GlowHost :: Is My Server Down?
Home » Support » How to tell if your server is down
Generally, if your site is down, we already know about it and are working to fix the problem.
However, we have prepared this simple "how-to" for you so that you can confirm this for yourself before submitting a trouble ticket, because more often than not, the problem is due to a local ISP issue. This should help you to identify which end of the Internet the problem lies.... If it is us, we are happy to fix it! Please verify that it is by reading below.
Step One
Check to see if your server is online using our in-house monitor, Netstatus.
Get a second opinion by checking with a third party monitor like this one. Check a few geographic locations of choice, then type your domain in the box, and see if you get "OK" status. if you get "OK" from 2 or more locations, your site is generally running fine in most cases.
The link in "Step One" above lists all the servers that we monitor on our managed hosting solutions. Unmanaged dedicated servers generally will not be monitored here.
RED LIGHTS
All red indicates a complete machine failure. (most cases)
Partial red indicates only certain services are currently down, are being repaired, or are being restarted.
GREEN LIGHTS
Green service lights mean those services should be functioning normally.
Step Two Check the maintenance forum for announcements
If nothing is listed here this issue is yet to be escalated to a long-term outage status, or there are no existing long-term outages.
If there is a prolonged outage, lasting more than 30-45 minutes, you can check our Outages and Scheduled Maintenance forum. We will post updates as to your server status as they unfold. Generally if something is going to take more than 30 minutes to repair it will take us at least this long to diagnose the problem, come up with a plan of attack, and then make time to notify the general public by way of the forums.
Submitting a ticket is optional, just be aware that if we are flooded with tickets regarding the matter, it only slows down our resolution to the problem.
If you don't see any recent forum notices, all indicators on the server status monitor indicate GREEN, and it has been a long time since you could last see your web site, please continue... your site may be perfectly fine, and you may need to conduct tests on your end to determine the problem.
Additionally, the server name can easily be found in the URL of your cPanel.
If your cPanel URL is like:
http://mary.genericsite.com:2087 then your server name is "Mary"
If your cPanel URL looks like:
http://lucy.someother.com:2087 then your server name is "Lucy"
Look to see if "Mary" (or Lucy or whatever) is listed as down according to the Network Status Monitor. If it is down, or having issues, it will appear at the top of the list all the lights or some of them will be red. If the lights are red, then we already know about it and are working to solve the problem.
then there are a few possible causes why you cannot see your site:
A. Your Domain is expired
B. Your Hosting is expired
C. Your ISP is having issues resolving portions of the Internet
D. Your ISP's upstream network provider is experiencing technical difficulties
E. You have been firewalled from the server
Perform a WHOIS lookup at InstaPro.net
Type your domain in the box titled "Enter a Domain Name"
The next page that loads should say similar to "Your domain name is already taken" Click the option to see the information regarding the registration. It will tell you when the domain expires, or if it is already expired. You will need to renew your domain name.
Login to your MyGlow account manager with your email ID and password. Click on "Invoices and Payments" and see if you have any pending, or failed invoices. If you do have FAILED or PENDING invoices more than 15 days late, you can take care of these and your site will be unsuspended shortly. You may open a ticket at the helpdesk to expedite this process immediately after completing your payment if you like.
Though you may be able to see portions of the Internet, it is quite common for ISPs to have issues resolving some portions of the Internet. This problem may be out of your ISP's direct control and is usually out of our direct control as well. It usually has to do with the Tier One Network Carriers in between "Point A" (you) and "Point B" (us)
Really, we might be point L, M, N, O, or P on your path to the datacenter from your location. Your request for a site may take you from New York to San Francisco to Colorado to Georgia (On a very bad day!) so there is lots of opportunity for a segment of the Internet to be having issues along the way. Your ISP usually leases those lines from the Tier One carriers and it is the ISP who will contact their upstream providers to fix the problem.
In a nutshell, if you have completed to Step A and B above, you may call your ISP and ask them if they know of any issues.
Sometime you can inadvertently block yourself from your website. This can happen if you have excessive connections to the server, or if you have failed trying to login to things like mail, cPanel, or FTP too many times using invalid login details. If you can see your sites using the steps outlined above, and have verified your ISP has no known issues, it is likely you have been firewalled by our network.
-- If you know how to run network tools like MTR, traceroute or ping, and your ISP does not block those tools, you can verify using them to see if you can hit our servers.
If you do not have access or the technical skills to use ping, traceroute or MTR:
-- Go to This 3rd Party Monitoring Site and check a few geographic locations of choice, then type your domain in the box, and see if you get "OK" status. if you get "OK" from 2 or more locations, your site is running fine in most cases.
-- Go to proxify.com or any other web based proxy service. Currently a list of proxy's are maintained by this site
However if this site is no longer online just google for "web based proxy" and choose a suitable service. If the proxy and 3rd party monitor can see your site, but you cannot, it means your site is in fact up and running.
-- If you have verified the steps above, but you still cannot see your site from your local computer, you probably have been firewalled.
Please open a support ticket at our helpdesk and let us know that you have already taken these steps to see if your site is online on the rest of the Internet, and you have verified that your ISP is not having issues if it seems that you have been blocked. It is important you get your public IP address and enter it into your support request so that we can cross-reference your IP address to our firewall logs, then release the IP.
You can obtain your IP address here:
What is my IP?
The helpdesk is located here.
