@bikegremlin said:
My thoughts aloud:
Probably, but still, a fraudulent provider should not have a provider tag. On the other hand, apart from frauds and other means of braking the forum rules, a provider should not have their tag removed (without a very good reason).
If that logic holds water, then technically any host using ColoCrossing shouldn’t be banned either, they’ve "yet to scam" anyone, after all.
For reasons beaten to death, we've decided to draw the line at CC.
I think that was (is) a good call.
The move to block CC-based providers but keep others offering the same "quality" of service feels less about customer protection and more about trying to say, “we’re not LET.”
I think it was right to draw the line there.
Same goes for a certain purple hosting provider.
We may disagree on where the line should be drawn, that's one thing.
No way to please everyone there.
Policing VS offer prices and amount of them VS quality - all contradicting criteria and it boils down to finding the ballance (and, again, no way to please everyone).
Another thing is discussing whether a line should be drawn in the first place - seems like we both agree that it should.
@bikegremlin said:
Virmach has been... let's say "colourful" from the very start if memory serves me (correct me if I'm wrong).
Some LESbians are happy with what they are getting for the money, some are not.
There are no hard rules regarding service quality or representative's forum activity for that matter (or else we would need to remove Hetzner's provider tag too, right?).
Exactly! If Hetzner’s legendary silence toward customers doesn’t disqualify them, then it’s only fair to apply the same standards elsewhere. Otherwise, LES starts looking a little more like LET than we’d like to admit...
@bikegremlin said:
Having said all this, Virmach is definitely pushing it.
That is the point.
That’s fair, but also kind of the point.
I get your concern though. @VirMach is likely a one-man show. If he disappears (hospitalized, arrested, broke, or—hopefully not—dead), customers would have zero idea what’s happening. Same goes if the company suddenly folds.
So yeah, it’s messy, but that’s the gamble with solo-run providers. You either get a personal touch… or total radio silence...
As far as I can see: Virmach is what it is, and that has been discussed a lot here.
No secrets.
With LES being a buyer beware market (as opposed to handholding and babysitting), it may be fair to say that customers can be angry at themselves - it was their choice and call.
Of course, there should be a line, and taking money without providing service is a fraud. I'm just not sure where to draw the line in those terms. A long downtime vs no service at all - it does differ, though past a certain point, it is just a distinction without a real difference for the customers. Doesn't look like a clear-cut case to me. Doesn't look good either - but it's been that way practicaly since the start (correct me if I'm wrong).
@bikegremlin said:
My thoughts aloud:
Probably, but still, a fraudulent provider should not have a provider tag. On the other hand, apart from frauds and other means of braking the forum rules, a provider should not have their tag removed (without a very good reason).
If that logic holds water, then technically any host using ColoCrossing shouldn’t be banned either, they’ve "yet to scam" anyone, after all.
For reasons beaten to death, we've decided to draw the line at CC.
I think that was (is) a good call.
And before anyone asks, I agree with @bikegremlin here. DCs that are heavily used/abused by scammers, and still don't bother to verify their resellers info, should be barred.
@bikegremlin said:
Of course, there should be a line, and taking money without providing service is a fraud. I'm just not sure where to draw the line in those terms. A long downtime vs no service at all - it does differ, though past a certain point, it is just a distinction without a real difference for the customers. Doesn't look like a clear-cut case to me. Doesn't look good either - but it's been that way practicaly since the start (correct me if I'm wrong).
No, you are right there. No communication + dissappear + all servers down + main site down, then it's clear that it's a scam. But since some servers are up, some are down, some come back online before going offline again... makes it murky...
I speak fluent sarcasm and broken logic. | I would agree with you, but thæn we’d both be wrong.
This isn't the first time VirMach has gone missing—this time it's been less than two weeks, but I recall him disappearing for much longer periods before.
If his provider tag is suspended or revoked over this, I suspect he might use it as an excuse to never return.
FYI: VirMach vanished from LET over three years ago, yet still retains the “Patron Provider” tag to this day.
So all a provider needs to do to maintain their tag is login (and do bugger all) - stupid.
There has to be a line drawn where node down for X period without any view to fixing means suspend tag.
All the provider needs to do is say (somewhere) what and when things are happening to avoid the suspension.
I don't want to load the mods with any extra work but there should be a standard rule for this. The provider is not providing, so suspend. To avoid issues this must be node related NOT user related.
1 month is (I believe) a very reasonable period.
Creating the rule would also raise the quality of the provider tag on LES. It would also encourage providers to monitor the forum more often etc.
@msatt said:
So all a provider needs to do to maintain their tag is login (and do bugger all) - stupid.
There has to be a line drawn where node down for X period without any view to fixing means suspend tag.
All the provider needs to do is say (somewhere) what and when things are happening to avoid the suspension.
I don't want to load the mods with any extra work but there should be a standard rule for this. The provider is not providing, so suspend. To avoid issues this must be node related NOT user related.
1 month is (I believe) a very reasonable period.
Creating the rule would also raise the quality of the provider tag on LES. It would also encourage providers to monitor the forum more often etc.
Those are some suggestions to consider.
Note: we must all be aware of the fact that we can't force providers to offer the quality of service that we require - we can only choose which providers' services we are using.
@msatt said:
So all a provider needs to do to maintain their tag is login (and do bugger all) - stupid.
There has to be a line drawn where node down for X period without any view to fixing means suspend tag.
All the provider needs to do is say (somewhere) what and when things are happening to avoid the suspension.
I don't want to load the mods with any extra work but there should be a standard rule for this. The provider is not providing, so suspend. To avoid issues this must be node related NOT user related.
1 month is (I believe) a very reasonable period.
Creating the rule would also raise the quality of the provider tag on LES. It would also encourage providers to monitor the forum more often etc.
You wanna create rules for new providers, fine. That makes some sense since we don't have any historical data to judge them by. When you've got years of history to judge from why remove the ability to use that data. Note that I completely agree with you that it should be as you say re: communication. I personally am having a hard time making a decision about renewing some services because he's sitting right on my own personal pivot point. But that's my decision to make.
@bikegremlin said: Note: we must all be aware of the fact that we can't force providers to offer the quality of service that we require - we can only choose which providers' services we are using.
^^^ People that have bought Virmach either a) did so knowingly and accepted the risk, or b) are in the process of learning a valuable lesson about doing research on vendors.
@skorous said: ^^^ People that have bought Virmach either a) did so knowingly and accepted the risk, or b) are in the process of learning a valuable lesson about doing research on vendors.
I was aware of the risks (been around long enough), but there has to be a point where things become unacceptable.
You certainly make a fair point about rules for new providers but really why should a poor provider be allowed to continue just because they are 'old'.
We all want LES to be a place with quality providers (which we do have) however quality needs to be maintained otherwise suspend until quality returns.
@skorous said: ^^^ People that have bought Virmach either a) did so knowingly and accepted the risk, or b) are in the process of learning a valuable lesson about doing research on vendors.
I was aware of the risks (been around long enough), but there has to be a point where things become unacceptable.
You certainly make a fair point about rules for new providers but really why should a poor provider be allowed to continue just because they are 'old'.
We all want LES to be a place with quality providers (which we do have) however quality needs to be maintained otherwise suspend until quality returns.
This is the Low End - so while high quality is an admirable goal to strive for, many customers and providers are quite happy with less than perfect quality at bargain prices.
You can show up to a Sunday league match and expect the game to not be rigged - but you can't expect all the players to be sober.
@msatt said: I was aware of the risks (been around long enough), but there has to be a point where things become unacceptable.
Unacceptable for you is easy - vote with your wallet. Unacceptable for for everyone is a much higher bar to clear and for which - in my opinion at least - you have to consider the history which you want to take out of the equation.
@msatt said: You certainly make a fair point about rules for new providers but really why should a poor provider be allowed to continue just because they are 'old'.
You like to use terms like "poor" which are value judgements made by an individual but you use them as if they're universally accepted.
@bikegremlin said: We all want LES to be a place with quality providers
Which quality are you looking for? I'm not sure it's the same ones I'm looking for.
@bikegremlin said: This is the Low End - so while high quality is an admirable goal to strive for, many customers and providers are quite happy with less than perfect quality at bargain prices.
Low End should not equate to Low quality, it should be acceptable quality which (I consider) has a set threshold.
@skorous said: Unacceptable for you is easy - vote with your wallet. Unacceptable for for everyone is a much higher bar to clear and for which - in my opinion at least - you have to consider the history which you want to take out of the equation.
Again fair points - I am voting 'with my feet' e.g. 6 VMs cancelled so far.
Yes we know the history, but that does not give the provider the right to keep on providing no service. How do we know that history will keep on repeating. As you said -
@VirMach is likely a one-man show. If he disappears (hospitalized, arrested, broke, or—hopefully not—dead), customers would have zero idea what’s happening. Same goes if the company suddenly folds.
@skorous said: You like to use terms like "poor" which are value judgements made by an individual but you use them as if they're universally accepted.
I can only express using my own values not anyone else and virmach is a provider not providing a service - you certainly can't say that is good.
@bikegremlin said: This is the Low End - so while high quality is an admirable goal to strive for, many customers and providers are quite happy with less than perfect quality at bargain prices.
Low End should not equate to Low quality, it should be acceptable quality which (I consider) has a set threshold.
That is a variable that depends on the customer, price, and the intended use. What may not be acceptable to you, may be to someone else.
We encourage feedback and reviews (so all the LESbians know what kind of service to expect), but we don't enforce high quality - we just try to filter any frauds as much as possible.
@bikegremlin said: We encourage feedback and reviews (so all the LESbians know what kind of service to expect), but we don't enforce high quality - we just try to filter any frauds as much as possible.
To use @somik comments - high quality is a value judgement.
You used 'high' I used 'acceptable'. My comment still stands a provider should provide and when this fails there should be some action. I am saying provide and not mentioning quality. A node being offline for more than a month without any notification or updates is certainly not (in my opinion) a provider providing.
I think everyone understands (not necessarily agrees) my views and obviously this thread does act as 'history'. But my opinion is unchanged, there should be an acceptable level of service from a provider and there should be consequences where and when possible.
@msatt said: Low End should not equate to Low quality, it should be acceptable quality which (I consider) has a set threshold.
Again, "you consider". It's good you've got definite opinions on these things. Just be sure to note that they're opinions.
@msatt said: I can only express using my own values not anyone else and virmach is a provider not providing a service - you certainly can't say that is good.
Focusing on that specific statement "provider not providing a service" - then I have little doubt we can all agree. If you're saying the service as a whole is not good then I'm afraid you're wrong using my value judgements.
@skorous said: Focusing on that specific statement "provider not providing a service" - then I have little doubt we can all agree. If you're saying the service as a whole is not good then I'm afraid you're wrong using my value judgements.
Glad we can agree on something ;-)
I am certainly not and never meant to imply that the service as a whole is not good. I have servers that have been up almost a year so certainly not complaining. Yes I am complaining about the provider not providing.
@skorous said: Again, "you consider". It's good you've got definite opinions on these things. Just be sure to note that they're opinions.
I keep on saying my opinions and you have yours, which I am not contradicting. Just because mine may not be in alignment with yours (or anyone else) does not mean my opinions are wrong (or right). The purpose of this thread is moan, praise, chit chat and that is what I am doing.
However, I believe we can start by establishing easily quantifiable systems.
For instance, to retain provider tag, providers should be required to post in the forum weekly/monthly/quarterly/annually to indicate they are still supplying.
While this may not solve the problem, at least we can confirm the provider hasn't (physically) passed away.
@tulipyun said:
Poor quality does not equate to fraud.
However, I believe we can start by establishing easily quantifiable systems.
For instance, to retain provider tag, providers should be required to post in the forum weekly/monthly/quarterly/annually to indicate they are still supplying.
While this may not solve the problem, at least we can confirm the provider hasn't (physically) passed away.
That may sound good, but there are a few buts:
More rules does not improve stuff - it often just gets abused (people finding loopholes).
In a similar way our etiquette policy states "don't be a dick", provider tag policy is "don't be fraudulent."
Broad, but when "used" properly, I think it is best.
Adding more technicalities and boxes to tick won't improve anyone's service.
I will again use the example of Hetzner whose representative(s) don't post or efven log in to LES very often.
I'm still very happy with their service.
I would say "don't be a dick" should apply equally to a provider or member.
Your example about Hetzner does not contradict my earlier comment
@msatt said: There has to be a line drawn where node down for X period without any view to fixing means suspend tag.
All the provider needs to do is say (somewhere) what and when things are happening to avoid the suspension.
I don't want to load the mods with any extra work but there should be a standard rule for this.
The provider is not providing, so suspend.
To avoid issues this must be node related NOT user related.
1 month is (I believe) a very reasonable period.
@cybertech
I think these are very reasonable comments particularly
LES isn't paid in anyway to vet providers or enforce/monitor such SLAs
you will still want more providers willing to advertise than not and this doesn't help
I still feel there should be a way to indicate a provider is not providing.
Just throwing out an idea - how about a "Provider not Providing" thread (sticky) in which a provider can be named if the criteria (whatever that is) is met. The provider details could be removed if they subsequently return to normality. The thread should be locked and an entry is made or removed based on confirmed posts by members.
At least this method means vetting of the provider remains consistent and should not stop providers from coming to LES.
Also a regular comment is 'do your own research', well at least the "Provider not providing" thread would be a good starting point.
It's kind of a pain, that, in the days of having the ability to search, people don't want to have to do their own research. Someone else has to do the work to make one's life less of a pain. We're on page 410. Is it really that hard to see what one is buying into?
@skorous said: As opposed to the Complain, Moan, Praise thread which is generally one of the most active threads on the site?
Come on, I think you are just 'discussing' for the sake of it
So what is it, complain, moan or praise - depending upon how quiet people are (because they know what @VirMach is like), visitors could easily get the wrong impression. I agree after my 'discussion' they may get a different impression (I hope).
As far as the OP comment 410 pages - that could be seen as a real positive and would anyone read 410 pages.
I do feel that a number of people on here just feel like 'leave it alone' we are happy but without discussion LES will just remain stagnant.
As far as the OP comment 410 pages - that could be seen as a real positive and would anyone read 410 pages.
virmach.com itself references TrustPilot, where currently the rating is 1.5, so fine, don't depend on LES, which isn't referenced there. Of course, one does have to look past the retarded local site rating of 4.1, but the "Review us on TrustPilot" is right there beside it. TrustPilot prefers recent ratings over ancient ones, so it tries to emphasize current and to diminish ancient history.
Look 'guys' I have tried to have a sensible balanced discussion but we seem to be moving away from the focus. A provider should provide.
A provider could have a brilliant trustpilot but do a runner or something worse. Why should trustpilot or google or anything else be the source of information when there could be the source on LES.
Why should people like me make these 'stupid' comments everything is working fine.....
@msatt said: Come on, I think you are just 'discussing' for the sake of it
No, I just think you're trying to solve a problem that isn't a problem. I know, you're shocked.
@msatt said: So what is it, complain, moan or praise - depending upon how quiet people are (because they know what @VirMach is like), visitors could easily get the wrong impression. I agree after my 'discussion' they may get a different impression (I hope).
@msatt said: As far as the OP comment 410 pages - that could be seen as a real positive and would anyone read 410 pages.
Does any other provider have a 400+ page Complain/Moan/Praise thread? The very first post talks about what's currently wrong / broken. Nobody will go back the the first page? Okay, when was the last page that didn't have at least a couple people complaining about something being broken? Before you it was @jcn50. Before that it was ... @julensm ? @Flying_Chinaman ? I forget. They all blur together after a while.
@msatt said: I do feel that a number of people on here just feel like 'leave it alone' we are happy but without discussion LES will just remain stagnant.
Hey, discuss away.
@msatt said: Why should people like me make these 'stupid' comments everything is working fine.....
( shrug ) You're passionate. Regardless, everything's not fine. Everything hasn't been fine since .... 2020? It ebbs and flows but it hasn't been 100% right since before I started. ColonCleansing broke contract and turned his shit off. IPs have been repossessed. ASRock motherboards had firmware bugs and once those were mostly mitigated they ate their NVMEs. Dedipath went under. Remote hands installed CPUs with a hammer. Hardware disappeared. Miami was blown down by a hurricane which was only surpassed by San Jose being destroyed by C'thulu. ( Right now you're not sure, 'Did Miami get blown down by a hurricane?' ). Frankly I'm stunned he wasn't affected by that OVH fire. It's messy. But he always comes back.
@skorous I think your reply and history lesson are admirable (genuinely).
Overall yes I do still see a problem and if this was my forum I would be doing something about it. However it is not and I can't change things. While I believe many readers understand my comments / feelings, the consensus appears to be against me. So I will stop pushing but with one proviso I will post my banner every two weeks or so to keep 'newbies' aware.
I hope that is acceptable to all.
@msatt said: While I believe many readers understand my comments / feelings, the consensus appears to be against me.
Just to be clear, * I * understand your comments/feelings. My disagreement is with whether they require any action at this point and if action were taken whether it would make a difference or just make more work for mods.
@msatt said: but with one proviso I will post my banner every two weeks or so to keep 'newbies' aware. I hope that is acceptable to all.
As decreed by the wise sage who created this thread, "I made this thread so that people can say what they want about VirMach's service. That includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. You want to say the same thing ten times, knock your socks off. I don't know how much good it will do, but go right ahead." -- @FrankZ
Just an idea, post it when it's relatively quiet for a while? Prob'ly no need when the post above you is, "OMG! ATLZ05 has been down for a month and I've got a 25% packet loss out of Oklahoma. Again." Not a directive obviously, just figuring it'll maximize your impact.
What I want to know is how many notifications are showing up (on the top left corner) for @Virmach as he should be getting 1 notification for every message that mentions him. As for @FrankZ , he should be getting 1 notification popup for every reply to a thread he created, so.... good luck!
I speak fluent sarcasm and broken logic. | I would agree with you, but thæn we’d both be wrong.
If that's what it is, he could say that's what it is; no speculation required.
"We can confirm that this is not an issue with any servers, network, or power equipment on our end." Not being a dick but I'd argue that's exactly what he said. Could he have elaborated that he's working with the upstream / DC to figure out wtf happened? Sure, and I'd have encouraged that since it probably makes his own life easier by limiting the screaming but here we are.
One could also definitively indicate that compensation is planned. Trust isn't gained by lack of communication, so it is not clear why folk with downed systems and no apparent recourse should speculate to the benefit of the provider versus continuing to draw visibility to inadequately addressed concerns.
I'm not sure I understand that last bit. How are the two items exclusive? You can still be mad that it's down with no communication even if you understand it might not be Virmach's direct fault. Draw attention to it all you want ( though I'd prefer it to be reasonable vs indiscriminate ranting and name calling )
EDIT: Not that my opinion/preferences have any weight mind you. Just putting it out there in case anybody cares ( which they don't but it didn't hurt to try :P )
There's a lot to catch up on and a lot to say, and I was going to compile everything into one big message, but I'll start here.
There was going to be an update as I mentioned some time ago, but San Jose was extremely upsetting and combined with this thread becoming harder to keep up with, I decided it would not be productive until everything was resolved. Of course, everything was not resolved and it only got worse from there. So let's go back to this location first and finally have some communication.
San Jose was one of those cases where I had to smile and nod. The message was very intentionally worded and it was frustrating, because I was waiting days for proper communication with "next steps" (that I never received, it just happened by chance that I was able to convince an engineer to help out.) At the time, and for the next several days, that is all that was known. After a couple years, thousands of IPv4, all it took was one new signup to cause a few (around 4?) blacklistings and within a few hours of sending an ambiguous email, the provider turned off connectivity and it took about a week of trying to figure out how they wanted us to process a suspension to request a removal for the blacklisting (without internet access.) I’m just tired of those types of situations and did not want to spend a few hours coming here to rant about it. I also did not want to give the provider a reason to get upset should they have anyone lurking around here as that's happened in the past.
That's all that was and as I mentioned, I'm tired. I don't want to do physical migrations over it as we may have done in the past, we just have to accept it.
@tulipyun said: @VirMach As a beta tester, I'd like to report that OKC's internet connection seems to be experiencing a number of issues. First, the most notable issue is being unable to connect to 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4, which causes domain name resolution issues. Fortunately, 1.1.1.1 is still available.
Second, connectivity is failing at multiple locations around the world.
Third, available bandwidth seems to have decreased significantly. Using LibreSpeed, I found that bandwidth has dropped from over 600Mbps initially to around 12Mbps currently.
@bmoto said:
OKC beta tester reporting network/routing issues. Not a complaint, just informational.
193.58.147.xxx in OKC can not ping 31.59.129.xx in Amsterdam
193.58.147.xxx in OKC can not ping 66.23.198.xx in Valley Forge, PA.
193.58.147.xxx in OKC can not ping 69.197.140.xxx in Kansas City, MO.
193.58.147.xxx in OKC can not ping 173.249.199.xxx in San Jose, CA.
The above network issue in OKC that was reported on Aug 23rd now appears to be resolved.
Thank you @VirMach
@taizi said:
virmach okc is now UP
Downtime: 3w 2d 14 hr 20 min
Target: Server Agent
Noticed at: 2025-09-17 04:43:37 (UTC+08:00)
at least hetrixtools is back
@AlwaysSkint said:
Yup, at long last it's now possible to do a yum update on the OKC Alama VPS.
Wonders if my CHIZ035 box has been staying up.. goes off to look... Nope, is the short answer- Uptime: 39 min. It's a real shame as has the potential to be my best spec'ced @Virmach VPS. :'(
Then there's the SJCZ011 node abuse at San Jose that pushes the Load high on my lightly used VPS..
Anything Oklahoma related, it’s still a beta, and it’s no longer anywhere close to a priority with everything else going on. It sucks, I really care about this location and I hate putting a pause on it, especially for the few members waiting for IP subnets on their dedicated servers since it’s a trivial task.
I do have some good news, the major routing problem has been partially resolved. It was something transit providers had to work out amongst each other, which took a good amount of time. And it’s still not fully resolved but mostly resolved. I do have a plan for it once it’s a focus again, should they not fully resolve it by then. I am just very very glad that I did not rush this location out. Yes, we’re losing a substantial amount of money on it as a result and as I mentioned, it sucks and is demotivating, but I’m so happy that the only people affected are the couple dozen people who specifically signed up to participate in the beta and were familiar with VirMach (and all the negatives that may involve.) Rather than hundreds or thousands of random people having a terrible first experience with this location as its not meant to be some cheap neglected location. It’s definitely helpful that I can be in a position where I can just go “okay, not now” for this location, no matter what.
Most if not all of the issues people were describing were/are related to the mentioned routing problems, including the dedicated control panel (which thankfully are not a result of me doing something horribly wrong as I initially thought could be possible.) Everyone will of course get service extensions here. Even if not explicitly owed for the beta or requested, it’s just something I’ll be doing because we can. The issue being resolved partially mid-September was confirmation of the above and then working with the transit provider to implement an actual solution followed (which means the issue re-appeared to some level and is improving.)
@VirMach Just so you have a record of it, for OKC:
MariaDB 0.0 B/s | 0 B 02:00
Errors during downloading metadata for repository 'mariadb':
- Curl error (28): Timeout was reached for http://yum.mariadb.org/10.6/almalinux8-amd64/repodata/repomd.xml [Connection timed out after 30000 milliseconds]
Error: Failed to download metadata for repo 'mariadb': Cannot download repomd.xml: Cannot download repodata/repomd.xml: All mirrors were tried
In stasis until the shitposting stops/abates.
Than=compare;then=sequence:brought=bring;bought=buy:staffs=pile of sticks:informations/infos=no plural. It wisnae me! A big boy done it and ran away. || NVMe2G for life! until death (the end is nigh).
@VirMach said:
Anything Oklahoma related, it’s still a beta, and it’s no longer anywhere close to a priority with everything else going on. It sucks, I really care about this location and I hate putting a pause on it, especially for the few members waiting for IP subnets on their dedicated servers since it’s a trivial task.
I do have some good news, the major routing problem has been partially resolved. It was something transit providers had to work out amongst each other, which took a good amount of time. And it’s still not fully resolved but mostly resolved. I do have a plan for it once it’s a focus again, should they not fully resolve it by then. I am just very very glad that I did not rush this location out. Yes, we’re losing a substantial amount of money on it as a result and as I mentioned, it sucks and is demotivating, but I’m so happy that the only people affected are the couple dozen people who specifically signed up to participate in the beta and were familiar with VirMach (and all the negatives that may involve.) Rather than hundreds or thousands of random people having a terrible first experience with this location as its not meant to be some cheap neglected location. It’s definitely helpful that I can be in a position where I can just go “okay, not now” for this location, no matter what.
Most if not all of the issues people were describing were/are related to the mentioned routing problems, including the dedicated control panel (which thankfully are not a result of me doing something horribly wrong as I initially thought could be possible.) Everyone will of course get service extensions here. Even if not explicitly owed for the beta or requested, it’s just something I’ll be doing because we can. The issue being resolved partially mid-September was confirmation of the above and then working with the transit provider to implement an actual solution followed (which means the issue re-appeared to some level and is improving.)
Thanks for the update! Hopefully you don't get TOO demotivated from the OKC issues, at least on my end everything there has been solidly in the "yep, beta" category, and I'm not at all stressed about you getting to it when you get to it. I definitely noticed that the routing issues were temporarily fixed on my dedi, and was also able to get to the panel to reboot it at that time, so I closed the ticket about it. It's back to having routing issues, so I'm just checking in on it daily, but I figured it was something like your upstream dragging their feet.
Let me throw an unrelated super-low-priority thing on your plate just because I don't think I've seen it mentioned before. Email 2FA still works just fine, but sometime after the site redesign, it lost the submit button and threw up an error that it's broken and contact support to remove it. You can just ignore it and hit enter after putting the code in, and I've forgot to screenshot it until now, just throwing it out there to put in the backlog.
Comments
For reasons beaten to death, we've decided to draw the line at CC.
I think that was (is) a good call.
I think it was right to draw the line there.
Same goes for a certain purple hosting provider.
We may disagree on where the line should be drawn, that's one thing.
No way to please everyone there.
Policing VS offer prices and amount of them VS quality - all contradicting criteria and it boils down to finding the ballance (and, again, no way to please everyone).
Another thing is discussing whether a line should be drawn in the first place - seems like we both agree that it should.
As far as I can see: Virmach is what it is, and that has been discussed a lot here.
No secrets.
With LES being a buyer beware market (as opposed to handholding and babysitting), it may be fair to say that customers can be angry at themselves - it was their choice and call.
Of course, there should be a line, and taking money without providing service is a fraud. I'm just not sure where to draw the line in those terms. A long downtime vs no service at all - it does differ, though past a certain point, it is just a distinction without a real difference for the customers. Doesn't look like a clear-cut case to me. Doesn't look good either - but it's been that way practicaly since the start (correct me if I'm wrong).
Relja
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And before anyone asks, I agree with @bikegremlin here. DCs that are heavily used/abused by scammers, and still don't bother to verify their resellers info, should be barred.
No, you are right there. No communication + dissappear + all servers down + main site down, then it's clear that it's a scam. But since some servers are up, some are down, some come back online before going offline again... makes it murky...
This isn't the first time VirMach has gone missing—this time it's been less than two weeks, but I recall him disappearing for much longer periods before.
If his provider tag is suspended or revoked over this, I suspect he might use it as an excuse to never return.
FYI: VirMach vanished from LET over three years ago, yet still retains the “Patron Provider” tag to this day.
give him some time and space; he'll be back.
remember i said this in 2025
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
So all a provider needs to do to maintain their tag is login (and do bugger all) - stupid.
There has to be a line drawn where node down for X period without any view to fixing means suspend tag.
All the provider needs to do is say (somewhere) what and when things are happening to avoid the suspension.
I don't want to load the mods with any extra work but there should be a standard rule for this.
The provider is not providing, so suspend.
To avoid issues this must be node related NOT user related.
1 month is (I believe) a very reasonable period.
Creating the rule would also raise the quality of the provider tag on LES. It would also encourage providers to monitor the forum more often etc.
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Those are some suggestions to consider.
Note: we must all be aware of the fact that we can't force providers to offer the quality of service that we require - we can only choose which providers' services we are using.
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You wanna create rules for new providers, fine. That makes some sense since we don't have any historical data to judge them by. When you've got years of history to judge from why remove the ability to use that data. Note that I completely agree with you that it should be as you say re: communication. I personally am having a hard time making a decision about renewing some services because he's sitting right on my own personal pivot point. But that's my decision to make.
^^^ People that have bought Virmach either a) did so knowingly and accepted the risk, or b) are in the process of learning a valuable lesson about doing research on vendors.
I was aware of the risks (been around long enough), but there has to be a point where things become unacceptable.
You certainly make a fair point about rules for new providers but really why should a poor provider be allowed to continue just because they are 'old'.
We all want LES to be a place with quality providers (which we do have) however quality needs to be maintained otherwise suspend until quality returns.
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This is the Low End - so while high quality is an admirable goal to strive for, many customers and providers are quite happy with less than perfect quality at bargain prices.
You can show up to a Sunday league match and expect the game to not be rigged - but you can't expect all the players to be sober.
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Unacceptable for you is easy - vote with your wallet. Unacceptable for for everyone is a much higher bar to clear and for which - in my opinion at least - you have to consider the history which you want to take out of the equation.
You like to use terms like "poor" which are value judgements made by an individual but you use them as if they're universally accepted.
Which quality are you looking for? I'm not sure it's the same ones I'm looking for.
Fixed that quote - the text layout made it seem like I wrote it.
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Low End should not equate to Low quality, it should be acceptable quality which (I consider) has a set threshold.
Again fair points - I am voting 'with my feet' e.g. 6 VMs cancelled so far.
Yes we know the history, but that does not give the provider the right to keep on providing no service. How do we know that history will keep on repeating. As you said -
I can only express using my own values not anyone else and virmach is a provider not providing a service - you certainly can't say that is good.
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That is a variable that depends on the customer, price, and the intended use. What may not be acceptable to you, may be to someone else.
We encourage feedback and reviews (so all the LESbians know what kind of service to expect), but we don't enforce high quality - we just try to filter any frauds as much as possible.
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To use @somik comments - high quality is a value judgement.
You used 'high' I used 'acceptable'. My comment still stands a provider should provide and when this fails there should be some action. I am saying provide and not mentioning quality. A node being offline for more than a month without any notification or updates is certainly not (in my opinion) a provider providing.
I think everyone understands (not necessarily agrees) my views and obviously this thread does act as 'history'. But my opinion is unchanged, there should be an acceptable level of service from a provider and there should be consequences where and when possible.
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Again, "you consider". It's good you've got definite opinions on these things. Just be sure to note that they're opinions.
Focusing on that specific statement "provider not providing a service" - then I have little doubt we can all agree. If you're saying the service as a whole is not good then I'm afraid you're wrong using my value judgements.
Glad we can agree on something ;-)
I am certainly not and never meant to imply that the service as a whole is not good. I have servers that have been up almost a year so certainly not complaining. Yes I am complaining about the provider not providing.
I keep on saying my opinions and you have yours, which I am not contradicting. Just because mine may not be in alignment with yours (or anyone else) does not mean my opinions are wrong (or right). The purpose of this thread is moan, praise, chit chat and that is what I am doing.
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Poor quality does not equate to fraud.
However, I believe we can start by establishing easily quantifiable systems.
For instance, to retain provider tag, providers should be required to post in the forum weekly/monthly/quarterly/annually to indicate they are still supplying.
While this may not solve the problem, at least we can confirm the provider hasn't (physically) passed away.
Wow... a full on LowEnd debate is going on here!
That may sound good, but there are a few buts:
More rules does not improve stuff - it often just gets abused (people finding loopholes).
In a similar way our etiquette policy states "don't be a dick", provider tag policy is "don't be fraudulent."
Broad, but when "used" properly, I think it is best.
Adding more technicalities and boxes to tick won't improve anyone's service.
I will again use the example of Hetzner whose representative(s) don't post or efven log in to LES very often.
I'm still very happy with their service.
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I would say "don't be a dick" should apply equally to a provider or member.
Your example about Hetzner does not contradict my earlier comment
All the provider needs to do is say (somewhere) what and when things are happening to avoid the suspension.
I don't want to load the mods with any extra work but there should be a standard rule for this.
The provider is not providing, so suspend.
To avoid issues this must be node related NOT user related.
1 month is (I believe) a very reasonable period.
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i think its a little heavy to impose some kind of SLA as:
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
So, did anyone heard anything from VirMach?
Website update, blog update (LOL), ticket update, status update? Anything?
Haven't bought a single service in VirMach Great Ryzen 2022 - 2023 Flash Sale.
@cybertech
I think these are very reasonable comments particularly
I still feel there should be a way to indicate a provider is not providing.
Just throwing out an idea - how about a "Provider not Providing" thread (sticky) in which a provider can be named if the criteria (whatever that is) is met. The provider details could be removed if they subsequently return to normality. The thread should be locked and an entry is made or removed based on confirmed posts by members.
At least this method means vetting of the provider remains consistent and should not stop providers from coming to LES.
Also a regular comment is 'do your own research', well at least the "Provider not providing" thread would be a good starting point.
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It's kind of a pain, that, in the days of having the ability to search, people don't want to have to do their own research. Someone else has to do the work to make one's life less of a pain. We're on page 410. Is it really that hard to see what one is buying into?
As opposed to the Complain, Moan, Praise thread which is generally one of the most active threads on the site?
Come on, I think you are just 'discussing' for the sake of it
So what is it, complain, moan or praise - depending upon how quiet people are (because they know what @VirMach is like), visitors could easily get the wrong impression. I agree after my 'discussion' they may get a different impression (I hope).
As far as the OP comment 410 pages - that could be seen as a real positive and would anyone read 410 pages.
I do feel that a number of people on here just feel like 'leave it alone' we are happy but without discussion LES will just remain stagnant.
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LET THE CHICKENS BE FREE, THE CHICKEN FARM HAS FAILED.
UNLEASH THE CHICKENS NOW!
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virmach.com.> @msatt said:
virmach.com itself references TrustPilot, where currently the rating is 1.5, so fine, don't depend on LES, which isn't referenced there. Of course, one does have to look past the retarded local site rating of 4.1, but the "Review us on TrustPilot" is right there beside it. TrustPilot prefers recent ratings over ancient ones, so it tries to emphasize current and to diminish ancient history.
Look 'guys' I have tried to have a sensible balanced discussion but we seem to be moving away from the focus.
A provider should provide.
A provider could have a brilliant trustpilot but do a runner or something worse. Why should trustpilot or google or anything else be the source of information when there could be the source on LES.
Why should people like me make these 'stupid' comments everything is working fine.....
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No, I just think you're trying to solve a problem that isn't a problem. I know, you're shocked.
Does any other provider have a 400+ page Complain/Moan/Praise thread? The very first post talks about what's currently wrong / broken. Nobody will go back the the first page? Okay, when was the last page that didn't have at least a couple people complaining about something being broken? Before you it was @jcn50. Before that it was ... @julensm ? @Flying_Chinaman ? I forget. They all blur together after a while.
Hey, discuss away.
( shrug ) You're passionate. Regardless, everything's not fine. Everything hasn't been fine since .... 2020? It ebbs and flows but it hasn't been 100% right since before I started. ColonCleansing broke contract and turned his shit off. IPs have been repossessed. ASRock motherboards had firmware bugs and once those were mostly mitigated they ate their NVMEs. Dedipath went under. Remote hands installed CPUs with a hammer. Hardware disappeared. Miami was blown down by a hurricane which was only surpassed by San Jose being destroyed by C'thulu. ( Right now you're not sure, 'Did Miami get blown down by a hurricane?' ). Frankly I'm stunned he wasn't affected by that OVH fire. It's messy. But he always comes back.
Is there a canary or something? @VirMach come on at least login here every tuesday
@skorous I think your reply and history lesson are admirable (genuinely).
Overall yes I do still see a problem and if this was my forum I would be doing something about it. However it is not and I can't change things. While I believe many readers understand my comments / feelings, the consensus appears to be against me. So I will stop pushing but with one proviso I will post my banner every two weeks or so to keep 'newbies' aware.
I hope that is acceptable to all.
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Just to be clear, * I * understand your comments/feelings. My disagreement is with whether they require any action at this point and if action were taken whether it would make a difference or just make more work for mods.
As decreed by the wise sage who created this thread, "I made this thread so that people can say what they want about VirMach's service. That includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. You want to say the same thing ten times, knock your socks off. I don't know how much good it will do, but go right ahead." -- @FrankZ
Just an idea, post it when it's relatively quiet for a while? Prob'ly no need when the post above you is, "OMG! ATLZ05 has been down for a month and I've got a 25% packet loss out of Oklahoma. Again." Not a directive obviously, just figuring it'll maximize your impact.
What I want to know is how many notifications are showing up (on the top left corner) for @Virmach as he should be getting 1 notification for every message that mentions him. As for @FrankZ , he should be getting 1 notification popup for every reply to a thread he created, so.... good luck!
Implement real time notification pop-ups for @FrankZ
Someone should login to his account and enable email notifications for everything!
There's a lot to catch up on and a lot to say, and I was going to compile everything into one big message, but I'll start here.
There was going to be an update as I mentioned some time ago, but San Jose was extremely upsetting and combined with this thread becoming harder to keep up with, I decided it would not be productive until everything was resolved. Of course, everything was not resolved and it only got worse from there. So let's go back to this location first and finally have some communication.
San Jose was one of those cases where I had to smile and nod. The message was very intentionally worded and it was frustrating, because I was waiting days for proper communication with "next steps" (that I never received, it just happened by chance that I was able to convince an engineer to help out.) At the time, and for the next several days, that is all that was known. After a couple years, thousands of IPv4, all it took was one new signup to cause a few (around 4?) blacklistings and within a few hours of sending an ambiguous email, the provider turned off connectivity and it took about a week of trying to figure out how they wanted us to process a suspension to request a removal for the blacklisting (without internet access.) I’m just tired of those types of situations and did not want to spend a few hours coming here to rant about it. I also did not want to give the provider a reason to get upset should they have anyone lurking around here as that's happened in the past.
That's all that was and as I mentioned, I'm tired. I don't want to do physical migrations over it as we may have done in the past, we just have to accept it.
Welcome back to the land of the living!
Anything Oklahoma related, it’s still a beta, and it’s no longer anywhere close to a priority with everything else going on. It sucks, I really care about this location and I hate putting a pause on it, especially for the few members waiting for IP subnets on their dedicated servers since it’s a trivial task.
I do have some good news, the major routing problem has been partially resolved. It was something transit providers had to work out amongst each other, which took a good amount of time. And it’s still not fully resolved but mostly resolved. I do have a plan for it once it’s a focus again, should they not fully resolve it by then. I am just very very glad that I did not rush this location out. Yes, we’re losing a substantial amount of money on it as a result and as I mentioned, it sucks and is demotivating, but I’m so happy that the only people affected are the couple dozen people who specifically signed up to participate in the beta and were familiar with VirMach (and all the negatives that may involve.) Rather than hundreds or thousands of random people having a terrible first experience with this location as its not meant to be some cheap neglected location. It’s definitely helpful that I can be in a position where I can just go “okay, not now” for this location, no matter what.
Most if not all of the issues people were describing were/are related to the mentioned routing problems, including the dedicated control panel (which thankfully are not a result of me doing something horribly wrong as I initially thought could be possible.) Everyone will of course get service extensions here. Even if not explicitly owed for the beta or requested, it’s just something I’ll be doing because we can. The issue being resolved partially mid-September was confirmation of the above and then working with the transit provider to implement an actual solution followed (which means the issue re-appeared to some level and is improving.)
We missed you
Welcome back @VirMach
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@VirMach Just so you have a record of it, for OKC:
In stasis until the shitposting stops/abates.
Than=compare;then=sequence:brought=bring;bought=buy:staffs=pile of sticks:informations/infos=no plural.
It wisnae me! A big boy done it and ran away. || NVMe2G for life! until death (the end is nigh).
still no virtfusion?
I bench YABS 24/7/365 unless it's a leap year.
Thanks for the update! Hopefully you don't get TOO demotivated from the OKC issues, at least on my end everything there has been solidly in the "yep, beta" category, and I'm not at all stressed about you getting to it when you get to it. I definitely noticed that the routing issues were temporarily fixed on my dedi, and was also able to get to the panel to reboot it at that time, so I closed the ticket about it. It's back to having routing issues, so I'm just checking in on it daily, but I figured it was something like your upstream dragging their feet.
Let me throw an unrelated super-low-priority thing on your plate just because I don't think I've seen it mentioned before. Email 2FA still works just fine, but sometime after the site redesign, it lost the submit button and threw up an error that it's broken and contact support to remove it. You can just ignore it and hit enter after putting the code in, and I've forgot to screenshot it until now, just throwing it out there to put in the backlog.
Wake me up when VirBot is back....
Welcome @VirMach
Hope all is well
Controls still locked, but at least it's online
Haven't bought a single service in VirMach Great Ryzen 2022 - 2023 Flash Sale.