Godaddy tried to push us onto a server from web hosting

We suddenly started having problems running our e-commerce solution, it wouldn't connect to the database and the problem seemed to be intermittant at first until it became so bad that we couldn't connect, customers couldn't connect.

We contacted customer support and were told with the first email they managed to connect okay and that it took 28 seconds and that the first page to load is the cause of the problem that the page was 128 mbytes in size???

We couldn't understand what they were implying since it was so intermittent where it would connect in 3 seconds and bring the page up then take 1 minute or would not come up at all.

It got to the stage where finally it just did not come up at all.

Nobody had changed any of the PHP code so we didn't suspect anything.

We had, at one time had a problem with latency with the database server not connecting so we emailed back and said that we suspected we had a recurrance of the same problem (it took a month of arguing the first time before they fixed the problem the first time).

The reply back was YOUR DATABASE IS TOO BIG and you need a dedicated server.

We looked at the size of the database and I didn't think 738kb was an excessive size. I thought, well I need to phone the customer service instead of messing with emails.

He said that he could only re-iterate their original email that the page yield was 128mb and that it was too big and causing the problem. I said, if it was a problem with the page yield then why does it have problems loading regardless of connection and he said, connection must be too slow. 5mbps fiber optic line at one location, 3mbps dsl at another and 768kbps at another. I said, then why does the it load intermittantly regardless of which connection and at different load speeds? He said, it's not our problem and that we need a dedicated server or at the very minimum a virtual dedicated server!

I said, will that fix the problem, he said put us on hold for 10 minutes then came back and said, technical guys said it would. I said again that how can we need a dedicated server when we are just small fry and don't even use the web space that we have leased from them already.

I said, let us have a chance to have a business meeting about the situation and look at other web hosting providers. He said fine.

Shortly after the call the website completely stopped connecting with the database. Though strangely enough we could access image files and access the database files (though their control panel) and it connected at a reasonable speed.

After discussion we decided to look at another webhost, unfortunately the one we tried didn't work so we were in the process of hiring a firm to design, install and set up a new e-commerce solution on their servers. We started looking at the code from the original one only to find that someone had changed the code from how it was installed which was making conflicts with the connection.

Now since there was nobody making a change at our end to the website coding so we started to question why or how it would change and start causing problems when it was working originally.

Bear in mind that at no time did we say that we were interested in a server.

We managed to get our e-commerce solution back online with consistent loading times of 2-8 seconds, which was how it had been when it was running at it's best.

Suddenly we started getting special offers from godaddy telling us that we had inquired with them about upgraded to a dedicated server and that they were able to offer a discount on the server and discounted assistance with set up.

Would you agree with our opinion that someone at godaddy caused the problem in the first place to make a situation that would make us agree to upgrade to dedicated server from shared webhosting. Interestingly enough we are coming close to the end of the 2 years of prepaid webhosting that we had original purchased from godaddy.