Is this a server or firewall problem?

[lukeh]

Hi all,

I am brand new to this site but utterly desperate for help. I have never had this problem before, and found this site after searching for help, I hope you can.

I have four sites hosted with a UK company called Streamline. The sites names are (aenglish /cvsolution / tomholden / holdenteas) I live in China in a university which has it's own server and firewall. Sorry, but I can't post links, but they can be found easily from google (first 3 are all net, last is co uk).

Until recently the sites were quite fast at loading except for cvsolution. After weeks of communication between streamline and myself to move it to another of their servers, all the four sites suddenly failed. After a week of this, they email to say it's now fixed. BUT, all four sites load very slowly or fail to load. Strangely, their ftp control panel (Streamline FTP) now also loads very slowly and fails, but their main site works okay.

I have asked others in China. Some say that they are slow but work, others say they all fail. I have asked in the UK, and they say that they load fine.

My question is this, is this a hosting issue, or is it a China issue, or my university's issue. I am stumped and don't know how to check or what to check for. Can anyone help???? Please help me, I am very confused and Streamline keep sending me around in circles with no answer.

Luke

[temi]

Luke,
Welcome to UK WW, we will be happy to help but first one need to be sue exactly what your sites are.
Can you post them in this format, for example, my site is temi.co.uk or temi dot co dot uk.
Without being sure one is looking at the correct site, one cannot do any useful test on your site for you.
Thanks

[lukeh]

Hi Temi,

Thanks for your message. The sites are;

www dot cvsolution dot net
www dot aenglish dot net
www dot tomholden dot net
www dot holdenteas dot co dot uk


the ftp page is www dot streamlineftp dot net
the main page is www dot streamline dot net

Another strange thing is, even though I have redirects in my .htaccess to go from non-www to www (and they worked before), they fail now and non www versions won't load at all.

[temi]

I loaded the 4 sites, they are not super fast but they load in fairly reasonable time for a budget hosting company like Streamline. But it bank holiday weekend, demand on Streamline servers will not be at peak so perhaps the sites may be very very during normal working days. You may want to try a comprehensive site monitoring tools like the one provided by internet seer, I think the basic version is free, it will test connectivity to you site at regular intervals and give you a report. From the test I did just now, you site works fine.

The reason your .httaccess redirect does not work could have something to do with moving from one server to another serve. You may just want to update and reupload your .httaccess file again.

[lukeh]

thanks demi, and here the problem lies. No ftp means I can't change anything. It might be an issue with my uni server having limited traffic, so I'll go and see.

I'll check that tool, thanks.

[temi]

If you can send me you ftp address via PM, i can test it for you from here. Please do not post you ftp details, send it to me via a secure means or if you have a friend who can test it for you in UK, ask him/her to test it for you in case you are not sure of giving you ftp access to a stranger like me.

[lukeh]

thanks demi. Actually, the site streamlineftp dot net no longer loads for me at all, not even allowing me to enter my login details. Thats why I think it may be a local problem

[DanielEZPZ]

They seem to load for me, but very slowly. I'd imagine being so far from the server, that its timing out for you.

[DanielEZPZ]

By the way, have you noticed this on any other sites from the UK, or just streamline?

[lukeh]

Hi DanielEZPZ,

Only my sites and streamlines ftp access page. Everything else loads fine for me. I even tried them in ff, IE and netscape.