Anyone having problems at SkyToaster?

Hi all. I've been using SkyToaster for quite a few years now, and the recommendation of others in the MODX community. Originally, it was fantastic — stellar uptime, great tech support when needed, fast servers. I noticed a decline in the quality of tech support a year or so ago, and then learned that one of the original founders, Patrick, had left to go to a different company. Patrick was a dedicated MODX developer. The remaining original owner, Sal Sodano, replied to some queries I had about the change in tech support and confirmed that they started outsourcing some of their support, although he said he monitored tech support and stepped in when necessary, which I saw happening. In the past two months, the server I'm on, and on which I've put many of my clients, (FL01) has seen 6 different periods of sites being offline due to various problems (including a DDOS attack). Tech support continues to not respond knowledgably, at least until a ticket gets bumped up to level 2 or 3 of support. I sent another email to Sal, only to learn that he sold the company at the end of last year and is no longer involved in daily operations. Sozo Technologies is now in possession of the company. I got a nice response from them, but one thing they suggested was turning on database throttling to avoid some of the instances of the server database going down, which has happened three times in the past 6 weeks (followed by client emails asking why their sites are down). However, one reason I moved to Skytoaster is because other hosts using Cloud Linux had database throttling turned on and all my MODX sites suffered frequent sluggishness as a result. Those same sites, once put on Skytoaster, had no issues at all.

So I'm wondering whether other people here using Skytoaster have been having issues. I really don't want to have to switch hosts once again. Why is it that after a fews years of great hosting, companies get sold and the quality goes down?? Site5 was originally a great host, then got bought by EIG and went down the tubes. That's when I switched to Skytoaster. It makes recommending a host to my clients a tricky proposition.

Amazing - I've been with SkyToaster for ages as well, but didn't realize this had happened! Would've been nice if they'd made an announcement about being acquired at least

My VPS (NL) and sites on a reseller account (uk01) are all humming along nicely. There was a brief blip (~5 minutes) two weeks ago, but that was because the VPS ran out of disk space, and out of memory which took it down as a result. Not something that can be blamed on the host

According to LinkedIn, Patrick left the company in August 2016, but he's been involved with my tickets until mid-2017 at least. I haven't had to send in much since then and Sal answered those.

So to answer your topic question - no I've not been having problems at SkyToaster.

Just came across this post, and figured I should add a few words.

I made the very difficult decision to leave SkyToaster in mid-2016, with the change taking place in August. It's very hard to step away from a company with such amazing clients you helped to found. The loss of a very dear friend caused me to reassess my life, and make some changes to mine. The decision to not announce my departure or change in management was not mine to make. I do somewhat agree with the decision, at least regarding my departure.

That being said SkyToaster did not, and I far as I am concerned will not ever be sold to EIG. It's companies such as them that makes it near impossible for smaller hosts to even exist and make an actual living in the first place. I could very easily host my website for free with my current employer, however, I am keeping it with SkyToaster at this time. Yes, I've noticed the occasional blip in uptime, but I also know it happens regardless of who you are. My preference is still to support the smaller hosting providers where possible.

While I might not have any involvement with SkyToaster, I am still more than willing to help if someone needs it.

All the best!

[ed. note: AMDbuilder last edited this post 5 years, 9 months ago.]

Patrick:

I am very sorry to hear about your loss, and wish you well.

Best,

Marc