Your Force9 Website is over its bandwidth allowance

[#1]

I got this this morning:

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Dear Customer, It has come to our attention that in the last 24 hours your website has exceeded its bandwidth allowance.  Because your site has only gone over the bandwidth limit by a small amount, no action will be taken. Your website used 35638 KB OVER its bandwidth transfer allowance during the 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://portal.f9.net.uk/support/webspace/tips_and_info/webspace_faq.shtml#8 Please take precautions to ensure that the usage on your site is reduced, as further infringements may result in your webspace being restricted, or even removed. Kind Regards, Force9 Abuse Team

I have checked my webstats, my own download stats (maintaned by tracker PHP scripts)  and, unless my business limit has reduced to 150MB per day, I can't see where this has been exceeded.
Is this spam, or is it genuine? I have not clicked the link, but going to http://portal.f9.net.uk says that 'Force9 has moved to Plusnet'.
I have been a victim of 'Backscatter' from spam overnight, but that should not affect my website bandwidth.
Has anyone else had one of these, or should I raise a question?
Tony
[Moderator's note by Jonathan (chillypenguin):  I have removed [-SPAM-] from your subject line as users filtering their e-mails by the spam tag will not receive topic replies. ]
cp:red Please do not roll back changes made by the moderating team. mod:end

[#2]

I raised a question and was told that:

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- Have my limits been changed to 150MB from the usual 250MB? No - Is this spam? No, this was a valid email We currently have a Problem open (ID 50097) in relation to the Website Bandwidth being inaccurate, and is currently under investigation.

Perhaps it would be better for PN to stop the system from sending these emails while they have a problem - particularly as they are marked as [-Spam-] and I could have been 'dumping' them rather than opting to receive them.
I have spent approximately an hour double-checking stats and looking for possible structure loopholes in my site where extra downloads might not have been picked up by my own (pretty comprehensive) stats.
Frustrated and annoyed... you bet
Tony

[#3]

Looks like a genuine e-mail.  The link it contains takes you to PN's/F9's webspace features FAQ.
Also see service status here.

[#4]

Yes, they said it was genuine - see my previous post.
The Status says "Incorrect Website Archiving(50097) - RESOLVED"  at 4 pm yesterday. I got the email at 4 this morning.
It also says

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investigation into this problem has found the archiving script performing as intended.

which means that they need to revisit the problem.
The email was marked as 'spam' and Customer Support seem more interested in that than the distressing email.
CS have also said

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"The script also reports of webspace usage, this part is correct."

but I don't know what that means - I have not exceeded my bandwidth as far as I can tell.
Tony

[#5]

Hi Tony,
The engineers looking into the archiving script haven't found any anomalies or incorrect commands in there. I've provided them your account details so they can have a look and see if they can spot something with the information you've provided.

[#6]

Thank you Chris.
If the engineers can not get access to my webstats, I always save a copy each day (for the last 5/6 years). I can upload a copy to my web site, provide you with the address in a PM and they can they can view them there.
My main username.f9.co.uk site did 160MB yesterday (less than the average of the previous 2 days)
My domainname.co.uk (ccgi hosted) site did 10MB yesterday (less than the previous 2 days)
I download some statistics file each day (less than 1MB)
Total just over 170MB. As a PAYG small business user I understand that the limit is 250MB, which I have confirmed with CS in a ticket.
Anything that you can find out would be welcome.
As I am typing this I have just received a reply to my ticket:

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To answer your question: "Can you please have them confirm that I have not exceeded my limit" - no you have not exceeded the bandwidth, it would appear you are affected by the problem. This should be resolved shortly, please bear with us whilst this is resolved. Apologies for the inconvenience this is causing.

It seems that problem ID 50097 is not resolved.
Tony

[#7]

I'll go speak to the person that responded to you as they obviously haven't read the notes on the problem referenced 

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I can upload a copy to my web site, provide you with the address in a PM and they can they can view them there.

That would be great, thanks. I'll keep trying to get as much info as possible but it may well be Monday before I can get an update in here.

[#8]

Hello there PlusNet Staff and Other users who may have this same apparent issue.

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Dear Customer, It has come to our attention that in the last 24 hours your website has exceeded its bandwidth allowance.  Because your site has only gone over the bandwidth limit by a small amount, no action will be taken. Your website used 1965 KB OVER its bandwidth transfer allowance during the 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#8 Please take precautions to ensure that the usage on your site is reduced, as further infringements may result in your webspace being restricted, or even removed. Kind Regards, PlusNet Abuse Team

I recieved this email which is similar Email to what Tony W has described,
again with similar figures on PlusNet's own WebStats System (Webalizer) which I rely upon being truthful.
My Webalizer stats say the following for the date concerned by the EMail:

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18th Febuary 2008 (3,841Kb) 19th Febuary 2008 (161,704Kb) 20th Febuary 2008 (12,863Kb)

I assume from when we registered with PlusNet our Website Transfer Limit is still 250MB
161.7MB + 12.8MB = 174.5MB != 250MB
161.7MB + 3.8MB = 165.2MB != 250MB
Now,
I do not understand how, if you total either of these in a given 24 hour period,
to be even equal or greater than the 250MB limit.
which is what I have read as our services' limit, for web Transfers in any given 24h Period.
Surey there is something wrong with the Scripting/Program/Calculation?
This is the first time i've had a problem with an otherwise, brilliant webservice for my needs.
Thanks!
Jim,

[#9]

I've just had a look at the internal problem on this and can see that one of the networks engineers found a rogue calculation in one of the scripts which was attributing over twice the normal usage to some customers. So from today onwards this should no longer be an issue.

[#10]

Thanks again for your help on this Chris.
I hope I was the only one that got a scare.

[#11]

I'll keep an eye on this thread to make sure there are no reported issues after today.

[#12]

Thankyou,
Just one minor question, to clarify.
Does these abuse EMail still stand/count against us, towards being "throttled" on the Web usage front?
Again thankyou, for the swift reply, very helpful to be "in the know".
Jim,

[#13]

As it was just a warning it's pretty safe to ignore it now the script should work properly.

[#14]

I have been having the same issues since November .  My web page is only 4 pages long with a few photo's of my cat and some airplane images.  I have disabled right click so most people cannot download them.  My pages uses 10% of what I am allowed to have.  My stats show 80% unresoved/unknow users.  I have had the page for over 6 years with no problems.  My counter moved on 12 times
F9 seem in the dark on this issue too.  Yesterday the site was taken off within hours of going live again.
E-mails about this are marked as spam too
Puddy
[Moderator's note by Jonathan (chillypenguin):  Full quote of preceding post removed as per the forum rules ]

[#15]

Copy of reply ticket F9 are blaming the customer again
I smell a rat here.
Theirs no working video file on my web page!!!!
How come Tony w on the forum has the same problem right down to the same figures.  Anyway my home page has a streaming video which has been on their for over 6 years and is NOT used that often.  Last summer it was on for days at a time and I never went over my allowance..
Please dont blame the customer the problem your end, look at Tony w posting in the forum.  How long has F9 been aware of this problem and how long have F9 been covering this up i.e blaming the customer?
I AM NOT HAPPY!
Michael & Puddy