Monday, May 17, 2010

GoDaddy Ruined my Sunday

So, basically, all I wanted to accomplish on Sunday was to connect my Visual Web Developer to a remote SQL Server database hosted by GoDaddy.

This should have been a piece of cake. I should have been able to set up the connection, do a little testing, and be done before breakfast, right? Well, it didn't work out that way. In fact, at 10:30 pm, I was still cussing up a storm. Turns out, GoDaddy doesn't allow remote connections by default.

If you are one of the lucky ones, the GoDaddy Database Manager will ask you if you would like to allow remote connections during the initial setup of the database. Wait an hour for GoDaddy to create the database, and you should be up and running.

I, however, was not one of the lucky ones. GoDaddy's Database Manager never, ever prompted me to allow remote connections. I tried to fight it. I tried to connect with other services, Visual Studio, Expression Web, etc. No avail. I finally decide to try GoDaddy support. Their email tells me I need to delete all my databases from the Database Manager so they can migrate my service to a server that allows remote connections.

I would normally not be angry, not a bit, in fact. I wouldn't care how many hoops I had to jump through so long as I could get this thing working. Problem is, there isn't a single piece of documentation on the web to let me know GoDaddy was blocking remote connections and I would need them to move me to another server. Thanks for ruining my Sunday, GoDaddy!

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