Hey guys. I have been hosting ASP.Net/SQL Server on Network Solutions for almost two years. I was generally happy with their service until about three months ago, when my site suddenly began experiencing database connectivity errors. These are network level transport errors. In Enterprise Manager they show up as "Network name no longer available."
I've called these guys, no kidding, ten times over the last month. I'm on my sixth escalation service tracking number. Typically the call center guy commiserates with me, tells me this is uncommon, puts me on hold, then tells me he has spoken with engineering and I can expect to receive an email.
I have yet to receive any email that was not bot-generated. Site still dying as of this morning.
Sooo... screw this. I am looking for another host. I need ASP.Net 1.1 (2.0 is a plus), SQL Server 2000 (2005 is a plus), multiple domain pointers, subdomains would be nice, server-side includes, maybe a few gigs disk, FTP access, email boxes, a few gigs bandwidth (scalability is a plus), enough SQL Server disk for a hundred megs or so of data (scalability is a plus), web traffic reporting is a plus, everything else is a plus, yada yada. I am currently paying $150 or so annually to Network Dissolutions.
Recommendations very welcome!
[Edit: Fairness update
Turns out that the issue was not directly connected with Network Solutions. Rather it is a well-known (to everyone but me) problem with connection pooling in ASP.Net 1.x. If you use connection pooling the system tries to reuse existing connections, and in so doing tries to set a security role for them, and fails. It then reports the unhelpful "general network error." How the heck is a failure to assign a security role a "general network error?" Oh well, I was able to solve the problem by turning off connection pooling, but I am a little concerned about performance. If someone knows another workaround to this problem I'd love to hear about it.
Network Solutions is responsible in two senses: 1) that they refuse to upgrade to .Net 2.0, which does not exhibit the problem; and 2) they were unable to tell me about the cause despite two months of interaction with support. The fact that I didn't find it myself in that time is ample indication of how little attention I paid to it while I was in development.
/edit]
I've called these guys, no kidding, ten times over the last month. I'm on my sixth escalation service tracking number. Typically the call center guy commiserates with me, tells me this is uncommon, puts me on hold, then tells me he has spoken with engineering and I can expect to receive an email.
I have yet to receive any email that was not bot-generated. Site still dying as of this morning.
Sooo... screw this. I am looking for another host. I need ASP.Net 1.1 (2.0 is a plus), SQL Server 2000 (2005 is a plus), multiple domain pointers, subdomains would be nice, server-side includes, maybe a few gigs disk, FTP access, email boxes, a few gigs bandwidth (scalability is a plus), enough SQL Server disk for a hundred megs or so of data (scalability is a plus), web traffic reporting is a plus, everything else is a plus, yada yada. I am currently paying $150 or so annually to Network Dissolutions.
Recommendations very welcome!
[Edit: Fairness update
Turns out that the issue was not directly connected with Network Solutions. Rather it is a well-known (to everyone but me) problem with connection pooling in ASP.Net 1.x. If you use connection pooling the system tries to reuse existing connections, and in so doing tries to set a security role for them, and fails. It then reports the unhelpful "general network error." How the heck is a failure to assign a security role a "general network error?" Oh well, I was able to solve the problem by turning off connection pooling, but I am a little concerned about performance. If someone knows another workaround to this problem I'd love to hear about it.
Network Solutions is responsible in two senses: 1) that they refuse to upgrade to .Net 2.0, which does not exhibit the problem; and 2) they were unable to tell me about the cause despite two months of interaction with support. The fact that I didn't find it myself in that time is ample indication of how little attention I paid to it while I was in development.
/edit]
