Answers to common Web Hosting issues that you may encounter. eg. Your website not loading.
HELP, my web site is not loading, what do I do?
Help, my website has been hacked, what can I do?
How come I have slightly less diskspace, than I believe I should have?
How do I improve my slow site load speed?
I have tried loading my website, but displays 'bandwidth exceeded', why?
I keep receiving emails about running out of diskspace or bandwidth?
I've uploaded my site, why are some of the images on my site not appearing?
I've uploaded my site, why do I get an error when I view my homepage?
I've uploaded my site, why do some of the links not work?
My website displays a '500 Internal Server Error', what do I do?
My website is loading slowly, what can I do?
What is a DOS Attack?
When using MS FrontPage to publish my website, I get an error?
Why am I still seeing the old version of my site?
Why have my Web Statistics stopped recording?
Why have I received an email saying 'Potential Reduced AutoSSL Coverage', and how do I turn these emails off?
Control Panel
I can't login my Control Panel?
Why do I keep getting logged out of my Control Panel?
Why is my hosting control panel loading slowly?
Why do I get an AJAX error when setting passwords?
HELP, my web site is not loading, what do I do?
If you find you cannot access your website/s, please follow the steps below before you email us, as it can save a lot of time:
(1) Check that your domain name hasn‘t EXPIRED, and needs renewing, as an expired domain name will prevent your website loading. If your domain is registered through us, you can renew it via our Domain Manager at www.domains.loungenetwork.co.nz , and if it is registered elsewhere you will need to contact your domain registrar. A domain uncancellation fee may apply to expired domains. If your domain has expired, it may take a few days or so, to be renewed, as we must recieve a cleared payment before we can renew it. If you need your domain name renewing urgently, and don't want to wait, please use our 'Priority Support Page' at http://web.loungenetwork.co.nz/emergency-contact.php . Domains can take several hours after the are uncancelled, before they will begin working again. The best way to prevent this problem is keeping an note of your domains expiry date, and always renewing and paying it well before it's expiry date. Domains can be renewed up to 10 years in advance, and you shouldn't wait till the last minute to renew it.
(2) Check that your hosting account hasn‘t gone over its disk space limits. Check the disk space usage inside your Control Panel.
(3) Check that your hosting account hasn‘t gone over its data transfer limits. Check the data transfer usage inside your Control Panel.
(3) Check that your hosting account hasn‘t been suspended for a breach of our Terms of Service, or due to non payment.
(4) Try to access other sites on the internet (both international and New Zealand websites). Most times it will just be your ISP that is having issues. Also check that your firewall and antivirus software isn‘t blocking your internet access, especially if you are connected to an office network. Also check that your router doesn't have problems, try restarting it as that may help reset it.
(5) If you have recently joined us, also make sure that your DNS info for your domain name has propagated over to our servers. This process of propagation can take up to 3 days.
(6) Check the domain‘s nameservers, and make sure that they are configured correctly inside your Domain Manager at www.domains.loungenetwork.co.nz .
(7) Access our Server Status Page and see if there‘s an issue with your server. Your servers name is shown in your welcome - account details email as follows :
(8) If your website uses online software, such as a Content Management System, Shopping Cart, Forum, Blog etc, check that there isn't a problem or a bug with your online software. To do this you will need to contact your websites developer or programmer. Often this is the reason for problems when an automated websites stop working or display error messages.
(9) You can also check the status of your site by using the "Spot Check" service at http://alertra.com. Enter your domain name into the box and click the "check" button. This will then check the accessibility of your domain from 4 different geographical locations. This test may however throw up a false result if you have a problems or bugs in your websites online software, as described in (9) above. If the spot check shows 'OK' then there is most likely an issue with your ISP's network and their connection to websites around the world. We also do recommend testing your website by connecting to another ISP, preferably on a different computer and network.
(10) If you see that the server you are on is non-reachable, according to the above steps, please access our Server Status Page for information about the issue and what is being done to rectify the situation. This page will keep you fully up to date should an issue occur.
You should only email us if no announcement has been made on our Server Status Page.
If you contact us regarding slow/no responses to the servers, they must also include a traceroute report in order for us to further assist you and locate the issue. You can download a trial copy of a traceroute software by clicking here. In most cases contacting your ISP first, will locate the problem if there are any issues with your ISP‘s route to your server.
Most importantly, if there is an issue with your server, do not panic. Please keep calm while we rectify the situation on your server. Cool heads are needed should any issues occur with the servers, so the Server Technicians can rectify the issue as quickly as possible.
Help, my website has been hacked, what can I do?
Hacking of websites on the servers are very rare, and our providers maintain the server software with the latest versions and security patches. In most cases when a website is hacked, it is because the clients own website software (usually a CMS Content management system) the client is using in their hosting account, is an old or outdated version that has security holes. Some CMS systems are more prone to being hacked than others. The other main reason websites get hacked, is when the clients password is compromised.
If your website gets hacked, please make sure you do the following.
- Change ALL the passwords for your website and the administrative email.You need to make sure the password on your CMS is changed, as well as your master CPanel password, which you can do inside CPanel.
- Check your PC for a viruses/trojans/malware.
- Update your website software (your CMS content management system) to the latest versions, install all security updates for OS and site software.
- Always use strong passwords, which should include mixed case characters and numbers.
- Setup a firewall and antivirus software, and make sure it is all up to date.
- Do not use insecure public internet connections to log into site/mail/cPanel.
All these measures are needed to minimize the possibility of passwords being stolen, and other possible security problems.
You can also check your logs inside CPanel, and these may help you diagonise exactly how the hackers managed to hack your website.
How come I have slightly less diskspace, than I believe I should have?
Since the early 2000s most consumer hard drive capacities are grouped in certain size classes measured in gigabytes. The exact capacity of a given drive is usually some number above or below the class designation. Although most manufacturers of hard disk drives and flash-memory disk devices define 1 gigabyte as 1000000000bytes, the computer operating systems used by servers, calculate size in gibibytes by dividing the total capacity in bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1073741824, but report the result with the symbol GB. This practice can be a cause of confusion, as a hard disk with a manufacturer-rated capacity of 400 gigabytes may be reported by the operating system as only 372 GB. More info can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
How do I improve my slow site load speed?
If your site is loading slow, it could be due to a number of causes. Usually the cause is due to the way that the site is scripted. However, identifying these exact causes can be tricky. With some of the tools below, you will be able to accurately identify the main culprits.
One possible cause of why a site loads slow for you can be the speed of your own connection. A good test to eliminate that is to ensure that the issue exists from another network (i.e. a different address). Once you have confirmed that the issue exists for other connections, you can begin analysing and addressing the issue(s).
There are two perspectives to analyse the site from, locally and globally. Analysing the site using a tool built into your browser will test the site's load speed from your connection (locally). However, if you analyse the site from a website, it will be testing from their servers (i.e. globally).
There are three popular browser tools which may be useful depending on the browser you are using:
* Google Chrome has a tool built into the main release. It can be accessed by visiting the site, right clicking and selecting "Inspect Element". The best way to use the tool is to go to the Audits tab and select the option to "Reload Page and Audit on Load".
* Mozilla Firefox uses an add-on tool named FireBug which can be found at http://getfirebug.com/ The best way to use Firebug to analyze site loading speed (it offers many additional tools) is to open it up from the button in the top right corner, select the tab named Net and then reload the site you are trying to analyze.
* Apple also offer comprehensive developer tools for Safari as seen here: http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html#developer You can access the developer tools in Safari by turning on the Develop menu in the Advanced pane of Safari preferences. In there you will find the Web Inspector and Timeline Pane tools.
There are a number of good websites offering analyses on website load speeds from their own servers. Some of the best tools are at the following links:
http://www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool.loading-time-checker.htm
https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/FHTAmz44z/aucklan.com
http://www.webpagetest.org/
Once these aspects have been inspected and any obvious scripting delays addressed, we can try changing two server settings at our end:
* safe mode disabled
* highmem (higher memory allocation) enabled
These settings can be applied upon request on any domain although we require the request in writing via your control panel.
I have tried loading my website, but displays 'bandwidth exceeded', why?
Each CPanel web hosting plan is supplied with a specified amount of bandwidth each month. The server checks the bandwidth usage once a day, and if your website goes over your allocated bandwidth limit, the server will automatically switch your website off. You are able to purchase additional bandwidth should you require it, by upgrading your hosting plan.
Things that can affect your bandwidth usage, is if you display an image that is stored in your hosting space, but is hot linked on another website, or displayed in a popular forum, your bandwidth can very quickly be used up. Therefore we recommend that you use hotlink protection.
Please contact us if your website uses all its allocated bandwidth, and we can look into the best upgrade solution for you.
I keep receiving emails about running out of diskspace or bandwidth?
For users who use the cPanel hosting control panel, you may receive automated warning messages from the server, if you are close to using up your allocated diskspace or monthly bandwidth.
If the warning is about the amount of diskspace you are using, you can either clear the amount of diskspace you are using, or upgrade your hosting plan, which will provide you with more diskspace or bandwidth. If you do use up all your bandwidth, and you don't upgrade your plan, your account may be automatically suspended by the server, so you don't use any further server resources until the next billing cycle. If this happens you can contact us to upgrade your hosting plan, or you can wait until next month when the account will be automatically reactivated by the server. Please note that the time on the servers is GMT, and it is not on New Zealand time.
Please note that if you use webmail, and you don't clear your trash folder, your diskspace will become filled up. Therefore please make sure you regularly clear your webmail trash folder.
If you do not want to receive these messages, then please delete your email address from the main page of cPanel, where it asks you to update your details.
I've uploaded my site, why are some of the images on my site not appearing?
Linux servers are case sensitive when it comes to file names. We therefore recommend that all files that you upload into your website directory, have file names containing only lowercase characters. This includes image files. This means for example, if you have uploaded an image called 'picture.gif', the filename for the image must be all in lowercase characters, eg. not 'Picture.gif', or 'PICTURE.GIF'. Any links or references within your website that are linked to this 'picture.gif' image, must also be named in lowercase.
It is also good practice to not use character spaces in the file names. If you want to include a space between words in a file name, it is best to use a dash '-' or an underscore '_'. eg. flower picture.gif, could be renamed flower-picture.gif, or flower_picture.gif
Once you start using these conventions in your website design, they will very soon become second nature.
I've uploaded my site, why do I get an error when I view my homepage?
First make sure you have uploaded your website into the correct directory. You will know if it is in the correct directory, because there is already a placeholder index.html (or similar file extension) in that directory. You must first make sure that you delete this placeholder file, and then upload your own index.html file (or similar file extension), which will become your websites homepage.
If it still isn't working, make sure that your index.htm file is all in lowercase characters. When it comes to filenames, Linux servers are case sensitive. This means that the file 'Index.htm' is a different file from 'index.htm' Only index.htm file will load as the homepage, as the server will only detect the file as the homepage, if is all in lowercase.
We recommend that client name all files contained within their website directory, so that they ONLY contain file names using only lowercase characters. This means for example, if you have uploaded an' About Us' webpage. The filename must be all in lowercase characters. eg aboutus.htm and not AboutUs.htm.
Any hyperlinks directing you to this 'About Us' page, must also be called aboutus.htm and not AboutUs.htm.
Using lowercase characters for filenames and hyperlinks applies to all files in you website, including image files. If some of your images are failing to load, please check that the filename is all in lowercase.
It is also essential that you do NOT use character spaces in the file names. If you want to include a space between words in a file name, it is best to use a dash '-' or an underscore '_'. eg. about us.htm, could be renamed about-us.htm, or about_us.htm.
I've uploaded my site, why do some of the links not work?
When it comes to filenames, Linux servers are case sensitive. This means that the file AboutUs.htm is a different file from aboutus.htm. We recommend that client name all files contained within their website directory, so that they ONLY contain file names using only lowercase characters. This means for example, if you have uploaded an' About Us' webpage. The filename must be all in lowercase characters. eg aboutus.htm and not AboutUs.htm.
Any hyperlinks directing you to this 'About Us' page, must also be called aboutus.htm and not AboutUs.htm.
Using lowercase characters for filenames and hyperlinks applies to all files in you website, including image files. If some of your images are failing to load, please check that the filename is all in lowercase.
It is also essential that you do NOT use character spaces in the file names. If you want to include a space between words in a file name, it is best to use a dash '-' or an underscore '_'. eg. about us.htm, could be renamed about-us.htm, or about_us.htm.
My website displays a '500 Internal Server Error', what do I do?
If your website displays this error, it is most likely due to a problem with the software/scripts that you have installed on your website. This type of error will usually appear after you have uploaded something new into your hosting space that is causing a problem for the server. If you are a cPanel user, you can check the 'error log' inside cpanel to find where the error is occurring. Correcting or removing the problem file should fix the error. This issue often occurs when the client has an error in their .htaccess file, and renaming or removing the file until you have corrected the programming error in the file, will remove the error mesage on the website.
Sometimes you can also get a similar error if you change the 'permissions' on the root directory of your website. eg public_html for cPanel users. Changing the permission to 750 or 755 should fix this.
My website is loading slowly, what can I do?
The speed your website loads for you on your computers internet browser, is largely dependent on your ISPs connection to the rest of the internet. If you are finding that your website is loading slower than normal, it could an issue with your ISP, or one of your ISPs upstream providers, or it could be an issue at the datacentre where the server is stored. There are also many other things that could potentially be causing the problem with slow website loading, including your computer performing a software update, virus scan, or it could be infected with Malware. Also just because the website is loading slowly for you, doesn't mean that the slowness is affecting all of your website visitors. If it is a problem with your ISPs interent connection, then it may only be that ISPs customers who are affected.
If you need to contact us regarding slow loading speeds of your website, you MUST perform the following tasks in order for us to further assist you and locate the issue.
In most cases if you contact your ISP first, it will locate the problem if there are any issues with your ISP‘s route to your server.
(1) TraceRoute Report - You must perform a 'traceroute' from your computer to your website. This traceroute will show where the loss of connectivity is occurring along the line of nodes. You can download traceroute software by using either of the pieces of software below.
WINMTR (Free)
Visual Route
To find these, please go to www.google.co.nz, and enter one of the above options to find these websites.
The screen shot below is for WINMTR which is the easiest to use, and is free.
Simply enter your websites domain name and press the 'Start' button, wait for the traceroute to complete between 20-50 'sent' packets, then press the 'STOP' button. The press the 'copy text to clipboard' button, and paste this into your email to us. A small % of packloss at different nodes is normal.
(2) Alertra Report - This test will test how well your website is loading from different locations around the world, eg London, Hong Kong, Sydney. It will tell you if the website is 'viewable', and the time taken to load your websites homepage at those locations. To test your website, please go to http://www.alertra.com/ and enter your domain name where indicated, and press the check button.
The result will look similar to below. If your website is reading 'error' from all locations, it will indicate that your website is not viewable, and indicates that either your domain name or website is not responsive.
If it is reading OK from most locations, then it will show that it is loading. You may want to compare the speed it takes your website to load through your own web browser, versus the speed it shows in the Alertra report. If your own computer is loading it a lot slower, it would indicate a problem that is isolated to your own computers connection to your website (eg your ISP or something else related to your computer eg a misconfigured firewall). If you are having trouble with your website loading at certain times of the day, please try testing your website at various times during the day.
Next make a 'screen capture' of the results page, as below. You can make a screen capture in windows by pressing the 'PRTSCN' (Print Screen) button, opening an image editor (eg photoshop), and pasting the screen capture into a new image document. When saving the screen capture, please name the file with the date and time of the Alertra test.
(3) CPanel server load - CPanel also allows you to check the servers load. You can find a link to the 'server status' at the bottom of the left hand column on CPanel's homepage. When you experience slow loading, please check the servers status, and what the server load is. Please send us a Screen Capture of this page at the time you experience a slowdown, if you are concerned about a figure.
Once you have both your Traceroute and Alertra screen captures, please email these to us, and we will investigate. Unless we have these pieces of information, we are unable to help you to find why your website maybe loading slowly from your location. Please also include with your email, who your ISP is, what type of computer you are using and network configuration, as well as the type of internet security software you are using. Please also include any step by step instructions, to allow us to try to replicate the situation.
If you are finding that scripts you are using on your website are going slowly, it could be that you are using scripts that are not permitted on the server, and these are causing high loads on the server. Normally however our server technicians will pick this up, and the scripts will be suspended, and we will contact you. If you are unsure which scripts are not allowed, please check out our list of banned scripts, which are in our 'terms of service' documents.
What is a DOS Attack?
A DOS or Denial Of Service attack is any action that is taken in order to disrupt or effectively disable a network. They are usually directed towards a datacentre, and no datacentre is immune to them.
Denial of service attacks are usually generated by many computers, that send out a ping (ICMP packet) flood to the network that they are attacking. These computers have been exploited by either a worm/virus email or the compter has been hacked while the computers user was connected to the interent. This flood saturates the network connection and brings the network to a slowdown and can even cause a complete outage.
The exploit programs basically install themselves onto hundreds of machines and then launch the attack onto the chosen network at any given time.
It is almost imposible to control these attacks, with hundreds, and in some cases thousands of machines launching ping floods at the network.
When using MS FrontPage to publish my website, I get an error?
Microsoft Frontpage Extensions have reached their End Of Life (EOL) and no longer supported
During mid 2006 Microsoft announced that they discontinued the development of Microsoft FrontPage and server extensions, and will cease supporting it, due to it having reached the end of it's economical life.
Since 2006, we have continued to support FrontPage Extensions to clients, however as Microsoft no longer provides any security updates for the extensions, FrontPage extensions potentially could pose a security threat to the servers. Therefore we are announcing that FrontPage extensions on our Network have reached the end of their life as of 17/12/2008. Most hosting providers have already ceased supporting and providing FrontPage extensions, and we are one of the last to still provide them. The servers will continue to support FrontPage extensions for the time being, but Frontpage extensions could be withdrawn at any time in the future without further announcement, and we will no longer be offering any technical support for FrontPage extensions if you are having trouble with them. If you do use Microsoft FrontPage, you can instead upload your website without FrontPage extensions by using FTP, which will continue to be supported.
Old Article.
These errors most likely occur because your Microsoft FrontPage Extensions in your hosting directory have become corrupt. This is a relatively common issue with using Microsoft Frontpage, caused by bugs within the Microsoft Frontpage software. Corruption can occur when they communicate with one another and a communication or software error occurs. Corruption can also occur if you try to use FTP to upload your website, instead of using the publish feature within FrontPage. These errors can be easily corrected by reinstalling your Microsoft Frontpage extensions on the server using the methods below.
cPanel Users: You should be able to fix this by logging into cPanel, going to the 'frontpage extensions section', and then uninstalling and then reinstalling them. You can also try using the 'repair frontpage extensions' if that options is available. Doing this should then fix the issue. On rare occasions you may also need to delete everything from your public_html directory (excluding the cgi... folders) , and then reinstall the FrontPage extensions in cPanel. Alternatively you will be able to upload your website via ftp.
Corporate/ Business Class Hosting Plans: Please log into your control panel at www.controlpanel.co.nz, go to the 'Services' tab in the left hand menu, click the 'websites' link. Then click the 'edit ' link next to your websites domain name. Scroll down to the Frontpage section, and tick the 'reinstall' frontpage extensions, and click the 'save' button. This will reinstall the extensions.
Other reasons you may be having problems publishing with Frontpage could be:
(a) Your version of Frontpage is no longer supported by the server due to security. Microsoft only provides server extensions for newer versions of MS Frontpage. If this is the case, please use FTP to upload your website.
(b) You are not publishing through the entire URL. You must include www in the domain address in your Frontpage Software, eg. www.yourwebsite.co.nz
(c) You may have internet security software such as Firewall or antivirus software, that maybe blocking your frontpage connection. Please refer to your internet security documentation to correct this.
Please note that as MS Frontpage is third party software, we do not provide any technical support for it. For software support for Microsoft Frontpage please go to the Microsoft website at www.microsoft.co.nz . Technical support for your FrontPage software can also be found at http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1 , just select you version of FrontPage.
Why am I still seeing the old version of my site?
Changes that you make to your site should take place immediately after uploading or publishing your site onto the server. You can check to see if your files have been successfully uploaded by logging directly into your account using FTP or FrontPage with your username and password. Your remote directory will be displayed, and you can verify that your files have been uploaded successfully - check that they're in the correct directory (probably public_html).
Any delay in displaying the new updates, is either a result of unsuccessful uploading, caching in either your web browser, or caching at a proxy server at your ISP or office/local network if you are running your own server - this means that you're seeing an old version of your site.
Most web browsers cache pages when you visit a web site. This is so that the next time you go to that page, it appears to load faster. This is because it is using a local copy rather than requesting a new copy be sent across the Internet. ISP caching works in much the same way, in that once you have visited a website, your ISP may cache those pages so that they appear to load faster the next time you visit them. The main problem with this is that unlike your browser cache you can not delete these temporary files, instead you have to wait until your ISPs cache expires and it requests fresh copies of the files. This can be very frustrating if you are trying to develop or make changes to your website. Unfortunately there is very little that can be done except to contact your ISP to manually clear the cache on their network. You should also ask them to remove any records and settings for your websites domain name, from their network, just incase they have those settings installed on their network, and it is causing a conflict. If they don't do this, the best solution maybe to change ISP. Most ISPs do not cache webpages for more than half an hour. However there are unfortunately some that take considerably longer to clear their cache. These ISPs tend to be the cheaper one, who cache pages for cost reasons, as it costs them less to locally store your website data for their users, than to load it from the server source for each viewing request, which incurs additional traffic fees for them. If after a day the ISP still has not updated their cache, it could also be that your ISP has an issue with one of their upstream providers. If you can view the website fine using another ISP, you will know the problem is with the ISP or one of their upstream providers, that is serving up the old content, and it is an issue that the ISP needs to fix. You can also test whether it is a problem with your ISP, by testing the website independently using a proxy server website such as http://freeproxyserver.net/ , which will load the website through an independent ISP, and you will almost definitely see the newest version of your website through it.
Before you try to clear you local web browser cache, first try simply refreshing your web browser, which should allow you to see the changes that you have made on your website. To refresh your web browser to see the changes that you have made, either press F5, or CTRL + F5, which will refresh your browser. If this doesn't work, you should then try to delete any temporary/cached files that your browser may have. In IE go to Tools -> Internet Options, under "Temporary Internet Files"click "Delete Files" and try re-visiting the web page. It is always good idea to refresh or clear the cache on your browser when making changes to your website. If that still doesn’t work, you should manually delete all the files in your caches folder , as sometimes the web browser can fail at deleting all the items in the cache.
If this doesn’t fix the problem, it is very likely to be due to caching from your ISP or office network. ISP caches should be cleared every 1/2 hour or so – so if the problem persists, contact your ISP as discussed above, or your network administrator and ask them to manually clear the cache for your site. Once this is done you should see the newly published site on our servers. If you have an alternative dial up connection with another ISP, that you have not used to visit your website, you will normally see the changes you have made immediately, as that ISP wouldn't have cached the page.
You maybe able to prevent ISPs caching your webpages, by adding in a no-cache meta tag into your webpages, which may solve this issue for you in the future if it occurs regularly. Please do a google search for more information adding the no-cache tag to your website.
UPDATE: 2010
Several NZ ISPs, including Telecom / Xtra, are now using cache farms to cache website and video content. They do this partly because it is cheaper for them to host the content locally, rather than load it each time from a remote server each time someone visits the page. It may also allows the website to load faster, as it is loading from a local server.. They will tend to cache websites which their systems detect aren't updated very often. If you do have a problem with your ISP caching your websites content, you will need to contact your ISP to clear the cache and remove your webite from their caching farm. You should also add the no-cache tags to your websites html code. This type of caching will only affect the people who are visiting your website, who are using the ISP that is caching the content. It won't affect any other viewers.
If your website is on the Linux server, you can also try adding the following commands into an .htaccess file, and uploading it into your root directory of your website.
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault A0
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=0, private, no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"
Why have my Web Statistics stopped recording?
The website statistics will stop recording your websites visitors, if you have exceeded your allocated diskspace quota. This is because your statistcs are stored in your allocated diskspace, so if there is no available diskspace left, then the software has nowhere to write the data to. To overcome this, you will either need to free up some diskspace in your hosting account, or upgrade to the next hosting plan up.
Why have I received an email saying 'Potential Reduced AutoSSL Coverage', and how do I turn these emails off?
AutoSSL is CPanels inbuilt SSL certificate system. You may receive these automated notification emails from CPanel from time to time, and they may occur if some of the services for your domain are being hosted on third party servers. Usually you can therefore ignore these emails. If you want to turn these email notifications off, you can do this by logging into CPanel for your server. From the CPanel homepage, go to the 'Preferences' section and click on the 'Contact Information' Icon. On the next page you may see multiple options for notifications related to AutoSSL & SSL. Untick all of those that are ticked that mention AutoSSL and SSL, then click the 'Save' button. That should then turn off all of those AutoSSL email notifications.
I can't login my Control Panel?
There could be a range of possibilities as to why you are unable to login or access your control panel. Below are the most common reasons. Before you contact us, please try or check the following, as this will save a lot of time.
- Firstly check that your firewall or Internet Security Software is not blocking access to the port that the control panel uses. Try temporarily disabling your firewall to test if you can login with it disabled. Your firewall may either be software on your computer, or it may be a separate piece of hardware that exists between your computer and your phone point. Some firewalls are integrated into your modem or router.
- Try rebooting your computers / networks router incase it has suffered some form of problem with either inbuilt firewall, other settings or it has crashed. (The router is the box that you plug into your telephone line. This should reset the connection with your ISP and some of the other settings inside the router. You could also try rebooting your computer to also reset it's settings.
- If your computer is on a network, or is connected to other computers in an office environment, check that you have access privileges to connect to a control panel.
- Check that your internet browsers security settings aren't too high, otherwise it can block access. Adjust your security settings to allow access.
- Check that your ISP (Internet Service Provider, the company you connect to the internet with) isn't having issues which is preventing you connecting to the control panel. Also ask your ISP whether they are blocking port 2083 . You could also ask your ISP to check the connection from their end, and they should be able to confirm whether the problem is a local problem with your computer / home network or not.
- Try accessing the control panel using a different browser, such as Firefox.
- Try accessing your control panel on a different computer connected to a different ISP, or get a friend to test the connection on their computer in a different location.
Why do I keep getting logged out of my Control Panel?
Our hosting servers have security enable to help prevent the servers getting hacked. This is standard practice for premium hosting providers. Without going into too much detail, this works by the servers validating the IP addresses used in all cookie based logins. This limits the ability of attackers who capture cPanel session cookies to use them in an exploit of the Control Panel interfaces.
For a standard computer and network setup, you should never have any problems logging into CPanel. 99% of customers will never have any issue.
However if you have a non standard network setup on your computer network, or your ISP or DNS provider is aggressively changing your IP address every few seconds/minutes, or you are using a Proxy, you may encounter problems. This may result in you being regularly logged out of CPanel, and then prompted to re-authenticate on a regular basis. People use proxies for a number of reasons, including for accessing region locked online services, but they can cause problems when accessing some secure online servers and ports when they are enabled.
Possible Solutions for clients using non standard setups, and who are encountering this problem:
- Clients who use a proxy, or a proxy service, will need to disable any proxy that they are behind while using CPanel. Then reenable it once they have finished using cpanel.
- If your ISP is changing your IP address every few seconds/minutes, please contact your ISP to set your IP address as static.
- Clear your internet browser cache and cookies
- Make sure your web browser isn't in incognito mode or private mode. Different web browsers have different names for this mode.
- Try using Google Chrome
- Test your login from a totally different computer on a different ISP and network. If you have a smart phone or ipad, you could test it from that.
Why is my hosting control panel loading slowly?
There could be a number of reasons for this. Some control panels run over a secure connection, and SSL connections will always load slower than normal HTTP connections, as the server is constantly checking the secure connection during the download of the control panel web page.
Control Panels such as CPanel, also load through a different port from normal webpages, so at times may load slower than your regular website pages. This does not indicate a problem and problem with the server. ISP's often put a lower priority on the port that the control panel loads through, which can cause slow control panel loading speeds from time to time.
If you are having trouble logging into your control panel, please also read this article.
Why do I get an AJAX error when setting passwords?
This will most likely be because you are using an incompatible or an old version of a web browser. We recommend clients update their web browsers to the latest version. It is also known that Apple Safari web browser can have issues, but this maybe able to be resolved by clearing your cache.
We recommend using Firefox with Cpanel, which can be downloaded from www.firefox.com. Firefox should work fine with CPanel with no issues.