Technical Support

Tech Support  is provided for hosting and alias/domain or pop box email. In the event of a hosting or email problem, email us (if possible) for fastest response. BUT FIRST...

  • Please be sure your question or problem is related to the hosting of your website by MadRiverWeb, or an email address containing your domain name, i.e. not madriver.com or gmavt.net, etc.
  • If you or a customer cannot access (view) your site, please "refresh" or "reload" first, then check to see if you can view other nearby websites (in the event that local or distant phone or DSL lines are down or busy rather than a server problem). In some cases the electronic route taken from one side to the other of the Green Mountains involves a trip through New York City as well.
  • If either of the above problems exist, email for hosting problems, or for domain email problems. Obviously if you can't email, call.
  • If you need assistance with the content or functionality of your website or have hosting or email questions related to other service providers, this is not an emergency. Please contact us by non-techsupport email or phone.
  • Additional information about support and staff.

Support Contacts

Mad River Web 802-496-4940
(cell phone number is in the voicemail message)
VTWeb 802-774-1124
GMA 888-321-0815 Support

Listings Maintenance—If MadRiverConsulting maintains listings on your website, please send updates, additions, deletions to our updates email address. This will ensure that your listings are updated in a timely manner by alerting multiple support people of your needs.

 
For the Technically Inclined

You can check the availability of your website from DNS Stuff.

In the right-hand column, you can "ping" your site to see that it is "live," or do a Tracert to your domain name, i.e. madriverweb.com. It should say "reached destination."

The "tracert" will show where the path is stopped in the event your ping is unsuccessful or you do not reach destination.

If the tracert doesn't get to madriveraccess.com, you can be sure we are making inquiries already, because this means there is a problem affecting us all.

If it reaches madriveraccess.com but does not "reach destination," there is a potential problem within the building or server. It is then appropriate to email techsupport. We will likely already know there is a problem.

WHOIS  Check the availability of a domain name or the details of your registration in the left-hand column.

 
Reliability

Although we strive to deliver the utmost in service and reliability, difficulties will periodically be encountered. An industry standard level of service is often quoted at 99.9% (and we have seen 99.5% on sites recently). With 525,600 minutes in a year, 0.1% downtime equates to 8 hours, 45 minutes. Servers will go down for various reasons, power outages, reboots, parts failures... These interruptions generally are short. The typical web server experiences one or two major events (several hours) and three to five minor events (minutes) per year.

We have delivered better than this industry standard level of service since the inception of our hosting business in August 2002.

Settings & URLs

Traffic Statistics Console  With full-service hosting, you have access to website statistics. Use the extension /logs after your domain name to access stats, i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/logs (substituting your domain name). You will need to know your username and password. Contact us in advance. Statistics are compiled and displayed using Webalizer. (In the hourly traffic chart, adjust 4 or 5 hours for Greenwich Mean Time.)

Email Set-up The following are fairly comprehensive instructions for Mad River Web customers using our mail servers or those of Green Mountain Access or VTWeb.

If you will be using a pop box provided by MadRiverWeb or one of our affiliates, please specify a user and password for each mailbox needed. You may also have a reasonable number of "aliases." Please specify to which other account(s) to point the aliases.

Your Email Program Depending which email program you use, the common places to make changes to settings are in the menu items Tools Accounts, Tools Options and Edit Preferences. We recommend that you "add" an account or profile to represent the email address we provide, and follow the instructions based on the type of address.

General (POP and Aliases) Start by viewing the properties of your existing email account provided by your ISP and write down the incoming and outgoing settings exactly. Most ISPs require that you send mail through their outgoing mail server (generally called smtp) in an attempt to reduce spam and viruses. You should also be able to send mail using your domain name through their server. If you can duplicate this account and give the new account a new name, do so. If not, "add" an account. Then use the Wizard that your email program provides. Give the account a name such as MadRiverWeb Email.

Use the following incoming settings (or we may have provided special settings for your domain).
MadRiverWeb Mail
POP (incoming): mail.yourdomain.com
username/login: user@yourdomain.com (the full string)
password: (the one you provided)
VTWeb Mail
POP (incoming): hermes.vtweb.com
username/login: (the one provided)
password: (the one provided)
GMA (see their website)

Insert the outgoing settings provided by your ISP. Do not check "logon using secure password authentication" unless your ISP requires this. For Green Mountain Access customers, the outgoing mail server is smtp.gmavt.net.

If you have reason to use our mail server to send (applies to pop boxes, not aliases) rather than your ISP's mail server, use these settings:
SMTP (outgoing): mail.yourdomain.com
Select "servers" tab, and near the bottom, check "my server requires authentication," but leave the settings alone, at "use same settings as my incoming mail server."

When done using the wizard, edit the account to add the settings the wizard did not. On the "general" tab, add your "reply-to" address and organization if desired. You will also likely need to uncheck "requires authentication."
From: user@yourdomain.com
Reply-to: user@yourdomain.com

Specific for Aliases If you set up an account to send as your domain email through your ISP, but it is only an alias, the last step is to un-check "check this account when sending and receiving mail" because it is not an actual pop box.

Please NOTE: In your email program, please do not change your settings to leave mail on the server unless you discuss the need for this with us. Also, please do not set your program to check mail automatically any more frequently than ten (10) minutes. We consider anything less than this an unnecessary use of our resources. If you are expecting a message you can always manually click your send and receive button.

MadRiverWeb will establish an alias called "webmaster@yourdomain.com" that will be forwarded to us.

MadRiverWeb WebMail Go to the URL http://mail.yourdomain.com:8383 (replacing the words "your domain" with your actual domain name). Login using user and password.
VTWeb WebMail Go to the URL http://hermes.vtweb.com:20000. Login using user and password.
Other ISPs provide webmail also. Please check with your provider for the address. GMA's is near the top left of their website.

For your convenience while traveling, so that you don't have to remember this URL, we can place a hidden link to this address in one of two places on your website: 1) beside the copyright symbol, or 2) at the very bottom center of the home page. There is no indication of this link to the public, although they could see it accidentally. Hover your mouse until you find it; the cursor will change to the "finger." If you don't find the hidden link, ask us (or your website developer) to put it on your website.