topic Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered in Everything else

PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 08:00:08 GMT

I've asked and asked and asked and asked over many years now ... for PN to confirm and provide definitive data on webspace allowance and bandwidth but I have yet to receive any sensible let alone definitive response

However, PN are apparently still more than happy to auto disable/delete webspace when a user exceeds this mythical and totally undocumented figure despite the enormous number of requests to actually provide it. As per usual, the various links in the 'abuse' email for more info on limits and to resolve the situation also still result in good old fashioned #404s

My PN webspace appears to have exceeded whatever the closely guarded secret limit is by the grand total of 119417 KB

I can only assume that not only are uploads included but quite possibly data which was apparently cached as well because the data PN make available to me shows a total of 375418 KB The browser would not have actually downloaded the entire directory of files so many times when everything would clearly have been cached from the first full attempt. Any subsequent attempts to reload the page would have checked for potential updates and only downloaded any changed files, of which there would have been none. In fact, as I still run netmeter all the time, I *know* that the full amount of data was only downloaded on the very first occasion I loaded the webpage. It takes a dog's age to download everything so it was perfectly clear at the time that subsequent refreshes and print attempts did not download the full amount data but merely checked for any potential updates and then used the cached data.

So I'm totally confused, not only on what the actual limits are, but also on what actually constitutes an actual download of hosted data

The full amount of relevant data hosted is 97700 KB and 5953 KB was uploaded yesterday. I fail to understand how the full amount of data was allegedly downloaded ~4 times when I most certainly didn't actually see that amount of data turning up here. I only saw it the very first time I loaded the webpage. After that I only saw a relatively tiny amount of data coming in as, presumably, all the individual image files were checked and found to already be validly cached.

Anyways ... no one other than me has been accessing this data on the webspace. I simply uploaded a bunch of stuff, checked everything was still being displayed OK and subsequently needed several attempts to get a usable pdf print of the webpage that accessed the data. There were no other accesses whatsoever as confirmed by logfiles various.

Please can someone confirm definitive figures for usage and bandwidth and also reinstate the webspace ASAP.

I make every possible effort to ensure that there is no abuse of space or bandwidth by monitoring this daily (in arrears) and also in real-time for my own usage. However, any limit (whatever it may actually be) allegedly claimed to be exceeded yesterday (6th November) very much appears to be somewhat dubious under the circumstances because it doesn't really tally with what was monitored and seen via netmeter at this end unfortunately.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

markhawkin — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:22:28 GMT

@mikeb

While I don't use my historic Plusnet webspace for much, I know someone who hosts a small site on theirs and occasionally something triggers the website being taken down for over use.

I've always assumed it is some form of attempted attack on the website and the hosting server thiat does this as I can't believe there have been loads of hits on the website that day.

Because it isn't a currently available service facts from Plusnet are hard to find.

The current offer (with Plusnet busines) is:

About your Plusnet webspace | Help | Plusnet

I've got a feeling that the limits on the legacy free domestic service might be 100MB for the site and 100MB/day transfer.

It's quite poorly supported but Plusnet don't really want to be in the webspace (or email, or phone) business now I feel.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 10:40:44 GMT

... and just because ~~the lady loves Milk Tray~~ no one is ever going to believe me, here's some evidence from good old netmeter to 'prove' what I'm saying in the first post !!!

This is for an almost identical webpage (but very much smaller with considerably fewer images) to illustrate what actually happens at this end when loading, refreshing, printing and forced reloading the page. It is EXACTLY what I was doing yesterday on the very much larger one. Both webpages are hosted on one F9 A/C whilst the images are hosted on a different F9 or PN A/C with the redirect being performed in the relevant .htaccess file in case that's in any way relevant.

As can be seen, only the first loading of the webpage and an intentional forced reload actually downloads all of the image data. Page refresh and printing checks for updated files various, finds none and therefore uses the browser cached data.

This is EXACTLY what I was seeing yesterday and hence was as certain as I could possibly be that no excess downloading of data was taking place and thus no bandwidth issues would result.

Under normal circumstances, I would check the figures for the relevant F9 A/C webspace usage first thing tomorrow morning ... however, this is apparently just another one of the many things that cannot now be done via the portal these days Not only is the link for webspace now entirely missing from the A/C pages but even when the relevant page is entered manually, the stated link to view webstats is yet another good old fashioned #404 !!!

How exactly are customers supposed to stay clear of the somewhat draconian 'abuse' system when not only are relevant limits such a closely guarded secret but checking on storage and usage is not actually possible in many cases because the portal and/or system config has now been broken for a dog's age ?

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:12:36 GMT

@markhawkin wrote:

@mikeb

While I don't use my historic Plusnet webspace for much, I know someone who hosts a small site on theirs and occasionally something triggers the website being taken down for over use.

I've always assumed it is some form of attempted attack on the website and the hosting server thiat does this as I can't believe there have been loads of hits on the website that day.

Because it isn't a currently available service facts from Plusnet are hard to find.

The current offer (with Plusnet busines) is:

About your Plusnet webspace | Help | Plusnet

I've got a feeling that the limits on the legacy free domestic service might be 100MB for the site and 100MB/day transfer.

It's quite poorly supported but Plusnet don't really want to be in the webspace (or email, or phone) business now I feel.

Thanks for the reply. There is no possibility of external abuse issues in this particular case. Just me uploading new data and testing webpage updates from my own A/C.

Like many things, it's all shrouded in mystery and always has been unfortunately. I have A/Cs with between 25MB and 512MB storage (when actually stated) and various bandwidth usage figures have been bandied around over the years. I think that the most popular figure historically has always been 512MB. I also have an archive copy of the original email when joining F9 clearly stating UNLIMITED WEBSPACE on the A/C amongst much other jolly good stuff Bandwidth usage has always been a bit of an unknown quantity though but it obviously ought to be 1 or more times the storage limit. Otherwise, it is not possible to upload to near capacity without exceeding bandwidth and having it all deleted again !

The problem is that there is nothing consistent and no one at PN ever wants to be specific about anything these days unfortunately. Also, none of the provided tools to monitor storage actually work. The quoted usage figures (sometimes available) via the portal haven't been updated in donkey's years. Similar issues with webstats to monitor bandwidth unless log files have been generated historically. Links to the webstats data via the portal now apparently just result in a #404 ... assuming that you can manually find the 'right' page with the links on it to try and view them anyway.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

markhawkin — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 12:55:54 GMT

@mikeb

How can you be sure that "There is no possibility of external abuse issues in this particular case." ?

The data transfer you have undertaken you know about (from your Netmeter) but I can't see how you know what data I've downloaded from your webspace? (Actually I haven't because I don't know the address but if I was Google I would!)

The conclusion about the other website that went over the data allowance (which we couldn't prove) is that something caused a peak of interest or it was a hacking attempt.

I've seen small websites go off line due to being over their transfer allowance after one mention in a newspaper or news site.

One example of this was the fantastic recreation of teletext by Nathan Media Services ( https://www.nathanmediaservices.co.uk/teletext-viewer/ )

One mention in The Guardian and it was broken. ( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jan/05/text-appeal-ceefax-recreated-by-20-year-old-northern-irish-man )

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 06:30:17 GMT

@markhawkin wrote:

How can you be sure that "There is no possibility of external abuse issues in this particular case." ?

Because I have daily log files available that fully document each and every access in intimate detail. Every single access to this webspace on this day was from my static IP. This is also corroborated by the logged data available for the other webspace from where the image links were redirected from. Unlike on other days, in this specific instance it is absolutely guaranteed that no one else accessed any of the data on my webspace and no external abuse of any kind was taking place ... always assuming that PN provided me with all relevant data of course and didn't leave any important stuff out of course.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 06:49:12 GMT

Just how much longer are PN going to apparently ignore this ?

Is 3 weeks long enough or should I expect it to be at least several months much like other queries that are apparently yet to receive any particularly relevant response/action ?

Or is it perhaps simply a case of wait long enough and the issue will become totally irrelevant due to the service(s) in question or PN as an ISP in general ceasing to exist in any way shape or form ?

Please restore the content and

re-enable my webspace

This (and other) webspace has been in constant daily use for >25 years during which time no problems like this have ever occurred. PN's own data/records will clearly demonstrate that a just a handful of MB/day maximum is typical usage and there is quite clearly something more than a bit wrong in this instance of alleged abuse. Typical usage for previous month, October 2022, as below which is just 4MB/day on average:

November 2022 usage should have be very much the same, other than with the upload/test/print on a different day. The usage alleged by PN is exceedingly dubious in all respects because it is historically unusual to the point of never happening before and such large data transfer(s) were not actually seen by extensive real-time data monitring at this end. The logged usage for November is as below and even this equates to only 12MB/day on average:

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 05:58:24 GMT

It's now approaching the weekend and 4 weeks without any relevant response let alone a satisfactory resolution to the issue. So that's 4 weeks of absolutely no access to my webspace despite the highly dubious action of 'archiving' the content under whatever the current draconian alleged 'abuse' rules happen to be.

Please stop apparently ignoring this

and restore the archived content

to re-enable http/ftp access

It's abundantly clear that there has been no real shortage of 'staff' browsing and posting on the forums over the past 4 weeks. If there is absolutely no intention of taking any action whatsoever on this issue then kindly at least have the decency to say so

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

adamwalker — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 14:39:24 GMT

Hi @mikeb, could you send me a private message with your username please and I'll pick this up for you.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

bobpullen — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 10:56:37 GMT

@mikeb wrote:

Like many things, it's all shrouded in mystery and always has been unfortunately. I have A/Cs with between 25MB and 512MB storage (when actually stated) and various bandwidth usage figures have been bandied around over the years. I think that the most popular figure historically has always been 512MB.

From memory, the allowances are: -

25MB storage / 100MB/day bandwidth allowance
250MB storage / 250MB/day bandwidth allowance
500MB stroage / 500MB/day bandwidth allowance

There are some other legacy variants but the vast majority will fit into one of the above. For residential services, the first two are the most common (typically associated with non-paid and paid residential accounts respectively). The account you're referring to in this thread is 250/250.

@mikeb wrote:

Not only is the link for webspace now entirely missing from the A/C pages but even when the relevant page is entered manually, the stated link to view webstats is yet another good old fashioned #404 !!!

Don't you have this (under 'Manage Account' when logged in to the Member Centre)..?

No idea how it came about, but I suspect the webstats link 404'ing is due to the current state of the service on the account in question. It doesn't look to be enabled from where I'm sat. I've made a change at this side that should hopefully see it spring back to life within 24 hours or so.

Will leave @adamwalker to pick up the unarchiving element as there's not much I can do with that from where I'm currently sat.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 05:57:25 GMT

@adamwalker wrote:

... could you send me a private message with your username

Thanks for the response and apologies for only just noticing it.

This is getting more than a tad silly as it's now more than 6 and no doubt soon to be 8+ weeks of no webspace access whatsoever due to the Christmas and New Year shutdown

[quote]
archive
verb
past tense: archived; past participle: archived

    place or store (something) in an archive.

    Computing
    transfer (data) to a less frequently used storage medium
    such as magnetic tape.

    "the entire directory will be archived"
[/quote]

Which part of the above readily available and widely accepted dictionary definition is proving in some way difficult to understand ?

Until such time as the FTP server directory structure, contents and relevant permissions are restored from this ARCHIVE no webspace access whatsoever is possible ! Again, what part of that situation is proving in some way difficult to understand ?

If PN archive/delete/whatever the ftp server directory structure & all content stored therein as well as changing the permissions so that what remains is read-only/write-protected then all access by anyone other than locally by PN is completely impossible thus content cannot be restored by any means by anyone other than PN ... who are clearly well aware of the username and ftp login details etc

From past experience I also know that my username/account is and always has been linked to this forum A/C and it should also be especially obvious in any case because it's the A/C which pays PN do$h on a very regular basis and currently has no ftp access ! I will, however, PM you the details shortly.

Anyways ... the good news is that I've been spending this forced downtime very wisely by ensuring that PN will no longer be able to hold me to ransom over email, webspace, phone number or, indeed, anything else in the future. It's bad enough that my ~~loyalty~~ stupidity isn't rewarded but I've had way more than enough of being punished and generally abused financially for sticking with F9/PN almost since day 1 in that dusty back office of Choice Peripherals in Worksop. I'm afraid you've finally forced me to do what I should have done at least 15 years and probably more like 20+ years ago

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 06:47:35 GMT

@bobpullen wrote:

Don't you have this (under 'Manage Account' when logged in to the Member Centre)..?

No idea how it came about, but I suspect the webstats link 404'ing is due to the current state of the service on the account in question. It doesn't look to be enabled from where I'm sat. I've made a change at this side that should hopefully see it spring back to life within 24 hours or so.

Hi Bob Sorry but it's nothing to do with the state of the webspace suspended A/C it's a general problem that affects several different A/Cs of different ages in different ways. There is forum thread posted months and months ago that's been basically ignored by all, including me now because it's clearly a complete waste of time expecting anyone to understand what's going on with Ye Olde Stuff let alone get it fixed.

Some A/Cs don't have the "manage webspace" option visible in the portal at all despite the fact that webspace is there and in use. Some A/Cs don't have working links to the webalizer data/server despite the fact that webstats are enabled and, in some cases, log files also. I have to cut/paste the relevant generic links from an A/C where these links do actually appear in the portal. In some cases, the generic links just result in a #404 despite being entirely valid on other A/Cs meaning that the function is no longer set up correctly on some A/Cs and/or there is no longer a valid login on the server. In some cases FTP access is also no longer possible, the server will not even accept a login meaning that the relevant account/login data has somehow been deleted despite the A/C and services being shown in the portal. In all cases, everything on all A/Cs has previously worked (mostly) satisfactorily for anything up to 25 years. In addition, the portal data for webspace current usage, where present, is now static and hasn't in fact been updated at all in donkey's years. This is just some of many things that I have found ceasing to work sensibly following incessant tinkering around with the portal. I don't log in very often but at one point when I actually needed to do something, virtually everything failed to display sensibly or simply resulted in a #404. However, in general, it's anything to do with webspace, webstats, logfiles and FTP that has been way more than a bit of mess for donkey's years.

Regarding the poor info, data and #404 links in the alleged 'abuse' email, that has also been a complete mess for donkey's years going by a very similar message received ages ago and several other similar posts in the forum. The message is quoted below for reference just to highlight how utterly useless it actually is:

[quote]
Dear Customer,

It has come to our attention that in the last 24 hours your website has exceeded its bandwidth allowance by a significant amount.

Unfortunately, because of the amount over the limit, your site has been archived. Please contact us through the website if you want your site to be restored. - we cannot do this by email or over the telephone.

Your website used 119417 KB OVER its bandwidth transfer allowance during the last 24 hours.

You may be interested in upgrading to an account with a higher bandwidth quota; details of the bandwidth allowances are available on our website at the following URL:

http://www.plus.net/support/webspace/tips_and_info/webspace_faq.shtml#9

You can request that your website be restored by following the guidelines provided on our webspace FAQ:

http://www.plus.net/support/webspace/tips_and_info/webspace_faq.shtml#7

A condition of your site being restored is that you take precautions to ensure that future levels of usage don't exceed what is allowed on your account.

Kind regards,

PlusNet Abuse Team
http://www.plus.net/

Email ref: E0428
[/quote]

As you can see, it's complete rubbish and none of the links actually work

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

markhawkin — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:35:14 GMT

@bobpullen I can confirm that the whole Plusnet webspace setup is a bit broken for my account as well.

I have the button for "Standard Webspace" and the spider picture and if I click it I go to a webspace page.

It says "Current Status: Webstats are active for your site(s)" but they don't work.

The popup "https://mywebstats.plus.net/plusnet/www.<myusername>.plus.com" (which has my correct account name in it) gives:

"Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server."

I've also occasionally had the random data transfer exceeded email for no obvious reason.

Currently I just have some holding text but I did use the web space in the past and (while it still exists as a facility) may need to in the future.

It is sad to see Plusnet slowly become "just a connectivity reselling brand" from being a full service ISP.

I came to Plusnet from being a Metronet customer so it's been a while.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

Gandalf — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 12:23:07 GMT

@mikeb - I've raised a NetOps task (ref: INFOPS-86703) to look at unarchiving your webspace. Should have an update within a few days, but it may be next week, due to the Christmas season.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

bobpullen — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:53:48 GMT

@mikeb wrote:

@bobpullen wrote:

Don't you have this (under 'Manage Account' when logged in to the Member Centre)..?

No idea how it came about, but I suspect the webstats link 404'ing is due to the current state of the service on the account in question. It doesn't look to be enabled from where I'm sat. I've made a change at this side that should hopefully see it spring back to life within 24 hours or so.

Hi Bob Sorry but it's nothing to do with the state of the webspace suspended A/C it's a general problem that affects several different A/Cs of different ages in different ways...

--8<--SNIP--8<--

I was referring to one specific account; the one whose space has been archived.

Whilst I appreciate there may be a lot wrong based on your experience across a whole bunch of other accounts, this holistic observation is a little too much to swallow in one spoonful

When logged into the account that was archived - is the webstats link still 404'ing, and is the hyperlink shown above missing?

I'll see if I can get somebody to update the email copy.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

bobpullen — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:58:27 GMT

@markhawkin - struggling to locate your account. Feel free to drop me a private message containing your username and I'll take a look when I've a minute.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

Gandalf — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 16:56:49 GMT

@Gandalf wrote:

@mikeb - I've raised a NetOps task (ref: INFOPS-86703) to look at unarchiving your webspace. Should have an update within a few days, but it may be next week, due to the Christmas season.

Website and permissions should be restored for you now.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 05:27:35 GMT

Just a quick message to confirm that I note wonders will never cease and accessible data has mysteriously appeared back on the FTP server. Thank you

And all without the much anticipated wait for some back-office team to 'get around to it' in January or a major debate on whether "deleted", "lost" or "over-written" are appropriate synonyms for "archived" into the bargain

However, just to demonstrate the stupidity of this approach and the knee-jerk reaction to the alleged 120MB excess traffic, what happens now is:

(1) I have to DL 250MB of data at least once to check everything is there and everything linking to the restored data still works as it should do.

(2) I have to DL 250MB of data to do a new backup just in case.

(3) Everyone or everything accessing any of the data, directly or otherwise, is also likely to DL 250MB of data now because it probably "looks" like it has changed. Should any directory or file dates have been updated in the process then multiple 250MB DLs are absolutely guaranteed.

Congratulations PN. What an excellent solution to conserving bandwidth this is seeing that >1GB of totally unnecessary traffic is now most likely to occur ... and I therefore have a sneaky suspicion that we'll be back here unarchiving the data again sometime in the not too distant future because I have absolutely no control over any of this unexpected and unnecessary traffic.

I will read and respond where necessary to any recent posts sometime over the weekend.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

mikeb — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 07:48:34 GMT

More potential evidence that something very strange and completely unexplained went on leading to my webspace access being unreasonably suspended in November and for a totally unreasonable period of time into the bargain.

The above netmeter image clearly demonstrates what happened earlier today for pretty much a repeat performance of my activities on 6th November. Something that is typically done monthly so nothing in any way unusual. As can quite clearly be seen from the local monitoring which is always running, the circa 3300 images on my PN webspace amounting to circa 100MB in total were only downloaded ONCE when the original html file was loaded by the browser. Loading the various modified html files (that reference exactly the same mass of images) refreshing pages and printing did NOT result in all of the image data being downloaded again because the vast majority if not all of the required data was cached from the initial download and hadn't changed. There could be no mistaking multiple downloads of circa 100MB of data had they actually happened at the time !

It will certainly be *VERY* interesting to see what my logfiles contain tomorrow and/or whether another alleged abuse snot-o-gram is being prepared as we speak

Only PN can explain ... but I'm not going to be holding my breath waiting.

Re: PN Webspace Deleted/Archived/Whatevered

Champnet — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 09:17:16 GMT

@mikeb wrote:

(1) I have to DL 250MB of data at least once to check everything is there and everything linking to the restored data still works as it should do.

(2) I have to DL 250MB of data to do a new backup just in case.

(3) Everyone or everything accessing any of the data, directly or otherwise, is also likely to DL 250MB of data now because it probably "looks" like it has changed. Should any directory or file dates have been updated in the process then multiple 250MB DLs are absolutely guaranteed.

Keep a copy of your website on a local PC.

Use a sync program, this will show additions, changes & deletions to your web site..

Backup ? Just backup the local data.

Other users data out of sync ? Not if you use above method.............