I sent the following email to A Small Orange, my hosting company; I’ll let you know what the reply is.

Cpanel has utterly ceased working properly; every other operation I try fails, often silently. So far I have been able to consistently reproduce the following errors:

* Cpanel created the nonsense subdomain srv.vistua.net.vistua.net* which I did not instruct it to do, it previously created the nonsense subdomain vistua.vistua.com which I did not instruct it to do.
* Cpanel refuses to delete this subdomain in spite of claiming to have succeeded when I ask it to, it did successfully delete vistua.vistua.com.
* Cpanel refuses to change MX records in spite of claiming success when instructed to undertake the operation.
> Cpanel says “”Sorry, you do not have access to the domain srv.vistua.net Sorry, you do not have access to the domain srv.vistua.net”".
* Cpanel refuses to delete email accounts under [deleted for security] in spite of the fact that this subdomain does not even exist any-longer.
* Cpanel’s “home” button does not always work.

Did I mention that all of these things are problems with Cpanel?

I am using [deleted for security] and yesterday I asked to have a change made to [idem] on account of this (Heaven forbid that Cpanel would be able to do that…) And while two separate service representatives claim to have implemented the change, Cpanel still indicates delivery failure for emails to [idem]. Cpanel is wrong, delivery occurs correctly. Evidently the software, like the children’s book character, has jumped the tracks and is plowing through the butter-cups.

Have you considered scrapping Cpanel? It’s clumsy and ornery in any event; and now seem to have left off working entirely. Artificial intelligence is all very well and good, but the effort to deploy it before it has actually been invented seems to have resulted in a prevalence artificial stupidity instead.

“But!”,`they may say, “Cpanel masks the complexities of the UNIX system from timorous Windows-bondsmen who should otherwise surely be intimidated!”

I would reply that whether or not UNIX is actually more complex than MS Windows is open to dispute; I should also like to point out that “complex” is a “synonym” for powerful; no sane person would dispute the notion that UNIX is the most powerful and stable of the main-stream operating systems. Naturally; a powerful system, if as in this case its power is derived from its nuance; will have a multifarious and “complex” interface. This is ontologically natural and attempts to mask that interface behind warm-and-fuzzy facades such as Cpanel are as as emasculating as as a clip-on tie.

UNIX is like chess, a day to learn, a lifetime to master, particularly sendmail configuration. But most people need only what they can learn in a day. Those who need to use a system for complex things should expect a complex interface and cringing behind friendly bureaucracies such as Cpanel is intellectual cowardice; any such lotophagi should not bother to venture outside the epic pastorale of Windows in the first place, heavy drama is just not their forte.

Let UNIX be UNIX and Windows… Windows.

If you don’t want to dispose fully of Cpanel for the benefit of neophytes, customers should at least be able to turn it off and access UNIX configuration files directly. If I were able to do that all of these problems would not be happening and the help-desk would not have to be bothered by me twice in as many days.

Any remarks that “such things are available as paid upgrades or as part of other hosting packages” will simply be headed off by the observation that imposing artificial service limitations upon your customers is in very poor taste, antisocial, and possibly, depending on many factors including who taught your Philosophy 101 class, immoral. You should not strive to emulate the IRS in any way.

In conclusion I wish to express my extreme frustration with being forced to route my operations through a piece of software with a half-witted mind of its own. And further request that human intervention be put into place on your end of the matter to correct the above delineated errors and any other you should happen to discover along the way.

** Vistua.net is parked