Simply.com - Email hosting servers, global domain name registration and UK dedicated servers

2008 Network Status

19 May 08

Namesco Website down for maintenance

On Tuesday 20th of May between 6:30-7:30am there will be a 15 minute break to main Namesco website, this will have no effect on any other service.

08 May 08

NDO Mail Problems

We are currently experiencing a problem with one of the mail servers responsible for delivering mail to a certain number of NDO users. This will affect email delivery for these users.

This is currently being investigated as a priority by our engineers and further updates will be posted on this page.

**UPDATE 15.26 - This issue has now been resolved**

01 May 08

mysql1.namesco.net offline for maintenance

On Tuesday 6th of April between 6:30-7:30am there will be a 15 minute break to mysql1.namesco.net service, due to maintenance.

22 Apr 08

Email Access Using Mac Mail - APOP Authentication Errors

On 21st April 2008 we were advised by some of our Apple Mac customers, that they were unable to retrieve email whilst using MAC Mail. When attempting to connect to the Namesco server they received APOP Authentication errors.

We have investigated this issue and in order to resolve this, we require our customers to change the Authentication method they are using from APOP to Password only.


Customers can follow below instructions, to resolve APOP Authentication issues.

1) Open Mac Mail
2) GoTo --> MAil --> Preferences
3) Select Account from list --> Click on Advanced Tab
4) Change Authentication Method from APOP to Password at the bottom of the screen. Port number should be 110 and Use SSL unticked ( leave this ticked if you want to use secure collection)
5) Save settings and click on Get Mail.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused you. If you require further assistance please call Technical Support on 0845 363 364 or via your Control Panel.

18 Apr 08

NDO Platform Mailboxes

We are experiencing a problem with one of the mailbox stores of mail.ndo.com and mail.ndonet.com. User with mailboxes on the affected store may fail to authenticate properly. This is currently being investigated by our engineers.

Users with mailboxes on other store servers are unaffected, therefore only some users on this platform are affected.

08 Apr 08

E-mail collection issues

We are currently experiencing very high load on our mail cluster at specific times during the day. This can potentially cause slow connections to Webmail. The times that this occurs are at exactly 0, 15, 30 and 45 minutes past each hour and appears to be due to a spike of traffic at these times, lasting for approximately 90 seconds. We are currently investigating this and will attempt to rectify as soon as possible.

In order to avoid this issue, please try to avoid using Webmail at these exact times and your experience will be significantly better.

17 Mar 08

Windows Hosting Issue

Update 8:00 AM - Resolution Update

While updating the configuration of one of the domain controllers, in accordance with instructions from Microsoft, both domains controllers were taken offline. Service was restored only after an authoritative restore of both machines.

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Update 1:15 PM - This issue is now resolved

All functionality has been fully restored. An update with more information about the cause and resolution of the problem will be posted here soon.

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We are currently experiencing a technical fault with our shared Windows Hosting Cluster. This may manifest itself as problems when uploading files with FTP or FrontPage as well as website access via a browser.

Our engineers are currently working to get the issue resolved as soon as possible. All progress updates will be posted on this page.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

14 Mar 08

UK Domains Network Fault

Update 9:29 AM - This issue has been resolved.

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We have been advised by the supplier of internet connectivity to the UK Domains service that they are currently experiencing a network fault. They are currently investigating.

This issue only affects UK Domains services that have not yet been transferred to Namesco platforms.

12 Feb 08

Xsession Hosting - Emergency Weekend Maintenance

Update 16 Feb 08 10:58 PM -
We have been advised by the supplier of connectivity to our Xsession hosting customers, that the planned emergency repair work which was scheduled to start on 16/02/2008 19:00 was brought forward and started yesterday (15/02/2008 19:00), it was completed today (16/02/2008 10:00).

We are waiting for more information from our upstream carriers, to find
out why the maintenance work was carried out earlier than scheduled. We will notify you as soon as we find out.

Please accept our apologies for this and any inconvenience this may have caused. Unfortunately this was beyond our control.

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We have been advised by the supplier of connectivity to our Xsession hosting customers, that their supplier is carrying out emergency maintenance to repair a damaged fiber optic connection this weekend.

The window for this work is 16/02/2008 19:00 to 17/02/2008 19:00 (this includes preparation time). They have advised that the actual downtime should be much less in reality. The fiber will be cut at around midnight and should be fully restored well before 07:00 on 17 February and therefore we are expecting any outage to be limited to overnight.

We apologise for any inconvenience that may be caused by this interruption to service.

Please note: This outage will only affect web hosting customers of Xsession.com and not other Namesco products. We will shortly be transferring Xsession hosting onto our own resilient network and hosting cluster where the service is fully protected against this type of maintenance and fault.

05 Feb 08

Xsession Microsoft SQL Server

Update 06 Feb 08 5:29 PM - This issue has now been resolved.

Please contact Technical Support if your website is showing sql or connection error.

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We are currently experiencing problems with Xsession's Microsoft SQL Server.

Some web sites hosted by Xsession using Xsession's Microsoft SQL servers are experiencing intermittent connectivity issues.

Our engineers are working to resolve this issue, we hope to have this issue resolved as soon as possible.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused by this and we appreciate your patience at this time.

03 Feb 08

Xsession Web Performance

Update 05 Feb 08 2:47 PM - Denial Of Service attack on the shared hosting web sites is now resolved.

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Some web sites hosted by Xsession.com were suffering performance degradation on Sunday afternoon due to a Denial Of Service attack on a shared hosting web site.

Due to the distributed nature of the attack this can be difficult to counteract. We have been working with the supplier of internet connectivity at this location to reduce the impact of the attack and improve performance.

28 Jan 08

ASP.Net 2.0 SP1 update

We will today be updating our Windows Cluster to use the latest service pack of ASP.Net 2.0. For more details of this update, please refer to:

"Problems that are fixed in the .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945757

17 Jan 08

MySQL2 server move

Mysql2 which is a live customer dB server, will be down for maintenance tomorrow Friday 18th of Jan.

It should be down for only 15 minutes, this will happen between 7-8am.

03 Jan 08

UK Domains e-mail work

We are currently undertaking a migration of e-mail data from the old UK Domains server to a new server that we have installed. This should take no more than an hour. We will then be able to decommission the old server which has been causing the many issues with this service of late. Please bear with us and we hope to restore good service as soon as possible.

Click to expand2007 Network Status

21 Dec 07

Service Announcement for UK Domains customers

Due to ongoing hardware issues, a UK Domains server has been taken offline for emergency maintenance.

This will affect any web and email services currently on this server.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

12 Dec 07

Switch maintenence

Update 18 Dec 07 7:23 AM - Due to an unforeseen issue during the maintenance there was a short outage to DSL services between 06:45 and 07:00 this morning. Services are now working as normal. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.

Please note - This did not affect any hosting services.

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We will be carrying out routine maintenance on one of our feed switches from 6am on the morning of 18th December.
We foresee no customer impact and no downtime.

23 Jul 07

All Telephone Lines running with skeleton staff until further notice.

**UPDATE: This Namesco office at Worcester including it's call centre is now fully operation as at 12:30pm Tuesday 24th July. Namesco as a business is now fully operation once again. We thank customers' patience during the call centre outage.**

This means that our office telephone system is unavailable due to a power cut caused by flooding close around our Head Office and some key staff are unable to travel to the office due to road closures and wide-spread flooding.

We have put in place arrangeents for staff to answer calls to our key departments such as Customer Services, Sales and Support from 9am to 5pm until further notice.

We wish to reassure all customers that their services remain unaffected as these are all served from our redundant and secure data centres in London which are all running as normal.

If you wish to renew products and services, we recommend doing so via your online Control Panel.

We will update this page when we have further information.

09 Jul 07

RADIUS related issues

**UPDATE : This issue has now been resolved**

We are currently aware of a problem with one of our RADIUS servers which may be affecting the authentication process for some ADSL users.

New ADSL customers, or customers that have recently changed their ADSL password, may be experiencing problems logging onto the service.

This is currently being investigated and further updates will be posted here.

**UPDATE : This issue has now been resolved**

09 Jul 07

DNS related issues

**UPDATE : This issue has now been resolved**

We are aware of certain DNS issues this morning with resolving parts of our network which is causing problems with viewing some websites hosted by us.

This issue is being investigated as a priority and we are currently trying to isolate the source of the problem.

Further updates will be posted on this page.

**UPDATE : This issue has now been resolved**

27 Jun 07

Home 250 Slow Speed Issues

We have recently had a number of reports of excessively slow speeds experienced by users of our Home250 product and customers on a 250Kbps line profile.

After much liaising with BT the fault has been identified as an issue on BT owned and operated broadband hardware which they are currently working to find a long term solution for.

If you are experiencing slow speeds on a Home250 broadband package, please contact support and report the issue.

This issue is NOT affecting any other broadband packages.

25 Jun 07

Intermittent webmail/POP3 errors

Update 4:04 PM - POP3 and webmail services are now back to normal.

This issue was caused by an up-stream spike in bandwidth, which was slowing down traffic and thereby increasing the number of connections at any one time. Increasing the maximum number of allowed connections alleviated the problem. Then, once we had identified the source of the unusual traffic, we were able to block it.
The new, higher connection limits will be left in place permanently, as they are well within the capacity of the hardware.

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There is currently an intermittent error affecting all Namesco webmail/POP3 servers. Full logging has now been enabled and this issue is being investigated.

27 Apr 07

New MySQL Server now available

A third MySQL database server has now been made available to Linux hosting customers. The server specification includes 2 powerful dual-core 64-bit processors and 4GB of Ram. The current MySQL version is 5.0.37.

New MySQL databases created via Namesco's control panel will now be setup on this server by default. However, customers who wish to use an older MySQL server can do so by selecting from the list.

For further information, including connection details, please visit the MySQL administration section of your online control panel.

16 Apr 07

Core Network Upgrades

To increase network performance we will be upgrading processor engine cards in our core routers this week (16-20 April). Customer impact should be limited to a maximum of a 10 second freeze during an upgrade whilst routing protocols stabilise throughout the network.

26 Mar 07

Swapping Storage Devices.

To increase network performance an Upgrade to Storage Devices will be carried out on Monday 26th March 2007 at 14:30 pm and should last around 5-10 minutes per server.

During this period FTP access will be stopped and reinstated once the servers ip address has been bought up on new NetApps Cluster.

Webmail, Online Control Panel, POP3/IMAP services should not be effected.

During this period we urge users to be patient and bear with us while we carry out the Switch. All further updates to the Swapping of Storage Devices will be posted here. Technical support will not be able to provide you with any more information than is available on this page.

12 Mar 07

Redbus Sovereign House - Power Outage

Update 15:15 - All services are now back to normal. We apologise for any inconvenience caused

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At 13:11 this afternoon our data centre at Redbus Sovereign House experienced a 5 minute power outage. This affected Namesco hosting on multiple floors and is related to the site facilities, which is expected to have affected many service providers.

Services are returning to normal, however there may be some disruption this afternoon whilst machines check their system integrity.

The outage affected mostly VPS and some dedicated server services. Shared email/hosting has not been affected.

09 Mar 07

PHP Pear upgrades

All PHP Pear packages on the Linux hosting cluster have been upgraded to the latest versions. The complete list of installed packages is shown below. Additional packages may be installed by request.

Archive_Tar 1.3.2 stable
Auth 1.5.0 stable
Auth_RADIUS 1.0.5 stable
Auth_SASL 1.0.2 stable
Console_Getopt 1.2.2 stable
DB 1.7.9 stable
File_Passwd 1.1.6 stable
HTML_Template_IT 1.2.1 stable
HTTP_Request 1.4.0 stable
MDB 1.3.0 stable
MDB2 2.3.0 stable
Mail 1.1.14 stable
Net_POP3 1.3.6 stable
Net_SMTP 1.2.8 stable
Net_Socket 1.0.6 stable
Net_URL 1.0.14 stable
Net_UserAgent_Detect 2.2.0 stable
OLE 0.5 beta
PEAR 1.5.1 stable
Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer 0.9.1 beta
Structures_Graph 1.0.2 stable
XML_Parser 1.2.8 stable
XML_RPC 1.5.1 stable

04 Mar 07

.uk Domain Name Registrations

Updated 4th March 2007 1:15 pm
Nominet's WHOIS server is now back online, and all .uk domain ordering services are back to normal.

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Reported 4th March 2007 12:00 pm
Unfortunately we are at present unable to process any .uk domain name registrations, due to Nominet's WHOIS server being offline.

Nominet are the registrars responsible for the .co.uk/.org.uk etc domain space, and their WHOIS server provides registration companies with information on whether domain names are registered or not.

We will be closely monitoring the situation, and .uk domain name registrations will be available once Nominet's service comes back online

27 Feb 07

Problems receiving email

Update 27/02/2007 - 11:33am

The problem with some of our customers not being able to download Email's has now been resolved.

We thank you for your patience.

====================



It has come to our attention that a small number of customers who were recently migrated are having difficulty downloading their emails.

This issue can be resolved by altering your incoming POP3 server name to:

pop3.hosts.co.uk

If you experience any further issues please contact our technical support helpdesk.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

21 Feb 07

MS SQL Server

Update: 11:00am
Service Pack 2 has now been successfully installed, and the MS SQL server is now online again

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Due to issues with the MS SQL server which resulted in two outages last night, Service Pack 2 for SQL Server is being installed.

There will be a short period of downtime during the installation, and while the server reboots after the installation completes

12 Feb 07

Dial Up Maintenance 0845 079 8226

There is maintenance work today on 0845 079 8226. It is possible you may become disconnected but will be able to reconnect immediately.

05 Feb 07

Network Upgrades

To increase network performance an additional update will be applied to some routers within our network over the next 5 days. Customer impact should be limited to a maximum of a 10-15 second freeze during an update whilst routing protocols stabilise throughout the network.

As part of these works a core device will also be updated between 06:30-07:30hrs on Tuesday 6th February. Customer impact will be up to a 1 minute freeze during the update whilst routing protocols stabilise throughout the network.

04 Feb 07

Phone System Outage

This fault has now been resolved by BT - our phone systems are once again operating normally. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Due to a BT fault at our local exchange our phone system is currently unavailable.

We are waiting for BT to resolve the issue. In the mean time, we cannot accept any telephone fault reports - please submit faults via the support ticketing system in your Namesco control panel.

29 Jan 07

DNS problems (15.45)

Update 30/01/2007 - 1045am

This Issue was a temporary glitch within our DNS database that was resolved within 30 minutes of the problem occurring. We do not expect the problem to re-occur.

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We are currently having issues with our DNS servers. This is affecting all hosted services, including websites and email.

We are working to locate and resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

29 Jan 07

Upgrade of email servers (10.25)

Update: 31/01/2007 - 3:00pm

The cache rebuild has now completed and all email services are operating normally.

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Update: 30/01/2007 - 10:37am

The problem with email has now been resolved, how ever the cache on the server will need to be rebuilt automatically, typically this process can take about 48 hours. The service will be getting increasingly better over this period.

We would like to thank you for your patience and cooperation during this period.

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As part of our ongoing maintenance procedures, we have upgraded the software on our email servers. This may result in intermittent logon failures when collecting emails.

Webmail is unaffected during this time. We thank you for your patience.

25 Jan 07

Network Upgrades

We are currently updating the firmware on many routers within our network to provide increased security and protection from attacks. This process will take place over the next 7 days. Customer impact should be limited to a maximum of a 10-15 second freeze upon the reload of devices due to convergence of routing protocols within the network.

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UPDATE: 29 January 2006: 13:30
Most devices have now been updated and we are ahead of our original schedule. The final device will be updated between 06:30-07:30hrs on Tuesday 30 January.

Customer impact will be up to 1 minute of routing anomalies with routes to/from the internet whilst routing protocols converge.

12 Jan 07

Slow Network Speeds (including POP3 problems).

Update: 12/01/2007 - 5:15pm

The migration has progressed as planned over the last 3 evenings and is expected to be completed this weekend. Since last night's migration, network performance has returned to within tolerance levels and services are now operating at close to full speed. Further improvements will result from the final migrations in the next 2 days.

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Update: 08/01/2007 - 12:15pm

We have now received the new hardware required to resolve the current speed issues with email and web hosting.

This hardware is currently being configured and we will begin migrating customer web sites across to the new platform this evening. The migration will take several days to complete, but will be completely seamless and will not cause any downtime. Once completed, all speed issues should be resolved.

We again thank you for your patience and can assure you we will be making further analyses, conducting a thorough audit of our network and making further investment in the coming days and weeks to ensure this problem does not re-occur.

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Update: 04/01/2007 - 9:00am

We have taken further steps to decrease the impact of the recent issues on users and the effects should now be minimised.

However, we would ask that you please check that the frequency of connections made by your email software is set to not more than once every five minutes as this will help to further reduce the load and ease the issue for everyone.

If you require assistance with making this change please do not hesitate to contact our Technical Support Department on 0845 363 3634.

We appreciate your co-operation in this matter.

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We are currently experiencing intermittent slow speed issues with our hosting and e-mail platforms. We are aware of the issue and our engineers are working to resolve the problems as soon as possible.

These network issues are manifesting themselves in a number of ways including repeated prompts for login details and slow loading of websites.

Webmail (http://webmail.names.co.uk) is working normally during this period and will allow you to access your emails if you are having trouble with your regular email client.

During this period we urge users to be patient and bear with us while we get the issue resolved. All further updates to this problem will be posted here. Technical support will not be able to provide you with any more information than is available on this page.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused by this issue.

08 Jan 07

Authenticated SMTP (RESOLVED)

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UPDATE: 8 January 2006: 13:45
Power has now been restored completely, and all affected services are once again operational.

Please accept our apologies for this short interruption to service

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UPDATE: 8 January 2006: 13:30
Power has been restored to one of the Authenticated SMTP servers. Engineers are currently working to restore services fully

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Due to a power failure at one of our data centres, Authenticated SMTP is currently offline. Namesco engineers are already on-site to resolve this issue.

Click to expand2006 Network Status

29 Dec 06

Telephone System Problems

We are currently experiencing a technical issue with our incoming phone lines to our offices, which is leading to difficulties contacting us by telephone. We are liaising with BT about this and expect to have this issue resolved shortly.

*Update (15.25)* This issue has now been resolved


Apologies for any inconvenience.

28 Dec 06

ADSL Connection Problems

We are aware that ADSL customers with usernames ending in @dsl-login4.com, dsl-login5.com, dsl-login6 and dsl-login7.com are currently experiencing connectivity issues.

This is related to a BT fault on a part of our network and we are liaising with BT to get this resolved as quickly as possible.

The estimated BT resolution time we have been given is 15.59

**Update (15.57) : We have been advised by BT that the estimated resolution time has now been delayed to 19.30**

**Update (20:00): BT's engineers are still working to resolve the issue. Estimated resolution time has now been delayed to 21:00 **

**Update (20:22): The problem has now been resolved. All ADSL services are now working normally.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

27 Dec 06

POP3 problems - update

We apologise for any inconvenience by recent technical issues with the email service. All issues are now believed to be resolved. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact our technical support team.

21 Dec 06

POP3 problems - update (10.20am)

The upgrades to email hardware have now been completed successfully, however high network traffic is still causing problems for some customers.

We have now been able to restore full access to the webmail service at webmail.names.co.uk. If you need to access your email urgently, we recommend you use this, rather than regular POP3 access through your desktop email software.

20 Dec 06

POP3 Service Update

Upgrades completed today have further improved email services and we have noted a significant drop in unsuccessful connections. The service will continue to improve overnight and we have planned a further upgrade this evening. Customers are requested to try and receive email only when necessary for the rest of today as this will aid in the restoration of a full service.

Again we apologise for the disruption this may have caused to some customers. We thank you in advance for your understanding and patience in this matter.

Kevin Savage - Managing Director

20 Dec 06

Email problems - statement from Managing Director

Apologies for the continued disruption to email services. Some customers are still experiencing connection issues which are due to excessive load on our mail system. We have urgently brought forward system upgrades to resolve the current issues. These upgrades should be completed by the 23rd December. The service will recover as customers collect the back log of emails. Please avoid calling the technical support hot line regarding this issue or asking for updates. These can be viewed on this page which will be updated regularly.

Again we apologise for the disruption this may have caused to some customers. We thank you in advance for your understanding and patience in this matter.

Kevin Savage - Managing Director

19 Dec 06

POP3 problems - update (20:08)

20:08 - The new hardware is now in place. Engineers are remaining on site to monitor the situation overnight.

16:22 - While we install the new hardware, webmail is being taken offline. It should be available again before 17:45. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

15:43 - The underlying problem has been resolved, however there is still a backlog of connections we are working through. New hardware is currently being physically installed to help alleviate this problem and should go live within a few hours.

There is currently a problem with one of the POP3 servers that is causing slow POP3 access at the moment. Engineers are currently working on the problem.

Please try not to collect your e-mail too often. If you have a problem, please wait for at least 15 minutes before trying again.

If you are persistently unable to collect your e-mail, please try deleting your e-mail account and then re-creating it.

18 Dec 06

POP3 problems

There are currently some POP3 issues due to very large volumes of mail coming in. We are currently working to resolve this by adding more hardware.

13 Dec 06

Changes to the Namesco SMTP Cluster

After our recent migration of SMTP Authentication users from our main SMTP platform to a dedicated, separate platform we are now moving to the next phase of this project. This involves removing the old SMTP Authentication system and reconfiguring to improve spam prevention.

This change should not affect customers except in one specific case. We have always advised customers to use the hostname 'smtp.hosts.co.uk' for sending e-mail, and this address has been transparently moved to the new system. If a customer has instead been using an IP address for sending e-mail, it will stop working.

Example (old) IP addresses that you may be using are:
212.84.175.19
212.84.175.24
85.233.160.20
85.233.160.21
If you are using any of these IP addresses, please update your mail client to use 'smtp.hosts.co.uk'.

29 Nov 06

POP3 problems - resolved

There is currently a problem with one of the POP3 servers that is causing slow POP3 access at the moment. An engineer is currently working on the problem.

The server is now back online and service should be restored to normal very shortly.

28 Nov 06

Webmail and POP3 Login issues - resolved

There is currently a problem with Namesco Webmail and POP3.

Customers may experience login failures to webmail (or) if logged into webmail, may not see any emails. We can assure you that these emails have not been lost.

The cause of the temporary problems is a fault with a power supply to a key piece of hardware in our email cluster. This has been escalated to the manufacturer. Are superior maintenance agreement with the manufacturer will ensure a rapid fix to this issue.

Update 2:30pm
The on-site engineer is awaiting the arrival of a replacement power supply, which is expected no later than 6pm. Once installed, all mail services will return to full capacity.

Update 5.30pm
Replacement power supply has now been installed and above issue has now been resolved.

We will keep this page updated with any further developments.

Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

22 Nov 06

Mysql2.namesco.net problems - Resolved

There is a currently a problem with mysql2.namesco.net. Engineers are currently investigating, and we expect it to be back up shortly.

14 Nov 06

SPAM Emails getting through and Slow email delivery. - Resolved

Currently one of SMTP servers on our mail cluster has hardware issues, we are waiting for replacement hardware to resolve the issue, and the problem should be resolved within next 72 hours.

Due to the high load on the mail cluster that are still operational, spam checking is not functioning at its full capacity. We apologies for inconvenience caused, we are doing every thing we can to resolve this issue.

Please note: Some of our Customers may see SPAM that would not normally get through to their mailbox also this problem may affect the speed of Web mail, particularly sending Emails (this will also apply to a mail client such as Outlook).

05 Oct 06

Remote MySQL access issue - Resolved

There is currently a hardware fault affecting remote access to mysql2-remote.namesco.net. We are currently working to replace the affected hardware. This will not affect websites, or PHPMyAdmin access.

This has now been resolved. The network interface has been replaced and is now working normally again.

25 Sep 06

Telephone System Problems - RESOLVED

We are currently experiencing a hardware failure with our telephone system, and are therefore unable to handle our normal number of calls. Please bear with us while we resolve this issue, and our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The reported phone problems have now been resolved

01 Aug 06

Windows hosting storage - UPDATE

Since Friday evening, storage for the Windows hosting cluster has been operating from the secondary device, due to an error on the primary device. The primary device has now been restored, but attempts to update from the secondary device have failed.

In order to return to a state of full redundancy, without a significant period of downtime, we have been forced to revert to the data on the primary storage device. This means any changes made to a web site on the Windows hosting cluster since around 7pm on Friday 28th July will need to be re-uploaded. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvience this causes.

Please note that email storage has not been affected and that all services are operating as normal.

31 Jul 06

Windows hosting storage maintenance

A Network Appliance engineer is due to visit the Telehouse East data centre at 7pm today to perform essential maintenance on the primary storage device for the Windows hosting cluster. The storage device should automatically failover to a secondary mirror in the event of an error, but recently this has not been working as expected.

This matter has taken slightly longer than anticipated. Our engineers are still working on the issue and hope to have it resolved as soon as possible.

To prevent data from loosing synchronisation it has been neccessary for us to disable FTP access to the windows cluster for the duration of the work.

28 Jul 06

Windows cluster problems

There is currently a problem with the Namesco Windows cluster relating to it's connection to the storage device. There are engineers working on this presently.

28 Jul 06

Simply shared hosting down - fixed

The shared hosting platform used by Simply.com customers from before the takeover is currently experiencing some downtime due to a router failure.
We currently have a system administrator working on the problem, and it should hopefully be resolved soon.

26 Jul 06

Storage system updates - finished

Today at 10:30am there will be a number of updates being made to our back end storage system. It will last for a few hours, and should improve performance.

19 Jul 06

PHP upload limit increased

The PHP upload limit on the Namesco web cluster has now been increased to 100MB. This will allow sites to upload large files to their webspace using forms posting to a PHP script.

11 Jul 06

Server Moves

A handful of servers are being physically moved in our data centre this even after 10pm. Any outages should only be for a breif period of 10-15 minutes whilst the machines are reloacted. Resilience to systems means that most of this work will be unnoticable to users and not service affecting.

30 Jun 06

Securing - Script Permissions

Last night we ran a script to update existing permissions on scripts hosted on our Linux Web Cluster. This was to increase security as many of our customers were uploading scripts with very insecure permissions.

The correct permissions for scripts are:

*.php/*.php3/*.php5: 660
*.pl/*.cgi: 770
*.asp: 664

If you find your scripts or pages aren't working, we would recommend you to check permissions using an FTP program or contact support on 0845 363 3634. Apologies for any inconvenience caused by above changes.

24 Jun 06

Unscheduled downtime this evening

Due to a serious hardware fault at one of our upstream providers we have experienced downtime to part of our network tonight. This is now resolved.

We are currently working with our upstream provider to prevent this from happening again.

23 Jun 06

Power outage at Redbus data center

Due to a recent power loss at our Redbus data center and the resulting power surge, some hardware used in legacy Simply.com virtual hosting, VPS and Dedicated Servers may currently be unavailable.

Our server engineers are currently investigating this as a high priority issue and will be working to get the affected machines back up and running as soon as possible.

22 Jun 06

DSL Outage

Some customers suffered an outage to their DSL services this morning between 00:30 and 01:30. This was due to a DOS (Denial Of Service) attack against the service with such force that it forced down a 155Mbps ATM service connecting our network with BT's.

The source of the attack has now been identified and blocked and the issue is resolved.

Affected customers would have usernames ending in @dynamic.ndodsl.com , @static.ndodsl.com , @dsl-login2.com , @dynamic.ndolite.com , @staticip.ndodsl.com

14 Jun 06

NDO authoritative DNS servers - Retiring.

As part of the process of retiring the NDO authoritative DNS servers, the following legacy machines are now being removed from service:

195.7.224.12 (ns02.ision.net.uk)
195.7.224.138 (ns01.ision.net.uk)

195.7.224.141 (dns01.ndo.com)
195.7.224.22 (dns02.ndo.com)

Whilst these machines were originally "retired" 5-6 years ago by NDO, some customers may still be using these as a manual entry in their modem or router configuration. In these instances, customers should remove those entries from the DNS Servers page, and configure their modem/router to have DNS Servers automatically assigned. If you need to statically configure DNS then please use below.

195.7.224.57 (res01.ision.net.uk)
195.7.224.143 (res02.ision.net.uk)

If you have any questions, please contact Namesco Technical Support on 0845 363 3634, or by raising a ticket through your online Control Panel

06 Jun 06

Planned Maintainance on Virtual Private Servers

All Virtual Private Servers will be unavailable for around 30 minutes on 12/06/2006 while essential upgrades are performed to the network.
Rolling upgrades will commence at 6.30pm and are expected to go on for approximately 2 hours.

19 May 06

Dialup Number - Deactivation

Please be aware that the NDO US Robotics Access Number 0845 079 8132/8133 will close on Monday 5th June 2006.

Customers can connect using 0845 079 8130 number instead, using the same username/password as before.

Dialup number 0845 079 8130 will support 56k V.90, 56k(K56 Flex), all historical speeds to 33.6k, ISDN at 64k or dual channel at 128k.

The only standard that will cease to be available is US Robotics X2 (56k), however many of these modems can be flash upgraded to V.90 or already support it.

16 Mar 06

Upgrade to MySQL 4.1 now completed

After finishing our testing of MySQL 4.1, we have now upgraded to the current version for our linux shared hosting platform.

Customers interested in using MySQL 5.0 will be interested to know that we will shortly be unveiling a new service specifically for MySQL 5.0. We have decided to keep it separate due to certain differences between the two versions.

27 Feb 06

ADSL issues

There appears to be a BT fault on the ADSL network at the moment. We are currently working with BT to resolve this.

This fault has been resolved. Our ADSL network is now operating normally.

09 Feb 06

Web forwarding issues - resolved

There are currently some problems with the free web forwarding service. Engineers are already working on the problem.
This has now been resolved. There may be some more very small periods of downtime while we replace certain pieces of hardware.

12 Jan 06

Free ADSL web hosting downtime - Resolved

There will be a short period of downtime on the free web hosting platform for ADSL customers effective immediately.

This period has now finished.

Click to expand2005 Network Status

17 Nov 05

osCommerce vulnerability blocked

A particular vulnerability in osCommerce which allows attackers to spam through a website has been blocked.

If you are running an old version of osCommerce and can no longer send e-mails through your site, please update to the latest version of osCommerce. This block should only affect versions of osCommerce older than approximately two years.

15 Nov 05

Routine maintenance - finished

There is currently some routine overnight maintenance on the network. Services will be temporarily disrupted.

Maintenance has now finished.

07 Oct 05

XOOPS configuration change

Due to a recent security change which conflicts with the XOOPS security checks, it will be necessary to change the site path in the configuration file.

The site path should be changed to read:

/domainname.com/web

instead of

/www.domainname.com/web

in the path.

26 Sep 05

Simply.com Network Issues

Customers hosted on the following servers may be experiencing problems:

ariel.simply.net
calypso.simply.net
oberon.simply.net
tethys.simply.net
pan.simply.net
pandora.simply.net
prometheus.simply.net
proteus.simply.net
puck.simply.net
setebos.simply.net
triton.simply.net

26 Sep 05

Intermittent POP3 Connections

Customers may currently be receiving intermittent POP3 connections (symptoms include frequent prompts for password). Our engineers are currently working to get the issue resolved as soon as possible. Webmail remains uneffected.

The intermittent mail issue outlined above has now been resolved and customers should now be able to send and receive email normally. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

23 Sep 05

POP3 over SSL down for the weekend - Now back up

POP3 over SSL is now back up.

While we convert everybody to our new mail delivery platform on the shared Namesco hosted e-mail platform, POP3 over SSL will be unavailable.

If you have a problem collecting your e-mail and you are using POP3 over SSL, simply disable it in your client and you should be able to get your mail. The service should be reactivated again at some point over the weekend.

20 Sep 05

smtp.ukadsl-eng.net problems

ADSL customers using the smtp server 'smtp.ukadsl-eng.net' may currently be experiencing problems sending email. Our engineers are currently looking into the problem and hope to get it fixed as soon as possible. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

20 Sep 05

Web cluster downtime

Due to a problem upgrading to the latest version of the load balancing software, the main web hosting platform was unexpectedly taken offline this evening for a short period. It is now back up and running.

17 Aug 05

Vulnerabilities found in xmlrpc.php

Due to a large number of vulnerabilities found in the xmlrpc.php library supplied with a number of online scripts, we have decided to block access to any page with this name.

While we have patched all the underlying libraries, we are disabling it until a more complete fix is found. If you are using xmlrpc.php, please update to the latest version and rename it.

11 Jul 05

Resolved - Hosted websites responding slowly

We are currently experiencing abnormally high loads on our shared hosting platform. We are currently looking into this issue and will be resolving it as soon as possible.

This issue has now been resolved.

05 Jul 05

Spam and virus checking to be enabled by default

Namesco would like to advise it's customers that all new email and hosting accounts will now be automatically configured to reject emails suspected as spam, or containing viruses, by default.

In addition, from 12pm on Friday 8th July 2005, all existing email and hosting accounts will have their spam and virus protection enabled. Any customers wishing to disable these features may do so by visiting the "email protection" section of their online control panel after 12pm Friday.

The proportion of spam e-mail being delivered to customer accounts who have not activated Spam protection (a free service) is now becoming significant enough to warrant this change in policy.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

05 Jul 05

Short delays in e-mail

There is a currently a backlog of e-mail which is being run through. These should be all delivered by the end of today.

28 Apr 05

Visitor Statistics upgrade

We are currently undergoing an upgrade to our Visitor Statistics package. This is because we have experienced a huge increase in customers and are in the process of upgrading the system which produces our statistics. This should be online shortly, until which time you make experience issues with your site statistics.

22 Mar 05

ASP upgraded

The version of ASP running on our shared hosting platform has been updated to the current latest version. This enables a large amount of new functionality, including:
* ASP 3.0 functionality
* VBScript and JScript 5.5 support
* Enhanced language support
* Improved ASP Server stability

01 Mar 05

Power outage at the Harbour Exchange data centre

There was a power outage this morning in one of our data centres causing some of our hosted sites to be down. This has now been resolved.

Preliminary information is that this was caused by the incoming mains into the UPS feeder board blowing up causing the power to go down. The cause is currently being investigated.

28 Feb 05

Site specific log files introduced

A new feature has been introduced to give each website an individual error log, to aid in site development. This log file will contain all CGI, Perl and PHP error messages.

To access this log file, please log in via FTP and check the /logs directory.

18 Jan 05

Webmail and Control Panel upgrades

We are currently upgrading the Control Panel and Webmail.

Some features may be temporarily unavailable while this upgrade is being performed. This upgrade should take approximately 1 hour to complete.

Click to expand2004 Network Status

07 Dec 04

Network issues on 7th December 2004

There was a serious routing problem with one of our provider's internet connections. This has now been resolved.

We are currently investigating with the provider concerned as to where the problem exactly was, and will update this page accordingly.

20 Nov 04

IMPORTANT: Namesco Announcement re: yourdomain

Announcement regarding "regretfully inform you that due to the severity of the attack " is a bogus email sent out maliciously.

We are in the progress of investigating why this has been sent out. We have successfully intercepted the source and stopped further e-mails being sent to Namesco customers and we believe that only a fraction of our customers will have received this malicious, factually incorrect e-mail.

Please be advised that there has been no network attack, no downtime, and no loss of data. If you visit your web site you will see that all is fine and up and running as it always is.

We apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused and can assure you that we are taking this matter very seriously.

07 Jun 04

Webspace Doubled!

So, what are the upgrades?

5 weeks ago, we announced the significant purchase of a new, top-end storage device; the highest performing NAS (Network Storage Device) in its class. It was required due to the increasing demand for Namesco's hosting services and increasing mail usage particularly from the Namesco e-mail only packages and web-mail facility.

This significant upgrade installation has also further improved the redundancy and reliability of all elements and possible points of failure in our network infrastructure from mail servers, domain name servers (DNS) and switches to name a few.

26 Apr 04

Network Upgrades

Planning ahead is routine here at Namesco Limited not least for our Senior Network Managers. As we continue to grow at pace, we must upgrade and expand our Hosting Network Infrastructure.

Back in Autumn 2003, predictions showed that by the beginning of May 2004, we would require a significant upgrade to our master storage device (which holds web site data and backups) and our mail servers (so they can process and deliver more mail, more quickly).

Therefore, over the last 6 months, we have been carefully investigating and more recently testing new top-end Storage Hardware. A solution was purchased from one of the industry leaders in Storage Devices in March 2004 for £83,000 and is the highest performing NAS (Network Attached Storage) system in its class.

It is due to be integrated into our hosting Infrastructure in Telehouse London over the next 2 weeks and will significantly improve web site access speeds and mail delivery speeds.

There are 2 important points to make regarding this investment:

1) The new storage device and our resultant enhanced network infrastructure puts us in a powerful position and many steps ahead of most other companies providing similar web services. It allows us to further enhance and develop our hosting and e-mail offerings while at the same time delivering vastly improved access times and mail delivery transmission speeds.

2) The £83,000 spent on this new hardware was paid for out of Namesco's own cash reserves. This is crucial in your decision to become a new customer or to remain as one as it is stands testament to our sound business, ongoing sustainability and investment to improve all-round customer services.

Once the upgrades are complete, we will make a full announcement.

Thank you,

Kevin Savage
Chief Executive