I've used 1and1.com for years, especially for my Ecommerce clients as 1and1.com as offered good features at good prices for years. I was happy to see click and built had the ability to install XOOPS on a system. Not that installation is that hard, but it just makes everything go much smoother.

Now I do use another hosting company that uses Cpanel and Fanastico. Which basically does the same thing. The only problem is this hosting company tends to have more downtime, but is based out of India and extremely cheap by US standards. Makes the perfect place for development and sandboxes.

At anyrate, I went to click and build and installed Xoops. Pretty easy and a few minutes later it was installed and everything was working. I then went to begin uploading additional modules and got the 550: permission denied error in FTP. There is no write access. No write access means no uploads of additional modules meaning that this makes it almost useless.

I contacted 1and1 support via email and got an answer a few hours later stating that the write permissions are disabled by the administrators for "technical reasons". I am calling their tech support number this morning and going to give them my ear full and threaten to cancel the account etc. etc..

Now you can still do a manual install just like the old days and everything works. But it's the fact they advertise the service and while it may have no ads, it's crippled.

As I've said before, I've used Fanastico via Cpanel for years and never had any problems. It's fill out a couple blanks, wait30 seconds, and then start uploading the customized templates and modules.

So if you think 1and1.com's click build is an easy XOOPS solution, think again and look into hosting elsewhere.

Thanks for this info! I just opened an additional package with 1&1 when I discovered this new (to me) feature & not having used XOOPS before, I was going to give it a try. I think I still will try it, but I'll do a manual install.

Unless.. Does anyone know if this problem with 1&1 still exists as of October 2007?

Ok, I can now answer this one myself.. No, As of mid-October 2007 1and1 still has the permissions problem.

I think you're always better off doing a manual install. These automatic installs are often several versions behind (ie. not up to date with security and patches).

By the time you've patched the site, you would have been better off just doing a clean install of the latest version.

Not singling any particular system out by the way, I don't think I've ever seen one that was up to date.

It seems kinda hard to judge a hoster on something as small as this! Grow up!

"Well,.they do have an uptime of almost 100%,.but their automatic XOOPS install script doesn't work that well!"

Sorry,.but it is silly!!

use 1and1 for long while now, no complaints, almost no downtime! the few times support was needed, it was solved quickly.
I got really excited when they offered XOOPS click'n install, and more disappointed when it didn't work. but I still use their services and happy about it.
maybe I old style, but I like to "feel" the ftp buzzing, go over some code lines to check problems, install over http, ... tried the cpanel too, still prefer my personalized hands on...