*Warning * Web-Mania gone Bust(?)

[MYK-IT]

Just an advisory that it appears that the web hosting company web-mania.com has gone bust.

 

posted in here as well as techy forum. Anybody had problems with Webmania?

 

Web Mania www.web-mania.co.uk Reviews | Web Hosting Companies | Review Centre

 

Time to checkout another hosting company asap, only just renewed last month!

[plexer]

I used to use webmania for my hosting but now use ariotek.co.uk

 

Ben

[kevbaz]

used them for years, and about a year ago they got bloody awful! just had our renewal notice through and were due to pay it anyday now! time to grab our files and run!!!

 

 

any suggestions for a reliable host?

[glennda]

H'mm our School Association use them to host - good job i brought them in house last week

[theeldergeek]

!

 

 

any suggestions for a reliable host?

 

CS New Media - he's an Edugeeker too.

[tom_newton]

Always heard good things about positive internet, depends how "full service" you want to get I suppose... I know some decent colo/shared server places.

 

Edit: Now seems positive do some inexpensive managed hosting too. Hmm. Certainly a decent bunch when I last encountered them, but it wasn't today or yesterday

[CSNM-Carl]

Ah, that explains the rather large influx of shared hosting orders today!

[EduTech]

Oh Dear! I guess if there service was getting poor it doesn't surprise me to be honest.. o'well hopefully a nice company like CSNM will pick up the trail

 

J

[kevbaz]

Would somone be able to tell me how i go about pointing my domain at a new webserver? i have a new host and i have the epp code for my domain, new host is saying they can sort it out for a small fee, but just wondering how i would go about it myself, if at all possible?

[EduTech]

If your domain is with the old provider, if you login to your admin portal you should be able to specify a new "IPS TAG" in this field you need to specify your new "IPS TAG" for the new provider and then the domain will transfer over to them.

 

I would of thought you should have access to be able to do this.

 

If your domain is elsewhere and not with the old host, then on there control panel you may just need to specify some new name servers.

 

Hope that helps,

 

James.

Edited February 10, 2011 by EduTech
Typo

[plexer]

The registrar i.e nominet can do it if required?

 

Ben

[CSNM-Carl]

Would somone be able to tell me how i go about pointing my domain at a new webserver? i have a new host and i have the epp code for my domain, new host is saying they can sort it out for a small fee, but just wondering how i would go about it myself, if at all possible?

 

It's not a .UK domain so Nominet won't help, if you have an EPP key it's a .com/.net etc domain. IPS Tags are only on .UK domains.

 

Who is the domain currently registered with; the host you are moving from or another domain registrar?

[kevbaz]

domain was purchased through webmainia the same time as the hosting, ive been in touch with Hosting Reseller, Domain Name Reseller, Business Email, Enterprise Instant Messenger, SSL - OnlineNIC Inc. of whom webmania are a reseller and its them i got the epp code from, ive submitted a request to them to change the name server if possible.

 

Theres no option in the webmania cp to make any changes i need to make as far as i can see

[CSNM-Carl]

domain was purchased through webmainia the same time as the hosting, ive been in touch with Hosting Reseller, Domain Name Reseller, Business Email, Enterprise Instant Messenger, SSL - OnlineNIC Inc. of whom webmania are a reseller and its them i got the epp code from, ive submitted a request to them to change the name server if possible.

 

Theres no option in the webmania cp to make any changes i need to make as far as i can see

 

WOW I'm surprised they gave you that, they really shouldn't have!

 

You want to get it away from Web-mania ASAP if they've gone 'bust', in order for the domain to transfer successfully you need to ensure that you have a valid EPP code, that the domain is un-locked and that the admin email address on the domain has a valid email address set.

 

You will need to pay to transfer the domain to another registrar, but it shouldn't be much < £10 and an extra year is added on top of the domain once the transfer completes, so it's not all bad

[kevbaz]

OnlineNIC have been very helpful, they are the registrar for the domain webmania are the reseller, as webmania have gone bust you have to go to OnlineNIC to get your domain freed, the admin email changed to your own personal one and the epp code. had to provide ID though i should add

 

They have just updated the dns for my domain for me free of charge, my new host was going to charge about £7.50 or so, and i have just checked whois and its all up and running.

 

Happy days

[hudster]

I had a long struggle with their liveperson help desk who insist that the company is still running. Like the poster above I eventually got my domains tranferred away by contacting OnlineNIC.

 

I wrote up the whole process in detail for anyone who needs to follow the same path here: Webmania help

[Guest Vger]

WOW I'm surprised they gave you that, they really shouldn't have!

 

Actually Carl (nice to meet up again by the way), OnlineNIC is assisting anyone who wants to move away from Web Mania.

 

On the 4th of May a meeting was held under the Insolvency Act to appoint a liquidator for Web Mania Limited. I don't know what happened at that meeting, but the notice was posted in the London Gazette, notice number 1349844

 

Vger

[Guest Vger]

Well, it's official now, and Web Mania has gone bust. At the meeting held on the 4th of May under the Insolvency Act the company went into into liquidation under action taken by its creditors.

 

Search Results

[Guest Vger]

Well, for those who are interested, it seems that Web Mania are now YorHost (yorhost.net) - registered by Nathan Barnes on 3rd May and updated on 4th May (the day Web Mania was liquidated).

 

Copyright©2011 www.yorhost.net All rights reserved

 

Vger

[Guest Vger]

Well, the tale gets curiouser and curiouser. Web Mania customers are now reporting that their websites are coming back online, and they've finally received emails stating that Web Mania have moved their servers from the Data Centre they were housed in to their York office (I guess this is where 'yorhost' comes from).

 

So, apparently, 24/7/365 security controlled access, temperature/humidy control, automated fire suppression systems, fail-safe power backup systems and Gigabit Ethernet connections are now no longer necessary for web hosting. Now all you need is a room in a terraced cottage!

 

 

Copyright Google 2011

[Guest Vger]

p.s. If your Web Mania site has come back online my advice is to Google for "Web Mania Help" and move your site/s elsewhere pronto!

[Admiral]

the story was that web mania were moving their servers from a london location to york after there had been problems with the equipment - when my site didn't come back on a quick email to them and it was put back on so no further thoughts.

 

have been bombarded with emails to renew a couple of registrations and got round to it yesterday but was unable to make the transaction online - so did it direct on faster payment from my fonebank facility and advised by email. have been unable get an acknowledgement of the payments. So... having made the payments have I put the money into a liquidators account and will not the renewals ??

 

whilst there may be a few out there gloating at the web mania demise, may I remind you that people will probably have lost their jobs over this, even if it is the odd one or two.

What am I saying - I have paid for something to what may be a liquidated company, will I get the service or my money back ??

[Guest Vger]

whilst there may be a few out there gloating at the web mania demise, may I remind you that people will probably have lost their jobs over this, even if it is the odd one or two

 

Whilst myself and CSNM-Carl who have posted here are both involved in hosting I can assure you (for myself and I'm sure for Carl also) that we're not gloating over the demise of Web Mania - and it's far more than 1 or 2 people who have lost their jobs. It actually came as quite a shock.

 

However, my main sympathies are with the customers whose sites suddenly disappeared and whose domains did not get renewed even after they had paid for domain renewals.

 

will I get the service or my money back ??

 

I'm afraid I have no answer to that question, because I don't know exactly to whome your money went - the liquidators or to Natahan Barnes who seems to be trying to resurrect Web Mania (presumably with the agreement of the liquidators). I can only advise you to keep watch on those domains to see if the renewal is being processed. If there's no sign of it then you would need to move them elsewhere before they enter the "Suspension" phase.

 

As for the move from London to York - that was a move from a London Data Centre to the registered offices of Web Mania, which is a terraced house. I can only assume this was because there were monies owing to the Data Centre and they were no longer prepared to rack up servers of a defunct company. Without knowing the full inside story I can only make yet another assumption (whether justified or not) that this was also the reason the servers (and websites) went offline in the first instance.

 

In short - keep a close watch on your domains and act in your own business interests. That's all you can do.

[Admiral]

Viger - thanks for the response

 

I have been around so long that I can remember the days of plonking telephones handsets into funny rubber thingys before real modems came along. There have been a number of things I had drummed into me shouldn't talk about - then find they make films about them (WindTalkers and Family of Spies).

 

So, I am going to keep an open mind about this business with Web Mania. I have been involved with them on and off for over 5 years and never really had problems with them. The one problem I did have was in loading a website written in NetObjects Fusion, which the staff there didn't seem to have heard of, so probably my fault.

 

Have emailed Begby Traynors who are the liquidators and also spoken to Nominet as well as emailing Nathan for an update, so will sit back until the end of week and let people get things sorted out - especially if Nathan is sure the facilities at YorHost - which appears to have a location in an industrial estate locally.

regards

[Guest Vger]

I have been around so long that I can remember the days of plonking telephones handsets into funny rubber thingys before real modems came along

 

Well, as I'm 61 years old I can go back a lot further than that.

 

I have been involved with them on and off for over 5 years and never really had problems with them

 

That's been the comment of a number of people, and why I said we were "quite shocked" when we started getting phone calls and support tickets from people desperate to move to get their sites back online.

 

However, on other forums, people are now reporting that their sites are coming back online and that they did receive an email from Nathan Barnes - which said that servers were being moved from London over last weekend to their "York offices" - which are in a terraced house, and hence my comment. Nothing wrong at all with having offices in a house -we do the same, but the statement gave the impression of the servers being housed there (which would be a big no-no).

 

I suspect that things will improve for Web Mania customers from here on.

 

Have emailed Begby Traynors who are the liquidators

 

I'm not a lawyer and so can't be certain - but my understanding is that monies paid BEFORE the liquidation could well be lost, but that monies paid AFTER the liquidation should be secure - and I think you said that you paid after the liquidation.