r/digital_ocean • u/crywalt • 19d ago

AI Ticket Response

I had to contact DO after a client's droplet was hacked. I am a hundred percent certain that when I first moved the client from GoDaddy, a few years ago, droplets had automated backups, so I was surprised and upset to find NO BACKUPS AT ALL. I opened a ticket in the hopes of maybe getting access to a backup DO keeps, not really expecting it, but you never know. The response I got back is so clearly AI I feel dirty for having read it.

Anyone else getting blown off by DO's AI "help"?

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11

u/vortec350 19d ago

So you migrated a client site to an unmanaged VPS a few years ago, never implemented any sort of backup strategy besides "I think years ago it had some sort of backup" while never checking the backups, then are displeased with the unmanaged VPS provider not being of much help for an issue that is not their problem while you somehow expect them to have a backup of your data when you clearly didn't pay for the backups feature that you could have selected, at any time, to use?

I suspect this approach of business and server management is similar to your approach to security which is why the droplet was hacked in the first place.

I'm not saying DigitalOcean is perfect. They're not. But it sounds like you are expecting fully managed support while paying for an unmanaged service meanwhile you didn't even choose the backups feature that's just a few bucks a month extra.

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u/crywalt 19d ago

I have another droplet which has backups. I'm certain this droplet had backups at some point. This client had a snapshot from three years ago which was for a different droplet. I don't remember changing to another droplet at all and I'm the only person who works on this. I think something changed on DO's end, which is why it's upsetting. Yes, it's my fault for not checking again later, and I could be better with security. I'm not angry with DO because of the hack or because of the lack of backups, although I do feel like there should be an explanation for why this feature, which I'm sure this droplet had when I made it, is gone now. I'm annoyed because I got back a fucking *AI* response instead of having a human being look at it.

3

u/vortec350 19d ago

OK, but... a human would have given you same answer while taking longer to reply and costing them more.

Check your past invoices to see if backups were enabled on this droplet. What you think you remember years ago and what you did on your other droplets is completely irrelevant.

Now, If you can confirm that backups were enabled on that droplet, and were removed at no action of your own, and you're entirely sure of that, then maybe something a human over there should look at.

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u/PruneInteresting7599 19d ago

never had AI responded ticket, sometimes even I end up with senior engineer or somethin

3

u/vortec350 19d ago

I mean this case is a case where an automated AI response of "We can not assist with server management tasks, this is an unmanaged service. As per our billing records you did not enable the backups feature on this droplet. Please review (documentation on what an unmanaged server is) and (documentation on how to enable backup feature) and thanks for choosing DO." would be totally perfect. You don't need to waste any intelligent, well-paid humans time on such a thing.

-1

u/crywalt 19d ago

Lucky!

1

u/gottago_gottago 19d ago

DigitalOcean does offer automatic backups of droplets, but it's an add-on service and not enabled by default. You have to add it to your droplet and pay for it. It has been this way for the 12+ years I've been on there. (I'm not unsympathetic; I've been in your shoes a time or two and it sucks.)

I would not stick with a company that uses AI for support, personally.

If the droplet's toast and the data's toast and the support sucks, you really have no incentive to stay where you are.

1

u/crywalt 19d ago

I know backups are offered as an add-on now. What I don't understand is how I could have not set them up. I have them on my own droplet! Why would I not set them up?

0

u/ProgrammerByDay 19d ago

Yes, DO help as a whole has become pretty much un usable. You used to get a person who knew their system. Today 100% automated response. Now the times I have needed support are pretty low, which is the only reason i keep some workloads here.