Customer remark about FTP

[unco]

Hi Everyone,

I have a weird situation going on. We have a customer who wants to transfer his joomla site to us. We asked him for his FTP username/password, and his joomla admin info, as well as MySQL and phpMyadmin logins. He asked his current hosting provider for it, and here's the reply he received:

"They no longer use FTP as it is almost obsolete. The only thing you should need to move the website is the administrator login and password. This is a Joomla website and the administrative login is ***** and the admin password is ****. This should allow you to do anything you need to do."

So, from what I gather, there is some secret way to copy a joomla site from one server to another (plain LAMP without any hosting platform to cpanel) without using FTP (or scp) at all, or knowing the MySQL username/password to do a mysqldump? That reply just sounded really off to me. FTP obsolete? Is it?

Thanks,
B

 

[mtindor]

"They no longer use FTP as it is almost obsolete. The only thing you should need to move the website is the administrator login and password. This is a Joomla website and the administrative login is ***** and the admin password is ****. This should allow you to do anything you need to do."

Sounds like an answer from a web host who wants to make it very difficult [if not impossible] for their customer to leave with an intact website Gotta love it.

Mike

 

[cPanelTristan]

Does Joomla have an option to download a backup? I know SMF allows you to take a backup as well as some other applications. Not sure if Joomla somehow has this capability now. Also, did this guy install Joomla manually? If so, how did he do it? I would never tell a provider I'm moving my site at all, since that isn't going to return a positive response. Better to ask how to make a backup and obtain it.

 

[NetMantis]

I'd second what mtindor said and agree 100% wholeheartedly with the sentiment

That person's host is full of it and obviously playing games to try to keep their client from leaving.

"They no longer use FTP as it is almost obsolete"

What a crock of $@%@% !!!!

Just by that reason alone, if I were that user, I would certainly want to leave that host
as it very clearly shows they are completely unethical.

Assuming there is no custom file or changes to Joomla and it is plain vanilla, you might be able to copy the database from the administrator login but certainly wouldn't be a complete transfer leaving that poor client to have to try to rebuild.

My advice is to talk to the better business bureau in the region of this hosting provider's location or similar agency and perhaps might want to post about them some of the web hosting forum communities and draw attention to the fact the host doesn't want to give out the logins to their own clients.

Meanwhile, if the host won't give out the login, I'd say ask them to make the full backup and hand it over to the client and let's see if they refuse to do that as well.

Absolutely unbelievable! I don't understand what that host is thinking! Instead of losing one customer, playing games like that they could potentially lose all of their customers!

 

[mtindor]

"They no longer use FTP as it is almost obsolete"

What a crock of $@%@% !!!!

Yeah, that's what I was actually thinking. I've known some companies local to me who have played these games, and it never worked out in their favor. I don't play these games with clients. Over the years I have had clients who never bothered to communicate with me during their process of moving away, and after the fact, when I questioned them, they explained that they didn't want any difficulty from me when trying to move away. I assured them I don't play that game. Of course, they wouldn't necessarily know that beforehand. But, since there are hosts out there like this, I understand clients being cautious.

It is unethical. But even in the absence of ethics, good business sense would suggest that you don't hold your clients hostage.

For hosting companies with a global spread and a large client base, this practice probably wouldn't hurt their bottom line. For smaller hosting companies and/or those who have a regional client base, the word of mouth could kill your business.

Mike

 

[cPanelTristan]

Rather than getting all bent out of shape, simply ask for a backup of the site as I stated before. They have to provide one. I don't see where that was asked either (the login details allow you to get the files, but rather than get those, a backup from them would be just as good if not better).

It's more useful at this juncture to get what you need to move the site, which to me should be the focus.

 

[unco]

Thanks, everyone. They wouldn't give us anything. Kept saying, "everything you need is right there." Found XCloner extension to install and did my own backup from joomla, and am going to untar it to make sure everything is there. You were right, though. They were just trying to be difficult about it, and the customer realizes that. They wouldn't even give us the phpmyadmin username & password. It's just weird! Next hurdle: the domain name transfer!