Jump to: 

• What benefits am I getting?
• When will my hosting be upgraded?
• What will happen during the upgrade?
• Is there anything I need to do to prepare?
• What actions do I need to take after the upgrade?
• Finding support for cPanel
• Legacy features being removed
• WordPress site information
• Custom scripting information

What is happening?  

In early 2023, we are upgrading our services for new and existing customers. This process will include upgrades to our servers, updating our name servers, and bringing in cPanel as our new web hosting control panel.
  

Are there any benefits for me with this upgrade?  

Absolutely! We are upgrading your services to allow for better performance, reliability, and usability. Web Hosting customers will be getting cPanel to replace our existing Turbify Web Hosting Control Panel which will come with a number of new benefits. You can read more about our switchover to cPanel and the benefits over here.
 

When will my upgrade happen?  

All upgrades are scheduled to be completed within the first quarter of 2023. We are rolling these upgrades out in phases and exact upgrade timing will vary from subscription to subscription. 
 

What will happen during the upgrade?  

Please note the following will happen during your account upgrade window. This is expected to last under an hour while we work to upgrade your account.  

• Your site will be placed into a “read-only” mode. What this means is your site will remain online; things such as logs, contact forms, restaurant bookings, etc. will not function. This will happen shortly before your site is scheduled to be upgraded.
• Control panels, Website Builder editor and FTP access will be non-functional until your upgrade is complete. Once it is complete, control panels and FTP access will return.
• FTP users will be recreated in cPanel*  
• Password protected directories will be recreated in cPanel*
• UPDATE - Website Builder is now available for cPanel! Please click on the Continue Building Your Site button within your My Services page to carry on editing and publishing your site within the Website Builder editor.  
• If you have SSL enabled for your site, management of your SSL certificate will be in cPanel moving forward. This article provides more information on SSL certificates and how you can manage your certificates in the future. A new certificate may need to be established using AutoSSL.
• Masked forwards will be turned into 301 redirects.

*FTP users and password protected directories will require a password reset. Please see the question further down in this document for more information.   
  

Do I need to take any action to prepare?  

There is nothing you will need to do prior to your upgrade. The above should happen automatically with minimal impact to you or your site. If you are actively in your Web Hosting Control Panel when your upgrade begins, your active session may be terminated until the upgrade is completed (up to an hour expected impact). 
  

Do I need to take any action after my upgrade window?  

If you have any FTP users or password protected directories, you will need to set new passwords and check the quota setting. While we are able to move your usernames and settings across to cPanel, due to security concerns, we are unable to move passwords. In order to ensure security, we have set a random secure password during your upgrade which will need to be changed for you to regain access.

If you are using the default FTP user, a new FTP user will need to be created. After the upgrade, the previous default FTP users will no longer be supported.

Reset an FTP user password 

1. Sign in to your My Services page.
2. Click the Web Hosting link.
   
3. Click the FTP Accounts link in the Files module.
   
4. In the FTP Users section, click the Change Password link.
5. Enter your new password in both password fields (or allow the system to auto-generate a secure password for you).  
6. Click the Change Password button to save your changes.  
7. Complete steps 4-6 for all FTP accounts still needed. If you don’t need some of the listed FTP accounts, we recommend deleting them.

Checking and changing FTP quota

1. Sign in to your My Services page.
2. Click the Web Hosting link.
   
3. Click the FTP Accounts link in the Files module.
   
4. In the FTP Users section, check the Usage / Quota column. If the usage exceeds the quota, the quota needs to be increased. If it is near the quota, it may need to be increased as well.
5. To increase the quota, click Change Quota under Actions.
6. Set a new quota that is larger than the current usage. Note: Selecting Unlimited will allow the FTP user to upload files without limitation up to your maximum disk space for your plan.

Creating a new FTP user

1. Sign in to your My Services page.
2. Click the Web Hosting link.
   
3. Click the FTP Accounts link in the Files module.
   
4. In the Add FTP Accounts section, enter the FTP username and password.
5. Set the Directory for the FTP user.
6. Update the quota, if desired.
7. Click Create FTP Account.

For more information on creating an FTP user, visit our help page here.
 

Set new password for protected directories  

1. Sign in to your My Services page.
2. Click the Web Hosting link.
3. Click Directory Privacy in the Files module.  
4. Locate the private directory you need to reset this. You can identify a private directory by the Private field showing Yes with a lock icon. Note that if you have a sub directory set to private, you will need to drill down into the folders to see it.  
5. Click the EDIT button for your private directory.  
6. From here, you can either create a new user and password for the directory, or change the password for your existing users.  
   1. To make a new user, simply choose your new username and password.
   2. To change/set the password for an existing user, enter the existing username for the Username field and choose a new password (or allow the system to auto-generate a secure password for you).
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for all of your private directories.  

If I have questions about using cPanel, where can I find support? 

We’ve been quickly adding help articles to ensure you have support for the most common cPanel questions, and will be continuing to grow these articles in the coming months. We recommend starting with our cPanel Index article for help. 

cPanel has a vast knowledge base of articles for end users to be able to use, as do the makers of the WordPress Toolkit. Please feel free to browse the links below for more information on what will be available in cPanel.  

Note: While reviewing these links, you may see options that are not going to be offered by Turbify, as each hosting provider may customize cPanel for their customers.  

• cPanelTV YouTube channel  
• cPanel interface documentation  
• WordPress Toolkit Index

What features will no longer be available after my upgrade?  

With the move to cPanel, there are a few Turbify proprietary tools which will no longer be available. Most of these tools have alternatives available in cPanel or are no longer needed now that cPanel can support special functionality (such as .htaccess).   

• Manage Homepage*
  • This can now be accomplished with the instructions in this article to make a WordPress site your homepage.
• Site Solution*
  • Site Solution has been retired. Please visit this FAQ for more information on its End-of-Life and your options for managing your site going forward.
• Staging Environment*
  • We recommend using the WordPress cloning feature as a replacement for our staging tool.
  • There is no replacement for this tool for non WordPress sites.
• Automatic backups   
  • We will not have automatic backups for now but you can perform on-demand backups within cPanel at any time.  
  • For those using WordPress, please use the WordPress Toolkit backup tool.  
  • For general cPanel backups, please use this help page.   
• Masked forwarding  
  • Please use the new Redirects feature instead.  
• MySQL Dump Tool  
  • Please use these instructions to back up and restore a MySQL database.
• Web Hosting Promote page*
  • The website promotion page in the Turbify Web Hosting Control Panel will no longer be available.

*In preparation for the upgrade, some features have been removed from all accounts.
  

I currently use WordPress, what should I expect after my upgrade? 

We will be ensuring that all of your WordPress related databases are moved into our new cPanel interface. If you used our tools to install WordPress, there is nothing you need to do, and your WordPress installations will show up in the new WordPress Toolkit. We have some good starter articles on the WordPress Toolkit in our cPanel Index article.  

If you have a custom installed WordPress or a manually installed WordPress without using the WordPress install tool within the Web Hosting Control Panel, your WordPress site may not be available in the WordPress Toolkit automatically. To scan and search for WordPress installs and bring them into the Toolkit, you can use the scan feature. 

One of the most exciting features coming with our move to cPanel is our new ability to support .htaccess files and functions. If you had previously tried to use .htaccess by placing a .htaccess file in your file manager, it will automatically start doing what it is intended to do. Please note that this may cause some unexpected changes to your site and functionality once your account is upgraded. In most cases, .htaccess file should lead to positive changes. If these changes are undesirable, you may need to edit or remove your .htaccess file to revert the site's function to what it was prior to upgrading.

Information: The WordPress Toolkit may give warnings that older versions of PHP are not supported or are at End of Life. WordPress, its themes and plugins may not be fully compatible with PHP 8.x. We currently recommend setting the PHP version to at least PHP 5.6, but no newer than PHP 7.4. This will minimize PHP compatibility-based errors. Visit the WordPress PHP Compatibility reference page for more information.
 

I have custom scripts that use the MySQL database, what should I expect after my upgrade?

If you have custom scripts and databases, we are able to ensure that your database is moved into cPanel. However, we are not able to ensure that your database users and their passwords are moved into cPanel. Nor are we able to update the database configurations in your custom scripts to match a new naming convention that cPanel requires. This will require some updates on your part.

Here is an outline of the basics to check and update.

1. In the cPanel File Manager, go to the folder with your custom scripts and view the error_log file. This will show any PHP errors that are occurring, including database connection errors.
2. Check your custom scripts to retrieve the database names, usernames, and passwords being used.
3. In the cPanel Databases module, go to the MySQL Databases tool. Confirm that your databases are present. If they are not there, please contact our support for further assistance.
4. Update the settings for your database users:
   1. If the user is not present, create the user with the matching password. If it is there, click Change Password and set the password to match the password in your scripting.
   2. Assign the user to the database. If it is already assigned, verify the user has the needed privileges.
5. Update your scripts to match the new naming convention for your databases and database usernames. The naming convention will be of the format of "uniqueid_databasename" or "uniqueid_username".