problems again with eu.voxalot (85.17.19.194)
 

Today at about 13:30 I several times tried to call s.o., but I got "internal server error". Even calling *600 causes an error. Right now I get "server does not reply".
An hour before I could call!

I have entered in my WLAN-cell-phone the IP-address because sometimes the dns.. does not work.

Anyway despite today it happended several times that all of a sudden a perfect call was interupted by either me or the otherside or both couldn't hear anything any more.
I had to re-call, wich worked perfectly.

How can that happen that a perfect connection is 'muted' all of a sudden. It seems to happen accindently, I can't say it is after e.g. 60 min. NO! Sometimes nothing happens sometimes once or even twice at the same tel.no.

Regards,
Carl

it seems that voxalot probably eu server is out of function. no accounts are working today.

Yes, seems there is problem in eu server strange both server proxy01.eu1.voxalot.com and proxy02.eu1.voxalot.com are not working. Server are pingable and shows regustraion OK but no traffic can pass through.

Is someone working on this. I can't be reached and can't call out. Status on the status-page says operational???!! But it's not!

BTW I pressed the great RED button to notify Voxalot staff! Pleas do something about this, and/or KEEP US INFORMED!

I'm down too...

HELLO VOXALOT STAFF??!! Min. 4 hours DOWN now without any notice?

Hey there is that bigRed button.
I thought one of you would have pressed it - I did now.
After several hours I still get 500 "internal server error"
when I dial *600

Hope the best fro the weekend..
Carl

Quick fix use us.voxalot.com, I tried every thing is working again at least for time being.

I don't think the big red button is doing anything -- the service status page STILL shows all servers as operational! Maybe they are too busy working on this to get back to us...

I can confirm eu.voxalot.com is down. I have three paid accounts and one free account and I am totally unreachable at the moment, apart from mobile.

I would like to see that it is fixed as soon as possible.

I'm able to register my ATA now, but still no outgoing

[edit] Able to call out -- echo test still not working though

[edit 2] Back down again! <LOL>

And here was us initially blaming our VOIP provider ... best go apologise to them.

Voxalot, any updates please because right now we are bypassing you and going back direct to our VOIP provider?

I was thinking our provider as well at first -- I guess we take for granted Voxalot's uptime sometimes and get used to it always working and not being the problem!

However, it would be nice to have an idea of how long or what's going on...

That's the biggest problem I have when these outages are happening. Total lack of information. :(
And what is that BIG RED BUTTON actually doing? Why aren't we informed???!!! :mad:

Yeah, I agree, 6 hours without anything is a little long. Must be something going on not to hear anything.

Switching over to the US server works, so I'm not really down hard. Just lost points with the wife on VOIP though :(

Edit -- Weird, maybe it's a DNS issue on my end or something, but main website is not loading!

Edit 2 -- Back up again... Must be having serious problems

I can confirm all my premium accounts on EU servers are down. Still no sign of life from voxalot staff?

Tried the US server, but incoming calls are not coming through. Sometimes they go to the voicemail directly and sometimes a messages the call could not be connected is being played.
With the US server I am able to call out.

WHY STILL NO MESSAGE FROM VOXALOT? Is it really so hard to keep your customers updated??!!

Investigating now.

Hi guys,

The server was experiencing some database problems, which caused some calls to fail when accessing that database. I have now restored the database to normal operational state, and the server should be operating as normal now.

Please advise if you continue to experience any further problems. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

--
Craig

Can you tell us:
- Why it took so long to inform us about what was happening?
- Why it took so long to solve it?
- Why the status page stated there wasn't any problem?
- Why there was no reaction on that 'Big Red Button'?

It seems to me the status page and Big Red Button feature is not more than a fake to keep customers happy? Or am I wrong (I really hope so!).

Because we are an Australian company, and we operate in Australian time zones. At the time the server was experiencing problems, we were not sitting in front of our computers.

From the time I saw the Big Red Button notifications to the time it was resolved, it took less than 10 minutes.

Updating the status page is a manual task for us, and for problems that appear on first triage to be able to be resolved in a short period, we don't update the status page (as updating the status page automatically sends out emails to all users). However, having said that, out of this disruption we plan on adding a feature that, upon several users pressing the Big Red Button, gives users some automated feedback that there may be other users experiencing some problems.

As I mentioned, we are an Australian company and our hours of business are more closely aligned to our Australian customers. We do not (and have never claimed to) offer 24x7x365 support for Voxalot.

While we would love to be in a position to offer that, the harsh reality is that the nominal amount that we charge users for the advanced features of Voxalot barely covers our cost of operations. It does not even go close to being able to pay for support staff to monitor the system on a round-the-clock basis.

--
Craig

I can live with that. It is a well balanced reply. It will be to costly for us to have a 24x7x365 service.

I would like you to implement your future plan: "... However, having said that, out of this disruption we plan on adding a feature that, upon several users pressing the Big Red Button, gives users some automated feedback that there may be other users experiencing some problems."

For now we can best solve this kind of problems with the suggestion of Richard99: "Quick fix use us.voxalot."

Here's a suggestion you should consider as well. How about just adding a short informational message to the big red button page that says something like this: "please be aware that our company is located in Australia and that our tech staff works during normal business hours local time (include UTC offset here). If it seems no immediate response is being made to the issue you're reporting, the most likely explanation is that you are reporting your issue outside our technical staff's hours of operation. Rest assured that, just as soon as our staff is back on duty, your problem will be addressed."

Ummm, have you considered raising your rates? I, for one, would be willing to pay a bit more for round-the-clock support. Some will be satisfied with these delayed responses owing to the nominal fee but others will be happy to pay something above the nominal fee in order to eliminate the delays.

James