Ways around monthly 'Account Suspended'

[nosfan1019]

This is getting very annoying. I transferred my personal bio site to x10hosting a few months ago as it looked pretty good, but just about once a month my account gets suspended b/c I haven't logged into the account cpanel in ~30 days.

Is there any way to avoid this? This is highly annoying and somewhat of a bait-and-switch on "free" hosting IMO. It obviously takes some time to switch host and thats just not fair. My site is a simple, sparsely visited bio site and I don't want to have to log in once a month just to keep it up. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[gus]

What's annoying is having to verify that I have a pulse by sitting through a "Mr. Clean" commercial just so I can respond to your question (though granted, that's not your fault). As to your question, lots of free hosts force you to post in their forums. Personally, I find logging into my account once a month to be pretty fair and reasonable given that I'm not paying even a dime for hosting. As far as I'm concerned, I'd be willing to display ads on my site just to help x10 out. They do a great job IMO. Log in, be happy. :smile:

 

[essellar]

They're asking for five seconds a month of activity on your part in order to completely pay your hosting bill. That's hardly unfair, and it's probably the best free way of ensuring that you actually want to keep your account active. (Do you expect them to keep abandoned sites live forever?) If that five seconds is too much for you (and I know it's an exhausting effort, what with having to click a bookmark and then a login button and all), the you can pay for Prime membership (where paying the bills is proof that you want the account to stay active).

 

[hbazer]

This is highly annoying and somewhat of a bait-and-switch on "free" hosting IMO.

When you setup your free-hosting account here at x10hosting you agreed to follow the Terms of Service (TOS)
part of those terms is...

7. Inactivity
Accounts found to be inactive are suspended for a 14 day period and then removed from our servers (terminated). All data including any type of backup or stored information is removed with the account. To prevent an account from being suspended for inactivity it is required users visit the x10Hosting Account Portal* located at https://x10hosting.com/portal/ at least once every 30 days. Accounts must have a working website within 1 week.

* bold by me

That is not " bait-and-switch" - you agreed to it before you received your account

...I don't want to have to log in once a month just to keep it up

IMO While x10hosting has some low cost upgrades to free-hosting accounts - if as you say logging in at least once every 30 days to have a free-hosting account here is too much - you will need to find some other host

 

[nosfan1019]

What's annoying is having to verify that I have a pulse by sitting through a "Mr. Clean" commercial just so I can respond to your question (though granted, that's not your fault). As to your question, lots of free hosts force you to post in their forums. Personally, I find logging into my account once a month to be pretty fair and reasonable given that I'm not paying even a dime for hosting. As far as I'm concerned, I'd be willing to display ads on my site just to help x10 out. They do a great job IMO. Log in, be happy. :smile:

There are a couple ways I can think of to turn a little cash. I get it, "beggars can't be choosers" ... the problem I have is that there are a good number of other free hosts out there and I would have liked to have known this little 'quirk' before I spent the time to switch everything over. Thats a fair complaint right? Hence me calling it somewhat of a 'bait and switch'.

I understand x10 doesn't want to host every site on here from now to eternity (whether its active or not), but one month is a little tight IMO. I would recommend extending to say every six months, or maybe set the timespan on a scale of how much of a resource hog the site is. I just know that its ongoing inconvenience and I will be making a switch if it says. I know x10 won't be shedding many tears lol, but if its aggravating me Im sure it is for others too.

 

[nosfan1019]

When you setup your free-hosting account here at x10hosting you agreed to follow the Terms of Service (TOS)
part of those terms is...

* bold by me

That is not " bait-and-switch" - you agreed to it before you received your account


IMO While x10hosting has some low cost upgrades to free-hosting accounts - if as you say logging in at least once every 30 days to have a free-hosting account here is too much - you will need to find some other host

Putting it in a ToS is not exactly broadcasting it. I could ask users to sacrifice their first born in the ToS and most would agree to it. Its your call obviously, I'd just ask that you inform prospective new users a little better.

 

[Anna]

It used to be once every 14 days but was extended to once every 31 days, I don't see it being extended beyond the month to be honest.

And if you had actually read the terms when you signed up, which you actually should have since you did agree to them, you would have known as it is clearly stated in there as hbazer pointed out in his response.

So complaining you didn't know about it does not work, you agreed to the terms, if you failed to read them, well that's not our fault is it?

And as pointed out earlier, there's the hosts that require you to do a minimum number of posts in their forums to keep the account active (or even to get on in the first place in some cases), spending a few seconds to login and at the same time get information about things that might be of use, for instance you'd see notices of planned maintenance that could affect the performance of your site in the portal.

 

[hbazer]

They're asking for five seconds a month of activity on your part in order to completely pay your hosting bill.

Small note:
If you use something like "LastPass" then you have...
1. click on bookmark
2. LastPass fills in the form - click on [ Sign in to your Account ]
3. click on [ logout ]

three clicks in your browser - in and out
I think that should be "five or less seconds a month..."

 

[hbazer]

I'd just ask that you inform prospective new users a little better.

And how would you do that ?

 

[nosfan1019]

And how would you do that ?

Idk, post something about it on the homepage, here http://x10hosting.com/register, here http://x10hosting.com/free-hosting-comparison, or any of the other pages before I get to the cPanel. Many I'm sure will weigh all these facts and still decide to give x10 a try, but just put it somewhere in addition to the ToS. I tried looking for these 'gotchas' before redirecting my domain, moving files etc, but didn't find anything in the usual places (the pages above, FAQs, etc). Lets be honest most people's first spot for info isn't a company's ToS, its the homepage, product page, etc.

 

[gameaddict2085]

If they do that for inactivity,then why not for unallowed sites and all the other rules? Oh wait thats what the ToS's are all about. They aren't hard to read unlike other tos so there is no reason for you to not read them.
If you never read the TOS you are going to end up in deep crap when you sign up for a mortgage or loan. When the banks repossessing your house it wont be their fault for not saying it on their homepage, it will be yours.
You made an error and didn't read the TOS, resulting in mild inconvenience, consider yourself lucky and learn from it otherwise next time it may be the crap you are standing in.

 

[nosfan1019]

If they do that for inactivity,then why not for unallowed sites and all the other rules? Oh wait thats what the ToS's are all about. They aren't hard to read unlike other tos so there is no reason for you to not read them.
If you never read the TOS you are going to end up in deep crap when you sign up for a mortgage or loan. When the banks repossessing your house it wont be their fault for not saying it on their homepage, it will be yours.
You made an error and didn't read the TOS, resulting in mild inconvenience, consider yourself lucky and learn from it otherwise next time it may be the crap you are standing in.

I understand the need for it to some degree. If you read my earlier post (kind of like me not reading the ToS), I say that I see the need for some inactivity timer but that 30 days is way too short. I would have never spent the time and made the switch for a simple bio site had I known this. For some people this probably isn't a problem I'm sure, but for me having to set a 'detect change' bot and log in once a month is just a minor chore I'd rather not have for this particular site.

You've read every ToS for every site you've ever visited I'm sure; but most people don't bother with a ToS for a free site like they would for signing a 30-year mortgage. Let's be real. Granted x10's ToS is pretty simple and straightforward, but so many others aren't that most people's habit (including mine) is to often avoid them and look for info in other places on the site (about us, faqs). Even so if you advertise a good deal on a car that gets me to visit your dealership, yet in the contract have a bunch of unreasonable caveats and fees thats dishonest. Thats not a good analogy for this topic.

 

[Sharky]

The problem is that for every time the 'timer' gets increased, there are yet more unused/unwanted accounts sitting there taking up precious server resources that could be better used by, say, active accounts such as your own.

I do understand where you're coming from and appreciate your civility despite the two that I counted somewhat short comments from other hosting users.

 

[Livewire]

I understand the need for it to some degree. If you read my earlier post (kind of like me not reading the ToS), I say that I see the need for some inactivity timer but that 30 days is way too short. I would have never spent the time and made the switch for a simple bio site had I known this. For some people this probably isn't a problem I'm sure, but for me having to set a 'detect change' bot and log in once a month is just a minor chore I'd rather not have for this particular site.

You've read every ToS for every site you've ever visited I'm sure; but most people don't bother with a ToS for a free site like they would for signing a 30-year mortgage. Let's be real. Granted x10's ToS is pretty simple and straightforward, but so many others aren't that most people's habit (including mine) is to often avoid them and look for info in other places on the site (about us, faqs). Even so if you advertise a good deal on a car that gets me to visit your dealership, yet in the contract have a bunch of unreasonable caveats and fees thats dishonest. Thats not a good analogy for this topic.

If you don't like it, here's your options:

1) Leave.
2) Purchase the Prime Membership upgrade from the portal which removes the inactivity requirement.

That's basically it - we've gone through the inactivity policy dozens of times in the past. The only change made is we went from 14 days to 30 - if you're not able to log in once a month (which should take about 20 seconds maximum), then it's time to upgrade or move on.


Given the number of times this has been discussed in the past, and the fact that we have made our stance clear on why it's there in those discussions, I am closing this thread.