This past weekend one of our customers complained that he could not access DeskAway and that he had paid for it yearly (the question of reliability came up a few times). The problem was not with our service - we have been getting 100% uptime. It was something to do with his PC/ Network/ ISP etc. Something was blocking the site. We wanted to make sure that we help him out to the best of our ability. This is an email we sent him after getting inputs from Rackspace (our hosting provider), technical folks on our team, twitter etc. These tips might help you’ll in the future - since we all are so used to using web apps…

Thanks for your prompt response. The problem is at your Computer/Network/ISP end (I will tell you how we know this below) and hence there are a couple of things that you can do to see if the problem goes away. This is the first time something like this has happened so it seems very strange. There are no complaints from our other global users. We have contacted our hosting provider, Rackspace.com and they have given us pointers that you would need to do at your end.

Check if DeskAway.com is up?

http://host-tracker.com
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
http://isitmeoryou.com/

Here, it shows that DeskAway is up - from multiple regions.

(From Rackspace -> Since it is confirmed the problem is not here or with ‘the internet’, that would usually mean it’s local to either the PC or the network. In some cases clearing cache and what not will help, but in others it might require router resets and/or escalation to their local ISP.)

What you can do at your end?
1. Clear your browser cache, close the browser and try again
2. Restart your router
3. Restart your computer
4. Ask a friend in another part of town or country. In fact we did ask people on Twitter about this today - http://twitter.com/sparkimpact/statuses/1334749922
5. Access the site using a different ISP
6. If you have a network troubleshooter at your office then do show him this email and see if he/she can contact your ISP.

Try the following commands one by one from the command line (If using Windows, then goto Start->Run and type in ‘cmd’ without the quotes) and send us the results:
a. ping www.deskaway.com
b. ping <our ip address>
c. tracert  <our ip address>

Hope this works! If it doesn’t then send me the following:
1. Your IP Address - http://whatismyipaddress.com/
2. Your location (City, State, Country)
3. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP)

Is DeskAway.com reliable?
Check out our Pingdom reports (we use Pingdom for uptime) - http://www.pingdom.com/reports/208dhkc8tf76/
We have got 100% uptime so far so there is no question of the site or server going down.

Lastly, here is a video we took today to show you that DeskAway does work and is online - http://screencast.com/t/6enU7Fqbyw <http://screencast.com/t/6enU7Fqbyw>

Hope to get this resolved soon.

We heard back from him yesterday and all is working fine I am guessing it must have been something to do with the router.

Are there any other troubleshooting tips that you would want to add to this? Happy uninterrupted surfing.

Today, we have added a new link called “Status” on the top of our website. In addition to internal programs, we are also using Pingdom’s service to monitor the DeskAway server. Since we are confident of our uptime rates and hosting infrastructure we have decided to share this with everyone. Go ahead, click on the Status and see how we are doing.

Note: Since we signed up with Pingdom last month, you will only see data from mid-November onwards.