-house network upgrade. We'll see that just after I land in France at l'aeroport du cochon.

@AC above and the other Fasthosts users. AC said "i would suggest worryingly some kind of serious hack attack is happening [at] Fasthosts".

Well, from my FTP Server and Firewall logs on a clients Fasthosts ADSL line, they have had serious hacker problems all year. Some Chinese hacker/Botnet slams into the front door at regular intervals with the same list of 2300 passwords. Trying common usernames (first names, etc). This has been going on most of the year.

It's a pretty dumb attack though... exactly the same thing week after week after week. Same password list, same usernames, attacking the same fixed IP Address. Lately it has changed to also looking for some weird port numbers...

Have you also noticed how the support site now has a captcha to enter when you want to change anything? Another clue to targeted hacks.

(I basically ignore the website as that is nothing more than a dumb billboard for this client of mine... don't really know or care what is happening to that...:))

I know you love to blame them, but I took an IT overview of the problem and actually ran some tests.

Packets were boing dropped as soon as they hit 1&1's network, so the original article is correct.

It wasn't a direct problem with Virgin Media, it was the hosting company in this case.

Any of you heard of Trace Route?

It was Virgin at fault - they were blocking the response from the 1and1 routers, perhaps if you learnt how to read a Trace Route properly you wouldnt make yourself look such an idiot the next time you post.

It Was A VM Fault cos they said fixed by 10:45pm and it was fixed around that time!

Ticket Number 604389

Time Stamp 29/11/2007 19:45

Priority P1

Status Opened

Department Outage Surveillence Team

Estimated Time Fix 29/11/07 22:44