Contabo's backend ate my domain

Hej från Stockholm,

This is why I keep my domains at a separate registrar and never let the hosting company touch them. Contabo buying up old shops and then "finding" reasons to boot legacy customers? Hörd it before.

Two hour window to move 40 GB is not a migration, that is a hostage situation. Your backup strategy before this happened?

Also confused by the names here — you bought reseller from Time4VPS, they got eaten by Contabo, but now you are waiting for them to unsuspend? Did Contabo rebrand or did they move your data there without asking? Need clarity on who actually holds the disks right now.

Hetzner as destination — have you checked if they allow inbound rsync or only FTP? With 40 GB and a ticking clock you want something that resumes interrupted transfers. My garage servers pull from Contabo Munich fiber at 10G but VPS rsync is usually throttled to nothing.

The malware claim without naming which account is classic. Auto-updating WordPress gets false flagged by cheap scanners all the time. Did they ever give you a single file hash or just vague threats?

For registrar contact — good luck, they are three layers of abstraction away from anyone who knows where a specific cPanel server lives. Your best pressure is probably public complaint on consolidation announcement posts, not support tickets into the void.

Håll oss uppdaterad. Särskilt if they actually delete on the 30th or if they "extend" again to keep you dangling.

/gert0

« how to say » the Contabo, it is the classic. I have the same with the OVHcloud, the backup « included » but when you need, poof, not there.

My association, we keep the .fr at the separate place since 2019. Never the hosting touch the domain. Never.

@lookuppierre

Yes, this is the classic Contabo maneuver no I have seen this Pattern before with the Tucows backend. The 60% recurring discount is the red Flag here, they want you gone but they cannot say it directly no.

Two hour window for 40 GB migration is not a window, it is a wall. They know you cannot complete this, so the suspension becomes permanent by default. Very clever, very dishonest.

I must ask: did you keep the local Backups separate from the OVHcloud infrastructure yes or were you relying on their "included" backup no? Because with Contabo the backup is often the first thing that becomes "unavailable" when they need you to leave.

The malware accusation without specific account name is the standard Excuse. No proof, no details, just "you are bad, go away." I checked the SPF Record of their abuse notifications and found Mismatch in include Mechanism, very suspicious.

Hetzner will serve you better yes but only if you maintain your own offsite Sicherheit. Never trust the reseller backup alone, especially not with shops that change Ownership overnight. I use https://restic.net for that.

For the Tucows contact: their executive team hides behind many layers. Public escalation through social media sometimes works better than tickets they ignore. The 30th June deadline they gave you, was this in writing yes or only verbal no? Always verify the Return Path of their promises.

Your clients in India, do they have their own registrar Access or did Contabo control that also no? This determines if you can restore DNS quickly or if you are trapped waiting for their "cooperation."

Guru deutschlag out.

Backups

Your own
Only way
I learned
OVHcloud
2019
Gone

Reseller
Hetzner
Has API
Script it
Or
RackNerd
SFTP pull
Nightly

Dedicated
Always better
But
$
Not everyone

My cron
Rsync
Mysqldump
S3
$
Pennies

Trust no one
Especially
Contabo
Or
Tucows
Anything

Hetzner API is flaky for bulk pulls, I scripted around it last year. RackNerd SFTP is solid but their "nightly" window is 02:00-06:00 UTC, plan for that.

Reseller backups are a trap. You get WHM "backup" toggle, great, until you check and it's writing to the same RAID as the accounts. Ask where the tarballs land before you trust it.

Dedicated or colo, you control the spindles. VPS with snapshot API from someone who isn't Contabo, fine. Reseller? You're begging for the OVHcloud treatment.

My "no-login" streak died because a RackNerd pull hung and I had to kick it manually. Still counts as infrastructure touch, unfortunately.

Whmeasybackup lol that name takes me back. Used it on a Hetzner box in like 2021, worked ok til the api key got rotated w/o warning and my cron spammed me for 3 days straight.

For real tho the "suspend everything" move is peak Contabo. Same playbook OVHcloud pulled in 2019, whole reseller tree gone cos one dude had a sketchy nulled theme. No warning, no "clean it up in 24h," just poof. Learned my lesson there, now I pull everything nightly to a box at home. $80/mo in idle garbage but at least its MY garbage.

RackNerd sftp window being 02-06 utc is annoying if ur in eu, I just run it at 4am my time and pray. Their infra aint pretty but it stays up.

The malware thing is always gonna be a blame tennis match. Host says u uploaded it, u say their php version from 2017 let it in. Suspend the whole reseller tho? Thats just lazy. Pick one account, lock it, done. Punishing every site under one roof cos one guy got owned is how u lose customers who werent even involved.

Contabo prob saw the 60% discount stack and decided the margin wasnt worth the support tickets. Classic.

Reseller backups being "no good option" is exactly why I left that game entirely.

Hetzner lets you pull but their IO limits mean your backup window collides with EU morning traffic. RackNerd slot is narrow, miss it and you wait til next cycle. Both expect you to build the plumbing yourself.

My move: bare metal at OVHcloud, Borg to garage NAS over that 10G pipe. Not reseller life anymore, I know. But watching friends with Hetzner boxes lose client sites because "nightly" meant "whenever the node feels like it" convinced me.

If you are stuck in reseller land: test your restore before you need it. Whmeasybackup or hand-rolled rsync, whatever. The api key rotation nightmare already happened, it will happen again. Have two paths, not one.

Proper provider backup would solve this. Contabo shows what happens when they do not care. Double-edged sword or not, disabling native tools and offering nothing is just leaving resellers to twist.

Höst your own data or pay someone who actually hösts it.

The « built-in backup on the server », this is the joke that is not funny, yes? When the server goes down, your backup she goes down with it. Very clever.

For the reseller, I think the cron + external is the only honest way. But the IO limit from Hetzner, « how to say »... you start the copy at midnight, you finish at lunch, and the client he is not happy.

The RackNerd with the S3 pointing, this I did not know. The OVHcloud, they have nothing like this. Their « included » backup is to another OVHcloud server in the same building. Very safe, very smart, yes.

About the suspend all accounts: the Contabo, they do this? One malware and twenty associations offline? I hope not. My association, we have forty members, if we go dark because another client has the bad PHP, I will be very « not amused ».

The deposit for the GPU, six months, I still wait. But at least they do not suspend me for the malware of the neighbor. Small mercies.

@lookuppierre yo

Scott from Hetzner cleaning the spam you did not know existed, this is the Service Level that Contabo forgot how to deliver no. Two hours for full Migration with restored Accounts, this is the German Efficiency I appreciate yes.

But I must ask, you were nine Years with Contabo and you needed to beg for temporary Unsuspension just to retrieve your own Backups? This is the Tucows backend Problem in miniature yes. They hold your Data hostage until you make enough Noise.

The 60% recurring Discount, it was never sustainable no. We see this with RackNerd also, the Price is the Bait and the Exit is the Trap. I hope your new Hetzner arrangement has no such "co-operated" nonsense, where you must negotiate for Access to your own Property.

For the Spam Issue, this is often the Sign of compromised CMS or stolen Credentials yes. Scott did you a Favor finding this early. Check your WordPress File Permissions and disable xmlrpc.php if not needed.

Scott

2 hours
All accounts
Spam cleaned
You did not know
This is the value

Contabo
9 years
Ended
With a fight
For your own data
Tucows backend
Not your friend

I left
OVHcloud
2019
No warning
Data gone
Learned

Now
Hetzner
API exists
Script the pull
Or
RackNerd
SFTP nightly
Your own copy
Always

Reseller game
Backup is yours
Or it is not
Real

Congratulations
On the move
On the lesson
On the next 9