Surprise server switch
Jun 28, 2007 - Case #000014
Elbowroom Design vs. iPowerWeb
Elbowroom Design's Testimony
Early in 2007, we were asked to take over and re-create a client’s website. Their existing website was already hosted with iPowerWeb. Our job was to create a new site to replace the old one, but keep it under the existing domain and hosting provider.
We took over the account from the previous website administrator, and began work. After months of planning and offline design work, we were ready to build the site online.
We used WordPress technology as the framework for the site. The templates and the database for a WordPress website work only when the site is online. This means that besides our design mock-ups and textual content, we did not have an offline backup of the actual website.
Our contract web developer spent two days building the site online. The site was complete on Friday, May 11, and viewable to the public online.
By Monday, May 14, our brand new site had disappeared, and was mysteriously replaced with the old version. Additionally, we were unable to log in to administration panel for the website, and unable to access the site via FTP.
I got in touch with iPowerWeb’s tech support, and they restored access. Upon logging in, it was clear that even the back-end data files had disappeared.
On May 17, I got in touch with iPowerWeb’s tech support to ask about our missing files. I was told that they were performing a server migration, and that “once the migration is completed then all the files and database will be migrated to the new servers.” (See attached screenshot of the conversation in which this took place, as well as an email from me to our client.) We were also told that there was no exact ETA for when this migration would be complete.
On May 21, I received this response: “The last backup of your site in old server we have is dated on May 10 2007 and is not possible to recover the data on may 11th.”
All of our data had been lost.
We immediately decided to switch hosting providers. Our web developer spent the following week redoing all his work. The site was eventually reconstructed (on a new server). The website launch was delayed by three weeks, and we were forced to explain to our client that their website had been somehow “lost.” All parties felt disappointed and let down.
Elbowroom Design would like iPowerWeb to provide $300 in compensation for the time spent duplicating work already rendered by our web developer.
