GoDaddy - Soon to Be NODaddy!

 

As if there weren’t enough issues in my face at the moment….

A few days ago, I got an email from my Website/domain/email provider, GoDaddy. It indicated that they were implementing a “new and better” email system through Microsoft. It said I would have to make a few simple changes and all would be wine and roses.

Yesterday (the 12^th), I got another email saying “You need to change these settings, or your email will not work after today.” Fine. I clicked on the link provided, made the changes (or actually let their automated tool do its magic – yes, I know…. My bad..).

So, today…..

Email not working. Both Jo’s and mine.

So began another day of troubleshooting, dealing with GoDaddy’s completely UN-navigable “help” system, then finally throwing in the towel, and dealing with one of their “tech reps” in the chat feature (after trying multiple times to get the &^%$# chat-bot to connect me with a living, breathing, organic, semi-human lifeform.)

What fun. I finally (after a 15 minute wait) got connected with someone named Ahkshas or something like that…

Side note here… I have many friends from other countries, so I’m not trying to belittle anyone working internationally. BUT…. I am an American. I am paying an AMERICAN company with AMERICAN dollars. Why can I NEVER speak or chat with someone who can clearly speak and understand American English?

Anyway, after approximately 3 hours of back-and-forth, “click this link,” retyping my password 17 times, opening a graphics app so I can send him a screenshot of my main monitor (I have 2 on all machines), following semi-understandable instructions to change this setting, that setting, lighting scented candles, sacrificing small mammals, (OK, those last two were me being facetious), we finally got my email to work. Or so I thought.

Emails were coming in just fine. But the first time I tried to send one…. “Error! The SSH thingy, and the SMPT do-funny cannot connect. Check the FORKNAB setting in the WATZIT tab under the hamburger icon, chant OMMMM, and wait for the settings to propagate. It can take up to 24 hours."

OK, I forgot some of those settings have a propagation period. Sorry. By this time my 6 remaining braincells had packed their bags and taken the last train to Clarksville.

Anyway….

I have been for some time considering dumping GoDaddy as my web hosting, email, and domain provider. A lot of my GD stuff renews starting in January of 2023. I think before that, I’m going to find a new provider. There are many out there, and many of them are less expensive than GD. And you get stuff for free that GD charges for.

For instance, BlueHost is currently charging a bit over 2 bucks/month for a 30GB personal site. My current site takes up around 795 MB. Even with the TNA section. And GD charges me almost $6.00/month.

I’ve also been told that GoDaddy has a reputation for “stealing” people’s domain names (rodslair.com is my domain name), and I don’t want that to happen. If they do, I suppose I could use something along the lines of RodShelleyArt or similar, but I'd rather keep the domain I have now. We shall see.

Anyway, just wanted to give everyone a heads-up just in case my site and email fall off the edge of the world for a while. I’ve had enough of GoDaddy’s clunky and complicated interface (it’s a major pain in the butt to do things as simple as uploading HTML or image files via FTP). And I’m saying no more about their sorry excuse for customer support.

Later,

Rod