Regarding Our Hosting Situation

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Davcon

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18 Jul 2025, 5:56pm UTC

Friday 18th July 2025, at 5:56pm UTC

Some of you may be aware that around a month ago, the hosting company (who host this website) suffered a significant outage. Since then, the hosting for the Trongate website has been noticeably unreliable.

To give a recent example, just moments ago I encountered a Cloudflare error whilst attempting to load this very page on the discussion forum.

Additionally, I have noticed that file_get_contents() has stopped functioning across the entire website, resulting in errors appearing in several areas. I am aware of how to resolve these errors and - strictly speaking - using cURL is preferable to file_get_contents(). Nevertheless, I am disappointed with the hosting service, particularly when server configurations appear to be changed without keeping site owners properly informed.

To add to this, I received confirmation today that the hosting company currently supporting this website has been acquired. For your reference, I have included below the email I received from them earlier today.

At present, we have been benefiting from complimentary hosting for the Trongate website, provided in exchange for an advert on our sponsors page. I noted from the message that the CynderHost staff are remaining on board to ensure a “smooth transition”. From experience, I suspect this may indicate that key personnel could soon be departing.

As things currently stand, my confidence in our hosting arrangement has been considerably shaken.

None of the recent issues are the result of faulty code - unless I am mistaken, everything we are experiencing stems entirely from hosting-related problems.

My decision is crystal clear.

Unless I receive clear and credible reassurances about the stability and reliability of our hosting, I will not be renewing our sponsorship arrangement, and we will begin the search for alternative hosting providers.

Below is a copy of a message that came in this morning from the hosts. Let me assure you, the date of “June 14th, 2024” is not a typo on my part. I've just pasted in what they sent me.

Hello David Connelly,

We’re writing to let you know that as of June 14th, 2024, CynderHost has entered an agreement to become part of the Host4Yourself/iWebFusion family of hosting brands. The transition to H4Y will take place over the next few weeks, and we want you to know exactly what to expect. First, to be clear, there will be no functional changes to your hosting accounts, and operations will continue as normal.

*** IMPORTANT!! THOSE OF YOU PAYING BY PAYPAL WITH AUTOMATIC SUBSCRIPTIONS WILL NEED TO RE-ESTABLISH SUBSCRIPTIONS ON YOUR NEXT RENEWAL DATE. You will see the option to subscribe to automatic payments again on your next renewal invoice. Please contact us with any questions. CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS WILL NOT BE AFFECTED AT THIS TIME ***

Ivan and I started this company five years ago. We thought the hosting industry was broken, and that there was room to re-imagine the WordPress technology stack from the ground up. Over the past few years, we’ve served tens of billions of visitors across sites in our network, saved clients countless hours and dollars in time and money, and have had the privilege to work with so many exceptional businesses. We’re very excited to announce the next step in our journey.

We have known and worked with H4Y/iWebFusion and their portfolio of companies for many, many years now. Behind the scenes, they've helped power many of our essential services, servers, and infrastructure. Our trust in them and their team is rock solid.

H4Y is privately-owned, engineering-led hosts that prioritize 24×7 in-house support, transparent pricing and zero-nonsense upsells. As an added benefit of joining the H4Y family, you will get:

Bigger footprint: Access to additional Tier 3 datacenters in Iowa, Oregon, North Carolina and more, plus optional bare-metal, GPU and colocation services

Expanded Support Team: An extensively staffed, experienced support team available by phone, chat, and email 24/7/365.

The CynderHost’s in-house team will continue to work and ensure a smooth and complete transition.

Evan Kamlet, the owner of H4Y, has committed to ensuring your continued success. We look forward to serving you with the same reliability and excellence you’ve come to expect.

We thank you for your many years of business and trust. It’s been an honor. We look forward to many more years with H4Y at the helm!

---

CynderHost, LLC

https://cynderhost.com

As a footnote, I have been in this game since 1996. In all those years, I have never observed a hosting company being taken over by a larger company and then seen the service improve. This is a well trodden path and I don't think it will end well.

We would be well advised to start looking for an alternative hosting provider fairly soon.

Edited on Friday 18th July 2025, at 6:04pm UTC

djnordeen

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18 Jul 2025, 6:29pm UTC

Friday 18th July 2025, at 6:29pm UTC

Bummer

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Davcon

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19 Jul 2025, 10:45am UTC

Saturday 19th July 2025, at 10:45am UTC

It's pretty much confirmed. They appear to have changed the server settings and are now disallowing file_get_contents(). Perhaps this was a response to the issue they experienced.

Anyway... I had a bad day with this yesterday but I'm done pointing fingers. I'm all about solutions. Whatever they have done, I'm sure they did it with great intentions and more knowledge about the subject than me.

I've just had a great session fixing loads of bugs. I'm not saying we're out of the woods yet but we are certainly 100% on top of this.

I'll be watching the error logs like a hawk for the next few days.

Everything will be beautiful again, soon.

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DaFa

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19 Jul 2025, 1:37pm UTC

Saturday 19th July 2025, at 1:37pm UTC

Thanks DC, I haven't had a lot of time in front of the computer this weekend but if you need anything let me know.

Edited on Saturday 19th July 2025, at 11:05pm UTC

This post was liked by; Davcon