Help!!!! Our store is down!

[ArtFinity]

This is a cry out for help to anybody who has any idea what could have happened to our store. This morning (~until 10:10am) our customers were able to place orders without any issues. At 1:00pm we have received reports of customers not being able to access our store. When I went to our storefront, all I could see was a 403 Forbidden error which stated:

"You don't have permission to access /mm5/merchant.mvc on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

I had absolutely no idea what could have happened during that time frame. We didn't run any updates, absoultely nothing was done to the back end, except for usual daily customer interaction operations.
I have filed a ticket with our host - Dreamhost. Here is what they came back with:
"The error.log shows:

[Mon Nov 17 16:36:40 2008] [error] [client 66.33.206.8] (13)Permission
denied: file permissions deny server access:
/.../mm5/merchant.mvc

So the permissions for the file merchant.mvc are set to 600 - rw-------
(owner read/write only, but the file does not exist to anyone else).

It probably should match paypal_1.mvc - 644 rw-r--r-- (owner read/write,
group and everyone else read only).

I chmoded merchant.mvc to 644 and it is no longer forbidding me. (It is
asking me to download a file, but that may be what you want.)"

Can you believe this?! Now, when I go to our storefront, I get garbage!
Here is the link:
http://store.cbridge.com/

What's even worse, if I put a full path to merchant.mvc, IT IS asking me to download a file, thanks to a very helful support person at Dreamhost!!!

If somebody has any idea, I would really appreciate it at this moment!

Thank you!

[Leanne]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

My #1 recommendation is that you contact a reputable Miva Merchant host (Hostasaurus -- www.hostasaurus.com is my fave, but there are others who post regularly on the forum) and have them move your site to their servers. A good host would have had this fixed before your customers even knew there was a problem.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

If it's asking you to download, it means the server is no longer configured to run .mvc files through the Miva Empresa engine; that has to be corrected internal to the web server config and probably isn't something you have control over unless this is a dedicated server?

[ArtFinity]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

No, unfortunately it is a shared server. We have been planning to move to a dedicated server beginning of next year. Now, I am at a complete loss..

How fast would somebody be able to move us?

Thank you!

[Barrett]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

Do you have FTP access ?
If so, maybe hostasaurus can begin to move your site tonight.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

Assuming the files and databases are accessible, a migration is easy and fast.

[d_host]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

... but contacting your current host to fix this should be even faster.

If your host is as dreamy as their name implies and they know Miva Merchant and MivaVM configuration settings, this should be a 10 second fix.

[ArtFinity]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

Yes, I do have FTP access. How long will it take to move and be up and fully functional? I have multiple third party modules installed, including all the customizations.

Thanks!

[ArtFinity]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

They used to offer and support Miva (one of the reasons I have signed up with them to first try it out). Now they don't seem to have a clue. It's been 7 hours since I've filed a ticked. We are getting emails from our customers, telling us they are unable to order. I have received no help from our host (with the exception of the one who had no idea what she was doing). I am disgusted with the way they are handling this issue.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

Generally a few hours is all we need.

[d_host]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

To copy a site would be under an hour, though how long the site will be "fully functional" with a new host will depend on how quickly the DNS changes propagate. Most domain registrars update their records pretty quickly these days. Altogether, probably 2-4 hours tops.

[Ben @ eMediaSales]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

If they are [dreamhost] running other miva customers then they should have the knowledge of fixing the VM issue quickly. I would suggest to contact them and tell them to either fix the VM or reinstall it.

Other than that before migrating your server ask your host about all the access information i.e. mysql [in case of mysql database], FTP etc.

[ArtFinity]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

I have just noticed that if I try to access a product or category page by prepending the secure URI (https), I can view it; e.g.
https://www.store.cbridge.com/mm5/me...y_Code=SPO-STD

This is very strange.

I have also downloaded (using ftp) the entire shopping cart on my local machine and compared it against the backup I have created last week (to see whether it was compromized) and saw very minor differences; which I can attribute to my changes from a few days ago.

Why would prepending 'https' allow me to view the pages?

[Biffy]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

I like the folks at dreamhost, they're very friendly. However, I had to quit using them because of an excessive failure rate and far too much downtime, up to 3 weeks per incident with multiple incidents per year.

My clients demand far better reliability than dreamhost delivers.

You might think about switching to a more reliable host.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Help!!!! Our store is down!

I have just noticed that if I try to access a product or category page by prepending the secure URI (https), I can view it; e.g.
https://www.store.cbridge.com/mm5/me...y_Code=SPO-STD

This is very strange.

I have also downloaded (using ftp) the entire shopping cart on my local machine and compared it against the backup I have created last week (to see whether it was compromized) and saw very minor differences; which I can attribute to my changes from a few days ago.

Why would prepending 'https' allow me to view the pages?

Because they are running separate configuration files for secure and insecure pages; the insecure configuration is missing the Miva engine setup while the secure still has it.