After running a copy of the server at home from a recent backup for a couple of days without issue I decided to take a free trial with another hosting company just to be sure.
After three days running on the trial server there has been no sign of the problem which as I'm sure you all know has been occurring at least twice daily with our current hosting company, with the symptoms of the problem (only visible to me on the console) occurring far more frequently.
Hosting fees are currently paid up until 27th April, with payment for the next quarter due on 28th April, although I was originally inclined to stick with our current hosting company as prior to the recent changes they were very stable etc it has now been more more than 2 two weeks since this problem first appeared and it feels like I am still having trouble getting them to take it seriously, I have therefore decided that I will not be renewing either the Tekkit or Events server hosting with them.
This means that on or just before 27th April both servers will be permanently moved to a new hosting company and so will both have a new IP address.
I'll post more details once I have confirmed who we will be moving to and what the new addresses will be, I will also use the message broadcast plugin to announce the new IP every 30 minutes for at least 48 hours prior to the changeover. Just to make sure I catch as many regular players as possible I will keep the old server up with a small 'dummy world' until the hosting expires, redirecting people to the new IP.
As I intend to move the world over to the new company there will be some downtime will the switchover takes place, but no player or world data should be lost.
This downtime will depend largely on my internet connection speed and I estimate around 30 minutes to download the world (which is now just over 1.2 GB), then at least 3 hours to upload it to the new server. I am hoping to reduce the upload time by uploading the world files as a single zip file and getting the new hosting company to unzip it for me. The server will also be whitelisted for at least an hour or two afterwards for testing.
I am pretty much decided on a new hosting company but will save the official announcement until nearer the time, they are slightly more expensive but have excellent reviews and many features that our present hosting company doesn't which should make the Admin work a lot easier!
They have also assured me that the server will easily support 30 player slots rather than the 26 we have now which as we have hit capacity several times recently makes the relatively small extra cost worthwhile.
Watch this space for updates!
