UPDATE Jan 9, 2011 10:34PM CST – These upgrades have been completed and all servers are operating normally now.

UPDATE Jan 9, 2011 9:50PM CST – These upgrades are commencing now.

We will be performing a mail server upgrade on our servers:

liquid1.wznoc.com
server.avdns4.com
server.wznoc.com

Tonight, January 9th between the hours of 8PM and 2AM (January 10th) CST. The actual upgrade should only take 30 minutes to an hour to complete, but we are setting aside this 6 hour maintenance window meaning that the work will be done sometime during these 6 hours. During the actual upgrade process SMTP, POP3, and IMAP services will be shut off on the server, so users on the affected server will not be able to send out mail or check their mail. No mail will be lost during this process.

This upgrade will consist of changing the POP3 and IMAP services to a more up-to-date and faster system. We have tested this system with other servers and found the new system to be superior. This upgrade will provide this system for these servers.

With this upgrade, some users may experience some issues detailed below:

• Users who have their IMAP account set up to automatically purge their trash may notice issues with this with the new mail server software.
  
• Users who use the POP protocol to check their mail, but leave a copy of the messages on the server, may see all of their mail downloaded into their e-mail program once again.
  
• Users must use either email@domain.com or email+domain.com as the username when checking e-mail. We did identify an issue where the old mail server software allowed you to use a colon (:) to separate your email from your domain name in your username, but this will not work with the new software.

However it has been our experience that MOST users will not be affected by this. The only individuals that would be affected by any of these potential issues would be users who have their accounts set up with advanced settings.

To see if your webhosting account is affected by this, use our Server Identification Tool:

http://www.amshelp.com/identify.php

If this says either liquid1.wznoc.com, server.avdns4.com, or server.wznoc.com then your webhosting account will be affected by this.

Steven

UPDATE Dec 29, 2010 5:04AM CST – soft2 maintenance is now complete.

UPDATE Dec 29, 2010 3:26AM CST – soft2 is going down for maintenance now.

The server soft2.wznoc.com will again be going down for maintenance later tonight, sometime between 1AM and 4AM CST on December 29th. The maintenance should only last at most 30 minutes to an hour. This again has to do with the ongoing hard drive issues on this server.

Again, to see if your account is affected by this, you can use our server identification page at:

http://www.amshelp.com/identify.php

and if your account is listed as being on soft2.wznoc.com then it will be affected by this.

You may follow further updates regarding this, both at our Account Management Page:

http://www.amshelp.com

or by following us on Twitter:

@amssupport

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience that this maintenance may cause you.

Scott

UPDATE Dec 19, 2010 3:23AM CST – soft2 is back online now.

UPDATE Dec 19, 2010 2:00AM CST – The maintenance for soft2 is beginning now.

UPDATE Dec 18, 2010 9:20PM CST – Additional maintenance will be done to soft2 later tonight / early Sunday morning. This maintenance is scheduled to happen between 1AM and 4AM CST on December 19th. This will be a server outage maintenance, meaning that the server will be offline during the maintenance. The actual maintenance should only last about 30 minutes or so, but we do not know exactly when the maintenance will be performed, only that it will happen between 1AM and 4AM CST.

UPDATE Dec 17, 2010 11:06PM CST – This maintenance has been completed, although the issue is still not resolved. Another maintenance series will need to be done on the server. That maintenance series has not yet been scheduled.

We will be taking soft2 offline later this evening to conduct some maintenance on the server. We will actually be testing some new parameters to see if additional maintenance will have to be conducted. If additional maintenance is required it will likely be done tomorrow (December 19th) evening.

The maintenance tonight will result in a short server outage. The server may be offline for up to 30 minutes.

To see if your account is affected by this, go to our server identification page at:

http://www.amshelp.com/identify.php

This maintenance will affect accounts that are on soft2.wznoc.com.

You may follow further updates regarding this, both at our Account Management Page:

http://www.amshelp.com

and by following us on Twitter:

@amssupport

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Scott