Am I blocked? Help me resolve email registration situation

[ReginaR]

Hi, I'm Regina and about 2 weeks ago, I set up a free website at:

celestialregina.x10.mx

and obtained an FTP account name; uploaded my entire amateur astronomy hobby website, and used it just fine until around 30 December 2024.

Then it went dead and now I cannot log into ANY x10 service with the username I had established: yxbcfgqm

I will be happy to provice ALL of my previously entered security info: so that you can verify me. I had to do a NEW registration/login to use this present forum, as I could NEVER get the email confirmation established under yxbcfgqm; your company kept sending the verification process to the WRONG email address, one that has been dead for a year. I could NOT change it in the main setup fo that user name; but I did successfully change it in the Control Panel registration for an FTP account.

I have been going around in circles for the last ten days or so, TRYING to get that old, dead email changed. I suspect that what happened is that you finally blocked me because NO verification was completed.

Once again -- and I apologize for the complexity of this! -- are the following situations:

1. I successfully signed up as user yxbcfgqm and got my website online.

2. I tried to sign up for this forum. But, the WRONG email seems somehow to have gone into my username (it was one I had used YEARS ago when I had formerly, under a different user, made an x10 free website which *I took down on Jan 1, 2024.* What I think may have happened is that there was some kind of a database snafu and that OLD, dead email was assigned to my NEW username.

3. I seem not to be able to get into ANY web address that I had been using prior to Dec.30 or 31st, just a couple of days ago. I cannot access my website, celestialregina.x10.mx, so it APPEARS to be offline; however, some "checking" services that test sites for availability say that it IS online (!)

4. I cannot resolve this problem under username yxbcfgqm, which HAD worked fine for, oh, maybe two weeks.

5. What can be done?

I will try to accomplish ANY steps required by x10 hosting. Just let me know what I need to do.

Best,
Regina Roper

 

[Abigblueworld]

Complicated. You can try to reset the password to the email/account of your website

 

[ReginaR]

Thanks, A... but I am stuck in a sort of "loop" here and cannot proceed with the methods at hand.

First: I *cannot* log in. I get an error message that my email address does not match the database. I think this is because, at some point, I did go thru the procedure to change the email...but it required a verification: which went to THE OLD DEAD EMAIL leaving me no opportunity receive and act on verification.

When I try the links to any x10 service NOTHING HAPPENS here. I have tried four Windows PC's after clearing cache and resetting DNS. I have tried alternative DNS. I have tried my own ISP account plus another one on 4G with my iPad. When I try to log in, there is simply a horrendously long wait on any of these devices -- odd since USUALLY it came up instantly prior to Dec. 30 -- but then I get a browser error message varying depending on whether I use Vivaldi, Firefox, Brave, or an Apple browser on either phone or iPad, all basically saying merely that the server is unavailable.

SO if I cannot log in now under my assigned username, I am dead in the water.

I need to know:
1. If celestialregina.x10.mx IS indeed shut off - forever. And that my username IS permanently blocked ... or if it is related to the message on the main website x10Hosting.com that says, and I quote:

We apologize our free web hosting signups are currently unavailable due to a scheduled quarterly maintenance
- We expect to be back and accepting new users again soon.​

I was wondering if my site was down because of this maintenance? But after three days of waiting I suspect NOT.

2. If I am now permanently blocked, shut down (thru the snafu of the wrong email add.) and there is NO WAY to fix this, then can I be assured that celestial.x10.mx is *gone forever*? (I had registered this with Google analytics with a sitemap.xml file and several links were activated on Google search and all subsidiary engines that rely on Google indexing, like DuckDuckGo. Shall I go into Google and REMOVE the site so that eventually those links disappear?)

3. I am being as patient as I can be, understanding the complexities (my first website was set up by me in *1996* so I am not a newbie! I am merely asking what to do, so that I do not have a dormant site online elsewhere in the world that I can no longer access...that is, until x10 deletes it. I will not try to set up ANOTHER site until I'm sure it is absolutely necessary.

As you said, "complicated"!

I would have eventuallly signed up for x10 Premium and paid for this site; but am discouraged now. I do NOT expect premium assistance level with the free site; but this is just ONE small detail that needs to be fixed: i. e., changing to my working email so that I can continue, monthly to use the control panel, log in, and do something that indicates I'm STILL here! I did that for a couple of years under my first x10 site, which I took offline on 1 Jan 2024, so I very well understood the rules!

(A peripheral question, therefore: if I cannot get this resolved, or get a sort of official suggestion of what your company would prefer that I do NOW, how can I be confident that x10Premium tech support is more responsive? I have been a businessperson for decades and undrstand that "you get what you pay for". Problem is: I do not really *feel* that I am able to get (a) information; (b) suggestions for POSITIVE ACTION I can take now; and (c) confident that if I *pay* for a site, I'd get really responsive help. (As I see it, this is for all practical purposes a TINY problem that could be resolved MERELY by changing my account yxbcfgqm's email to my CORRECT one, so that I could log in, use Control Panel, do the monthly 'check in' stuff; and go on from there.)

Apologies for the length of this message, but you must realize that I have been at my computers for at least four or five days, sometimes for 3-4 hours at a time (!) to try to FIX THIS. My best wishes to you, and THANKS for replying!

Yours sincerely,
Regina Roper

 

[ReginaR]

P. S. to the above LONG message!

I cannot access the Control Panel to give precise wording, but there WAS a procedure available for a presumably automated process to change email addresses; as I recall from a few days ago, it said to put the NEW email into a short text file, and upload it via the Control Panel to an available directory other than my actual website file placement. I followed this to the letter, but the next step was apparently blocked because my username had the WRONG return email confirmation address, so that process could NOT be completed, and no one at x10Hosting was able to follow through.

So, you see, I have tried ALL methods given by your instructions to solve this problem. If that is IT, and there is NOTHING any human being -- especially ME! -- can do, then I ask you this:

Is x10Hosting basically DOWN now so that I cannot (a) access existing logins as well as the one I set up a few weeks ago, but it WILL work again, shortly?

Should I just wait? Do you have any idea HOW LONG?

I would really like to set up this website again, either by registering as a NEW user, or on another company. But I will wait until x10 is finished with what they term their annual maintenance.

Can anyone assist with any sort of reply? I would DEEPLY appreciate it!!

Best,
Regina Roper

 

[mrburnsx]

Things that I can confirm for you:

1. The account panel is 100% running and can sign into existing accounts.

2. your domain celestialregina.x10.mx is 100% UP and running

3. the other domain in question celestial.x10.mx is showing it does not exist so I will assume that is gone.

 

[RoperR]

Thanks!

I got assistance from the chief IT engineer at my local internet service provider. He verified that:

1. x10 is BLOCKING my IP address!!!! I have no idea why; but it's so.

2. Therefore I cannot log in to the control panel or see our website at celestialregina.x10.mx here at my home.

3. They didn't recommend changing my IP address JUST for this one problem.

3. Therefore from a different IP address, at another locale, I *was* able to test my logins and found one combo of username/PW that worked, and
PERMANENLY ERASED all of the files and folders for my celestialregina website at the public_html folder.

4. I am finished, forever, trying to do anything on this company as it was a veritable nightmare from mid-December to today. THREE people including a top flight IT pro have had to solve numerous problems just to get a very simple (tho with lots of files) static website online. Then, to have x10 *block* my own IP address (we weren't informed!) is unconscionable--especially as they left all the files ON their server, and ON the net.

5. This is not a good way to SELL a website hosting service: by having a "free" one that is a jumble of confusing instructions (or lack thereof) and for some reason blocking the user's IP address so that once the site is up, it CANNOT be accessed nor maintained. I could not even get an answer, until today, that it WAS online elsewhere. I could not get this forum to work, because x10's database for some odd reason had the WRONG email address for me, so I couldn't complete verification; so I had to log on with a different user-name and PW (after a first try that failed.) FINALLY two days ago we did that, posted on query, and got ONE good, informative answer from "mrburnsx" but no positive suggestions as to how to rectify the "wrong emal add." issue so that the monthly "contact" checking by x10hosting could KEEP the site online; otherwise it was surely going off on or around 14 January.

6. Furthermore, I do NOT like the company "rule" that every month, a file change of one sort or another has to be done by the Control Panel to "prove the existence" of the author of the website. If you miss this by several HOURS - then, bingo- your site goes off. Ergo, this forum is filled with complaints by cut-off users. (Couldn't the company be a LITTLE bit more lenient...say, TWO months, or THREE?) I had a similar website at Byethost for something like 10 years and because the files were stable and did not require editing frequently, I know I did not "change them" every 30 or 31 days to keep it "alive".

7. Furthermore, I do NOT like to use the Control Panel and File Manager to maintain my website; it's TOO big, with over 200 MB of files. It is only practical with ftp. WHY cannot x10 do the "life checking" to see if somebody has signed into their x10 ftp account? That would be VERY much appreciated by us "power users" who have a large quantity of files. If we use FTP, x10 seems "not to know about it" which, otherwise, would be a PERFECT way of verifying that the website authors were STILL involved and interested. (I have used quite a few web hosts since my first site was put up in 1996 (!) and for the life of me, I cannot recall that ANYONE except x10 *demanded* this 'check in' every month.

As I said earlier, I am a long time business person (over 70 yrs. of age and with some significant worldly experience; and LOTS of website background) and if I wanted, now, to BUY web hosting, it would NOT be from a company that has put me through such agony.

No offense intended to the fine volunteers (?) who help users on this forum; I appreciate the replies I've received to a couple of my posts, and they've been helpful - sort of.

Good by, my friends!

Regina Roper (and husband Steve Waldee)

 

[mrburnsx]

I would like to respond to a couple points made to clear up some misunderstandings.

6. Furthermore, I do NOT like the company "rule" that every month, a file change of one sort or another has to be done by the Control Panel to "prove the existence" of the author of the website. If you miss this by several HOURS - then, bingo- your site goes off. Ergo, this forum is filled with complaints by cut-off users. (Couldn't the company be a LITTLE bit more lenient...say, TWO months, or THREE?) I had a similar website at Byethost for something like 10 years and because the files were stable and did not require editing frequently, I know I did not "change them" every 30 or 31 days to keep it "alive".

That is incorrect. A file change is not required at all, all that is required is to log into the account through the account panel at https://x10hosting.com/panel once every 30 days. Additionally, after 30 days the service is put into a suspended state for another 21 days before it is terminated. So you do actually get almost 2 months to be able to keep your service active. The people posting have not accessed their account in 2+ months.

7. Furthermore, I do NOT like to use the Control Panel and File Manager to maintain my website; it's TOO big, with over 200 MB of files. It is only practical with ftp. WHY cannot x10 do the "life checking" to see if somebody has signed into their x10 ftp account? That would be VERY much appreciated by us "power users" who have a large quantity of files. If we use FTP, x10 seems "not to know about it" which, otherwise, would be a PERFECT way of verifying that the website authors were STILL involved and interested. (I have used quite a few web hosts since my first site was put up in 1996 (!) and for the life of me, I cannot recall that ANYONE except x10 *demanded* this 'check in' every month.

See above, all you need to do is log into the account panel once every 30 days, and then you can log right back out and use your FTP client of choice. The use of the File Manager is not required whatsoever. It would be easier and better to track via the account panel sign ins.