I switched over to Linode a week ago from my old shared host, and one of the main reasons was that I was tired of repeated periods of downtime. From everything that I could see, Linode was supposed to be rock stable, with many people with uptimes in excess of 1 year. However, I have had a negative experience so far. I have had 7 downtimes in the last week, and although most have only lasted about 15 minutes or so, this is far from the standard that I was expecting. I'm on a Linode 512 in Newark, NJ. My first host, Newark490, went down 4 times on 6/20. There wasn't much information provided about this, except "the system is down notifications" and later, "We have identified another issue with the host your Linode resides on." It went down again on 6/24 (5th time overall), so I requested to get changed to another host, Newark476.

On 6/26, there was the Newark connectivity issue (6th time overall), the only publicly announced downtime of my experiences.

Then, today 6/27, I had my 7th downtime, this time for 20 minutes: "The host where your Linode resides (Newark476) required an emergency reboot as it stopped responding to our monitoring."

From the sparse information I have gotten from support, it doesn't appear that the issue has anything to do with my own configuration, but with issues with the underlying host & datacenter, but I haven't really gotten any meaningful responses from support other than things are back up. Is there some known issue that is being addressed?

I'm getting very discouraged, and it would at least help me feel better to hear that other people have had as many downtime issues a I have had recently. My sites consist of some static web content and a mediawiki install, but it's very important to me that these remain accessible since they're used in hospitals. For people who have had experiences like this in the past, how did you handle it and hopefully get to a more stable situation? Has Linode credited your account for the downtimes that you've experienced? Does anybody know why Newark, NJ has been having so many stability issues as of late?

See this thread viewtopic.php?f=19&t=9064

As for being credited, linode's TOS state Uptime Guarantee
Linode.com provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee on all Linode hardware, and on network connectivity. In any given month, if your Linode is down for more than 0.1%, you may request a pro-rated credit for the down-time.

It sounds like you've had some really back luck, I've been here..3 years now (I think) and I've had servers in all DCs except tokyo, they've all had issues at some point but only about one or two each (in 3 years thats not bad) and they're never for very long, there was a spat of problems in Fremont some time ago but they seem to have been fixed now.

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I too was on newark490, and also asked to be migrated off. I have ben with Linode for a while now, and I can say this is not normal, as they have been rock solid for me.

Thank you both for your replies. obs, that other thread was very helpful and one that I had not seen yet. Here's hoping that this rocky start is the last rough patch I have with Linode!

FWIW, I think Newark is by far the most troublesome Linode datacenter. I realize some people need that geographic location. But if you don't, maybe try for Dallas. I have been there for a few years. The downtime is very, very minimal, in my experience. Newark seems to have bad mojo.

To echo the other comments, Linode is a very good provider most of the time. These 49x machine issues in Newark are not at all common.

Sincere question -- why do you think Newark is the most troublesome? I don't use it myself, so I'm rather insulated, but I do pay attention, and as far as I can remember Newark has never had a major issue (power failures, lengthy widespread network outages, explosions, etc.), just the usual array of hardware failures, DDoSes, clogged tubes and fiber-seeking backhoes.

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Matt Nordhoff (aka Peng on IRC)

I agree with mnordhoff I've never had a problem with newark beyond the normal stuff that happens to DCs, I think this last bout of issues is the worst I've seen there.

I'd also agree that Dallas is rock solid it's the first DC I ever had and it's only had one issue I can remember.

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Those who dealt with the power issues in Freemont a while back would beg to differ.

I actually thought about choosing Dallas since I thought it would be the US site least likely to be affected by weather, natural disasters, or power outage issues, and my users are equally split between the West and East coasts. However, I saw that Newark and Dallas both didn't seem to have a history of issues, so I ended up picking the one that is closer to me.

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Amateur, eager to learn.
My hematology, oncology, and chemotherapy regimen wiki

That's exactly why I chose Dallas!

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Paid support
How to ask for help
1. Give details of your problem
2. Post any errors
3. Post relevant logs.
4. Don't hide details i.e. your domain, it just makes things harder
5. Be polite or you'll be eaten by a grue