paperweight Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 I have an owned license and my backend is now inaccessible until WHMCS gets working again. This should not happen: a) Put your license checks server on an entirely different domain name, different server, and manage the DNS with a totally different DNS provider. That way you can separate things in case this happens. b) Or, for those of us with owned domains, all the code is already obfuscated and encrypted, so why should we be doing license checks anyway? We should be doing license checks when we install new updates, but not at other times. This is ridiculous. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronny Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 We had the same today. Due to the downtime of WHMCS we where also unable to login our back-end. If WHMCS is down, it may never ever have effected the service to our customers. But this happened today. We where unable to login our admin, to see support tickets etc. Due to license issue?? We paid all our bills and have a owned license. Till I discovered that WHMCS was down. I could not believe that because whmcs is down, our business was down! this is not professional. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoilodiaz Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 these is really bad we have the same issue. we are thinking about move to another billing system like ubersmith we need real support and ubersmith have phone support. really bad whmcs not take steps for prevent us to lose money when we pay for licenses and annual maintenance's 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wsa Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 before the whmcs was down but the licences was up of couple day now both down the same time 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paperweight Posted September 13, 2012 Author Share Posted September 13, 2012 Right, WHMCS should either host their license server on a totally different infrastructure or they should NOT ping the license details for "owned" license users unles those owned license users change servers or add WHMCS updates. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wsa Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 how can run a business when ticket system is going up and down 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jbro Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 I was just going to upgrade. This is scary will put this off for some time more 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master Bo Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 I would also appreciate them to post any estimations on Twitter/Facebook/other outer sources where people can read. Apart from a single notice posted 9 hours ago, about network problems, nothing at all. Keeping silent isn't the best approach, since a number of sites depend heavily on license servers health. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easyhosting Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 According to Matt yesterday the licence system should not have been effected http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1191333&page=3 We are currently experiencing an outage due to a DDOS attack which is ongoing at this time. Our network admins are in the process of mitigating it. The licensing system used in WHMCS will mean this outage has no impact on WHMCS installations providing a valid local key is present. Matt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS CEO Matt Posted September 13, 2012 WHMCS CEO Share Posted September 13, 2012 As quoted in the post above, last night we experienced a DDOS attack which did knock our website offline for around 5 or 6 hours. However providing you had a valid local license key at the time of the outage, any downtime we experienced would not affect your own WHMCS installations access in any way. If you did find yourself with a licensing error then this indicates your license key is failing to validate locally for some reason which will need to be checked into so please get in touch with our support team. Matt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voodoochilli Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 (edited) As quoted in the post above, last night we experienced a DDOS attack which did knock our website offline for around 5 or 6 hours. However providing you had a valid local license key at the time of the outage, any downtime we experienced would not affect your own WHMCS installations access in any way. If you did find yourself with a licensing error then this indicates your license key is failing to validate locally for some reason which will need to be checked into so please get in touch with our support team. Matt Hi Matt. I have a valid license key and was unable to view the admin section of WHMCS. The message was something about not having a valid licence for a few days. It was not a few days, although technically it might be 2 days since I tried viewing the account before and after midnight. I would suggest that the licence validation is more lenient - it should give users 3 or 4 days without checking for a valid key. 2 days could be 5 minutes before midnight and 5 minutes after... To confirm - my licence is 100% valid. I am a new member and have had my account for 3 months now. The first time I have ever seen that message coincided with your server downtime, and it is working again this morning. Other people are reporting the same problem, so I would suggest it is taken seriously. If this is not meant to happen, it sounds like a bug. All in all very impressed with WHMCS so far. A few little problems like this and the fact that any support requests done inside my WHMCS set-up aren't recognised and are completely discarded because it thinks it uses a different email address form my support account (it doesn't), but apart from that it seems pretty awesome. Edited September 13, 2012 by voodoochilli 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lance Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 we had the license error this morning (from home pc) where couldn`t access admin area.... can access from work at moment. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voodoochilli Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 I would also appreciate them to post any estimations on Twitter/Facebook/other outer sources where people can read. Apart from a single notice posted 9 hours ago, about network problems, nothing at all. Keeping silent isn't the best approach, since a number of sites depend heavily on license servers health. This is a really good point actually. Last night there were loads of people on Twitter desperately trying to work out what was happening to their businesses. Everyone knows that hosting companies use twitter as a way of communicating to their audiences for things like server down time, and yet WHMCS were silent on the matter. I understand that when a DOS attack is happening the most important thing seems to be pool resources to fix it, however I think reassuring your paying customers is actually just as important, if not more so. Obviously we had nowhere else to turn whmcs.com was offline . A couple of tweets would have helped calm things a bit for worried business owners and I am guessing would reduce the amount of resentment that is felt by some this morning. My own host provider is great at reporting problems and sharing them, and I would never leave them even for a cheaper alternative. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paperweight Posted September 13, 2012 Author Share Posted September 13, 2012 My own host provider is great at reporting problems and sharing them, and I would never leave them even for a cheaper alternative. hehehe... reminds me of one of my current hosting providers: I have been with them for 12 years. 3 years ago they had a **major** physical problem at their main datacenter that literally put me and thousands of other clients offline for days at a time. It took them about 4 weeks to fully recover. They reimbursed us some money, but most importantly they communicated, and I am still with them even though some of my best clients left me. Mistakes and errors and problems happen all the time to every business. We all run companies and services within companies, so we all understand that. What separates the good fom the great companies is how information is disseminated. We know a DDOS is not WHMCS' fault, so you should not feel like you lost face or embarrassed. Instead you should try to communicate via Twitter or other means what is going on. WHMCS is a great software, so I hope it can be combined with great communication in times like this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveharman Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 DDOS can be protected against. There are easy-to-implement hardware (Cisco et.al) and software (CloudFlare to name one of many) solutions available and it takes 10 minutes to setup rsync and SQL replication between remote servers. For the site to go down on top of the appalling response times on support tickets is beyond embarrassing. Still, the site is back now so I can check in on progress for my month old support ticket. One moment.... Ah yes, sod-all change and we still can't launch our site as a result. WHMCS is turning into money well wasted. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easyhosting Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Everyone knows that hosting companies use twitter as a way of communicating to their audiences for things like server down time. can you prove this? Not all hosting companies use twitter 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easyhosting Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Ah yes, sod-all change and we still can't launch our site as a result. WHMCS is turning into money well wasted. WHMCS does not stop you launching your site. You have launch your site ans just set up manually order links until WHMCS get through the backlog rather than keep repeating the fact on here without explaining what your issue is. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b0r3d Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 WHMCS does not stop you launching your site. You have launch your site ans just set up manually order links until WHMCS get through the backlog rather than keep repeating the fact on here without explaining what your issue is. Huh? i was just reading around and your comment is baffling.... launch a new site with manual order links? lol... you want their site taken seriously or as a joke? You DO NOT launch a site unless it is fully ready and operational. Yikes buddy, c'mon now. You are in your right to defend WHMCS left and right as you usually do but to suggest people half ass their site until? Wow 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easyhosting Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Huh? i was just reading around and your comment is baffling.... launch a new site with manual order links? lol... you want their site taken seriously or as a joke? You DO NOT launch a site unless it is fully ready and operational. Yikes buddy, c'mon now. You are in your right to defend WHMCS left and right as you usually do but to suggest people half ass their site until? Wow you can create order links with 2co , paypal etc, that will work in the short term, so you can get some income, many sites do this, then as soon as he gets the whmcs sorted he can use the automated process, but with him keep posting in threads that he cannot lauch his site is not going to help him is it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b0r3d Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 you can create order links with 2co , paypal etc, that will work in the short term, so you can get some income, many sites do this, then as soon as he gets the whmcs sorted he can use the automated process, but with him keep posting in threads that he cannot lauch his site is not going to help him is it. Hey i don't disagree that posting 100 times will fix it. Point i think is, when a license you purchase and such turns up invalid because the license server / client side communication problem it shouldn't be expected of a customer to do custom "paypal" links for example to check out. Nothing looks more unprofessional to a customer base than to be directed to PayPal or 2co even if you have a notice that your "billing software is having issues". It shows there are already problems, why should i host with you or choose you. Never EVER use a link to another site to signup a customer if you take your business seriously. You're better off taking manual telephone orders. A study was done a long time ago that if you do not impress a customer within a short amount of time, something like 10-30 seconds on your site, they're gone. That said, problems do happen even for well established businesses and that's where the billing software should be far more stable without one of these licensing issues honestly. For those with owned licenses, WHMCS itself can detect it's owned, disable call back in that case until an IP change. Leased licenses enable call back once every 7 days. anything less is excessive. No one is going to truly enjoy your software for the 7 days after you cancel, so rapid verification are unnecessary. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easyhosting Posted September 14, 2012 Share Posted September 14, 2012 Hey i don't disagree that posting 100 times will fix it. Point i think is, when a license you purchase and such turns up invalid because the license server / client side communication problem it shouldn't be expected of a customer to do custom "paypal" links for example to check out. Nothing looks more unprofessional to a customer base than to be directed to PayPal or 2co even if you have a notice that your "billing software is having issues". It shows there are already problems. who says to post "billing software is having issues" as a short term solution to generate some income, custom links could be a solution and just post "billing software is currently being updated" but according to Matt the licence server was not effected by the latest downtime 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b0r3d Posted September 15, 2012 Share Posted September 15, 2012 who says to post "billing software is having issues" as a short term solution to generate some income, custom links could be a solution and just post "billing software is currently being updated" but according to Matt the licence server was not effected by the latest downtime Point being once again. - NO real business will resort to paypal's cart to take orders. PERIOD. I think several other users on here and WHT beg to differ with that account. I really don't want to argue with you, but are you really one of those guys that believe everything a CEO you pay tells you? WHMCS today != what it was 3-5 years ago and i'm not talking growth or functionality. Matt has a lot on his plate but i think he took on too much too quick 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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