Lost website - any legal recourse?

[Osinjak]

Well it's not really lost, I know exactly where it is I just can't get to it.

I used to run a small community chat website (bit like PH but not with software from the 19th Century) for car enthusiasts that had about 600 members, some of whom contributed money to help keep the site running. It was hosted on an unmanaged VPS through a company in Wigan. About two days ago the site just disappeared, no warning, no hint, no nothing. I've tried calling but it goes straight to a 'we're very busy call back later' message and raised tickets go unanswered. Crucially, I can't get on the server to get a backup so I can't put the site anywhere else. Do I have any legal standpoint at all? All I want is a backup of my website and the £97 of my money that I paid upfront for renting the VPS and I'll be happy. I'd still like to fill the little tt in though.

[spookly]

Check the contract you signed up to. It will most likely absolve the company of any responsibility for backing up, unless you paid for it as a service. It will probably also have lots of legalese covering them for outages and everything else, and will probably state that SLAs are just a target and not to be relied on.

You should have been backing up yourself. And using synchronous storage of data to a second database with another provider.

[TooMany2cvs]

Osinjak said:

It was hosted on an unmanaged VPS through a company in Wigan. About two days ago the site just disappeared, no warning, no hint, no nothing. I've tried calling but it goes straight to a 'we're very busy call back later' message and raised tickets go unanswered.

Limited company? Sounds like they've gone south.

Osinjak said:

Crucially, I can't get on the server to get a backup

How old's your most recent backup?

Osinjak said:

Do I have any legal standpoint at all? All I want is a backup of my website and the £97 of my money that I paid upfront for renting the VPS and I'll be happy.

If it is a limited company, then you're an unsecured creditor for the £97. Since it's probably the tax man or a large trade creditor who've pushed them, then I'd probably just write it off and save your breath.

[Osinjak]

spookly said:

You should have been backing up yourself. And using synchronous storage of data to a second database with another provider.

I know, I know. Hindsight and all that. All I want to do is get on there and get a back up, if I can 'force' him through legalese to give me access or him to give it to me then job done. It's a long shot I know but as the dhead isn't communicating I can't do much more.

[TooMany2cvs]

Osinjak said:

It's a long shot I know but as the dhead isn't communicating I can't do much more.

If it's a one-man band, how do you know he CAN communicate with you, and that he's not on his deathbed or whatever?

[akirk]

turn up on site with a computer / usb disk / etc. and ask to do a back up - explain why...

if it is a small company able to go under - were they actually running the hosting on their own servers - or was it shared space on someone else's - was it racked / hosted by someone else...

domain name -> IP address for the hosting - check who actually has that IP address allocated to them - not unusual for it to be a third party...
if it is - speak to them, they might be very happy to move it for you onto your own hosting

[S9JTO]

PM the company name, a relative works for a VPS in Wigan, small world. If it's his company I'll get him to sort it.

[Osinjak]

akirk said:

turn up on site with a computer / usb disk / etc. and ask to do a back up - explain why...

Trust me I'd love to but I'm quite some distance away. Haven't ruled out someone else doing it for me though.

akirk said:

if it is a small company able to go under - were they actually running the hosting on their own servers - or was it shared space on someone else's - was it racked / hosted by someone else...

When he set up his business he said to was all his own gear but someone else seemed to think he was a reseller.

akirk said:

domain name -> IP address for the hosting - check who actually has that IP address allocated to them - not unusual for it to be a third party...
if it is - speak to them, they might be very happy to move it for you onto your own hosting

Company's IP is registered in Austria but that's as far as we've got.

[Osinjak]

S9JTO said:

PM the company name, a relative works for a VPS in Wigan, small world. If it's his company I'll get him to sort it.

Done, thanks!

[mgv8]

You should be able to get URL back.
I would not hang around and get the person who is close to site to go get your data before the servers are handed back or over to new people.

[Osinjak]

mgv8 said:

You should be able to get URL back.
I would not hang around and get the person who is close to site to go get your data before the servers are handed back or over to new people.

I've just found out that the chap who I thought could physically go there is overseas by some margin so that's buggered. I think that even if there were some sort of enforcement order (or whatever legal thing might be appropriate) to handover my site or give me access it'd be too late anyway. What a crock.

[bmwmike]

Not in the least helpful I know but I'm surprised these small hosting outfits even exist these days considering how easy and cheap AWS/GCE/Azure are to use. I used to work for one in the 90's and we literally had a stack of pc boxes leaning against a wall hosting 100's of sites. Multiplug extensions and all.

Good luck.

[TooMany2cvs]

bmwmike said:

Not in the least helpful I know but I'm surprised these small hosting outfits even exist these days

I don't think they do - for that very reason. It's so trivially easy to rent "properly" hosted space, that the small "hosts" do that.

Even if the OP finds out which datacentre his stuff's been hosted in, he won't be able to talk the end-hosts into letting him have it because he's not their customer. Imagine the chaos if they DID take everybody's word for it... Even if he did, his data won't be easily accessible. The end-host will quite possibly rent the whole physical box to the Wigan outfit, who'll then run their own virtual servers on it, so the physical host probably won't even have access to anything the OP will be able to use.

[akirk]

TooMany2cvs said:

I don't think they do - for that very reason. It's so trivially easy to rent "properly" hosted space, that the small "hosts" do that.

Even if the OP finds out which datacentre his stuff's been hosted in, he won't be able to talk the end-hosts into letting him have it because he's not their customer. Imagine the chaos if they DID take everybody's word for it... Even if he did, his data won't be easily accessible. The end-host will quite possibly rent the whole physical box to the Wigan outfit, who'll then run their own virtual servers on it, so the physical host probably won't even have access to anything the OP will be able to use.

If he can demonstrate he owns the domain and the track record in having paid for the website etc. then he has a chance of getting the box owner to move the files to a new hosting setup... one of our many contingency elements in the hosting we sell to our clients is that if I (and all other staff) are run over by the bus which comes through this area once a year - the company who manage the racking etc. will move a website based on authority from the domain owner...

equally - depending on what has actually gone down - it may be still possible to get into the server - depending what access information the OP has - we have recently managed to get back a couple of websites for clients whose hosts were either playing sill games, or where the server had apparently gone down (GoDaddy server) but we could still get in through putty and back up and extract the database and files...

[Osinjak]

akirk said:

equally - depending on what has actually gone down - it may be still possible to get into the server - depending what access information the OP has - we have recently managed to get back a couple of websites for clients whose hosts were either playing sill games, or where the server had apparently gone down (GoDaddy server) but we could still get in through putty and back up and extract the database and files...

The Control Panel for the VPS has just disappeared, it is quite simply no longer there. I used to go to the host site, My Services and find the CP there but it's gone. Went through putty and no connectivity. A mate of mine who's much more techy than I am managed to see the server but the ports were filtered so couldn't get proper access. He suggested going through the CP to get a backup and that's when we realised it had gone. If you've got any other ideas, they'd be gratefully received!

[Allanv]

Assuming it is bmwlander and with IP address 172.212.222.104 then FTP is working although needs username and password.

ask yer mate to try that with the correct credentials and backup things from there.

[Osinjak]

Allanv said:

Assuming it is bmwlander and with IP address 172.212.222.104 then FTP is working although needs username and password.

ask yer mate to try that with the correct credentials and backup things from there.

Cheers, my mate has just set up that landing page for me, there'll be some text on it shortly. The IP used to be 185.177.20.160.

[TooMany2cvs]

Osinjak said:

The IP used to be 185.177.20.160.

That does appear to be located in Wigan, which would go along with https://www.northhosts.co.uk/colocation/ - so the box should be under their physical control. Doesn't help much if they have gone tits, though...

[akirk]

Osinjak said:

akirk said:

equally - depending on what has actually gone down - it may be still possible to get into the server - depending what access information the OP has - we have recently managed to get back a couple of websites for clients whose hosts were either playing sill games, or where the server had apparently gone down (GoDaddy server) but we could still get in through putty and back up and extract the database and files...

The Control Panel for the VPS has just disappeared, it is quite simply no longer there. I used to go to the host site, My Services and find the CP there but it's gone. Went through putty and no connectivity. A mate of mine who's much more techy than I am managed to see the server but the ports were filtered so couldn't get proper access. He suggested going through the CP to get a backup and that's when we realised it had gone. If you've got any other ideas, they'd be gratefully received!

Sounds as though it could be behind a firewall - so you would need to get through that - if you can see the server, then putty can get into the server command line and you can do whatever you want - however, if there is a firewall in the way, then you may need to vpn through that firewall to gain access - a lot depends on the security...

However, if the server is still physically online, I would be getting in a car and driving to it...

[Mgd_uk]

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looks like the bill has not been paid
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