First, do you know…

Crucial checks

Assuming you are the system administrator, you need to gather a little
information first.

If you’re reading this on our web site, we’ll assume that Bytemark’s network is
working fine , but you should always check our maintenance page to see if we’ve acknowledged a larger problem.

I’ll try to nail down the most common causes of failure, and things to look
at, rather than an exhaustive list of possible problems.

Common technical problems

If any of the following are true, this is a server-side problem which we’d
expect a system administrator to look at first (though of course we’re able
to offer advice on how to fix it).

1. your web site is showing an error starting with 400 or 500;
2. you can ping your web site, but it does not accept connections;
3. you can access your server through SSH.

So if you see any of those, check things out from the console shell and try a reboot if you’re desperate (though better to find the underlying cause of a problem).

Bureaucratic problems

Here are two more common issues:

1. is your domain renewal due? Unless you’ve asked us to auto-renew your domain, it may have expired! Check with our control panel to see whether that’s the case, and your site will pop back immediately once the domain is renewed.
2. have you forgotten to pay the bill? We do make strenuous efforts to contact the bill payer in the event of our invoices going unpaid, but ultimately we will suspend the network connection to a host if the bill isn’t paid for long enough. If this happens, you will be able to use the console shell but your network connection will be dead.

Before contacting Bytemark,

Here is the basic information that we need to help with a support request:

1. what error do you get when you connect to your web site?
2. what error do you get when you try to ping your web site?
3. are there any errors on your console shell ? Normally you should see a login prompt and be able to type, but there are some obvious signs of trouble to look out for.

Still stuck? Give Bytemark a call or email and we will do our best to help.