As you have, without doubt, noticed, the NewsLeecher site was recently down for more than 10 days. I apologize for the long NewsLeecher site downtime!
Why was the site down?
The hosting provider, b-one, who *used* to host newsleecher.com suspended the NewsLeecher site without notice on the 28th of Jan. because they had found several binary .EXE files on the site and therefor thought I was using their server as an external harddisk (which is against their business terms).
The .EXE files, 49 in total, where copies of all the versions of NewsLeecher versions ever released. I told b-one that most of the files were never used, but if it was a problem that they were stored on the site, I could remove them asap. In response, they told me to remove them. So I did, only leaving the most up-to-date version of the NewsLeecher .EXE file online.
The next day (site still suspended), B-one sent me an email telling me that I couldn't even host a single .EXE file on their server, and I would have to remove the last hosted .EXE file aswell if I wanted the site opened again.
Well, according to their (danish) business terms, it isn't allowed to have a "larger" amount of binary file archives hosted with them, as the purpose of the website isn't to function as an external harddisk (as they say). Fair enough, but the site was only hosting a single .EXE file now!?.
Anyway, attempting to get the site opened again, I removed the last .EXE file and told them to reopen the site. And they did so 12 hours later.
I should probably just have stopped here, and get the NewsLeecher .EXE file(s) hosted on another non b-one server, but I wanted to know how they (b-one) could interpret the single .EXE file which I wanted to have hosted on the NewsLeecher site, as "a larger amount of binary file archives". So I sent them another email, refering to their business terms, asked them the question.
Again, the site got suspended without any warning or notice telling me why. As I didn't host any .EXE files on the site anymore, I immediately sent them another email asking why they had suspended the site again.
B-one offer support via email only, so 3 days later without a response to the last sent email (site still suspended), I had to find their office address, and give them a visit to get things sorted out.
I did so, and got in contact with the person responsible for suspending the NewsLeecher site. He told me that he had, once again, suspended the site, *not* because I had hosted an .EXE file, as he had previously said, but because he had found a PHP script (simple computer program) on my site which used too many of their system resources. He also told me that he hadn't replied to my last email, sent 3 days earlier, because they, according to their business terms, could suspend a site without notice.
Again, trying to get the site re-opened, I asked him about the name of the PHP script which used their system resources, so I could remove it or make it use less resources. He told me that he didn't knew the name of the script and even if I got it removed, he wouldn't open the site again! Under no circumstances. He wouldn't even allow the NewsLeecher site to redirect to another website which isn't hosted on their servers!
I quickly found out that it was pointless to discuss anything with this man, so I told him to unlock the NewsLeecher domain and agree to initiate a domain transfer to a new registrar as soon as possible so I could get the NewsLeecher site hosted with another company. He agreed to do so asap.
Normally it only takes a few days to transfer a domain, but for some reason it took *much* longer in this case. I wonder why!
But that is the reason why the site has been down and why it took so long to get it up and running again.
Anyway, the NewsLeecher domain is now hosted on a dedicated server with plenty of bandwidth and CPU resources so a similar situation shouldn't happen again. (Did anyone say Murphy )
This is my side of the story. If you want B-one's side of it, please send them an email at
[email protected].
Cheers
Spiril
