The Downfall of RAVNIX
As mentioned in another post I wrote, dedicated server hosting providers in the United States SUCK! I am tired of losing money, players, and trust. When I transfered my data to my last dedicated server, I was very excited. I had used a new system for running servers in docker containers, that was very secure and a fun challenge. I was hopeful about this provider, since they at the time had a great track record and good reviews. I had not heard many negative things about them, save for some drama in Admincraft. That being said, the colloquial name for that server is Dramacraft, so I didn’t hold it against them.
On 11/20/2024, I reserved a dedicated server from RAVNIX, LLC so I could transfer all my files from Netcup DE to them. To be completely fair to RAVNIX, they aren’t as bad as the complete sham that was Netcup. In fact, my 1 star review of Netcup got removed from Trustpilot due to “not being a genuine experience.” Great. Proof:
So, back to RAVNIX. On 11/23/2024, I contacted Kayden, the director of RAVNIX, to pull the trigger on the dedicated server. Kayden and I communicated back and forth on the setup, then agreed on a free trial until 12/04/2024, at which point I would begin being charged $89.99 a month. This was going great so far! On 11/24/2024 and 12/08/2024, Kayden contacted me to ask how the dedicated server was running. I was impressed with the customer service, and responded it was running great. I asked him to create an accept rule on port 3306 since I was having some issues with my MariaDB server, but other than that, there were no issues.
On 12/11/2024, I created a ticket in their Discord server reporting that my server was down. This would be the beginning of the end. They extended my billing cycle for 3 days per their SLA.
I was not that upset about it. 8 minutes of downtime and some packet loss for a bit after is not that big of a deal. Then, it happened again. This time my network went down for about the same amount of time, and they blamed it completely on Neoprotect. For the record, Neoprotect reported no downtime at all. I am not pointing fingers here, but it was their choice to use Neoprotect as an upstream provider.
On 12/20/2024, all my players got disconnected from my server. I did not receive a response in my ticket.
On 12/29/2024, my entire machine went offline. I had no SSH access, and their status page was also offline. At the time of writing this, their status page is STILL offline. During this time of my server being offline, I perused the community for news or conversations about RAVNIX and found some disturbing things. Their entire staff team had quit (save for Kayden and NTyree.) There were rumors of them dead pooling and their future was very questionable at this point. I got annoyed and a little nervous, so I pinged Kayden and NTyree again, asking for an update. All I received was “we’re looking into it” from Kayden. An hour later, I asked for an ETA. The server ended up coming back online after being down for multiple hours. I would love to prove this by screenshotting their status page but I would wager they have no intention of ever bringing it back. Their status page is the source of the drama that caused them to leave Admincraft and lose a lot of respect from the community.
That afternoon, Kayden and I had a conversation about the crap they have been putting me through. He wouldn’t give me a straight answer about why their team quit, nor specific details about why it kept going down. Essentially, he kept falsely promising me he would “make the network more stable” and move away from Neoprotect. On 12/30/2024, we experienced major packet loss. The only thing I received in my ticket was “yeah, we’re moving away from neo in a few days. looking into cosmicguard.” Basically, Kayden blamed EVERYTHING on Neoprotect. He did not take accountability once. Every system administrator I had look into my issues said this seems like complete incompetence from RAVNIX.
On 1/19/2025, our network went down and this time it was actually, 100% Neoprotect’s fault. On 1/22/2025, the network went down again for 37 seconds. I was actively looking for a new provider at this point.
On 1/23/2025, the network went down AGAIN for 3.5 hours. A staff member at Neoprotect directly stated that RAVNIX did not pay 2 invoices in a row and were dropped from Neoprotect. I have yet to confirm this, due to the fact their networking still showed them connected to Neoprotect. I confronted Kayden about this, and his alt Layerized responded. It’s important to mention that there are 4 staff members in RAVNIX’s Discord, and 3 of them are Kayden’s alts. It is my opinion that this is an attempt to make Kayden’s team look bigger than it is. To add further fuel to this fire, a user by the name of CatsAteMe; the CEO of hostfusion.co who has been accused of lying, scamming, and stealing clients; has been “helping” clients in their Discord despite having no staff role. What are they using this guy for?
On 1/24/2025, Kayden pinged me to change the MTU on my server to 1400. I didn’t question it, as when your upstream provider asks you to do something immediately, you do it to ensure your server doesn’t go down. Well, spoiler alert, it went down anyway. This CLOBBERED the networking on my server. I spent the next day trying to fix it. I tested with different MTU values, and setting it back to default. I tried reworking the docker containers and changing the Pterodactyl network. I made a TCPDump and analyzed it with Wireshark. My conclusion: this move to CosmicGuard was executed with complete incompetence, and they should not have asked clients to change their MTU to 1400 and nothing else.
I bought a new dedicated server and transferred all my data. On 01/27/2025, Layerized (Kayden) asked me to let him know when it’s safe to power off my server. Hello? I still have 2 weeks on my billing cycle. Settle down there, buddy. Hilariously, my server with them went down again on 01/31/2025.
Now, my story was not nearly as bad as another user of RAVNIX, whose server had been down for 2 whole weeks and he never got his data back. This user attempted to contact Kayden several times, and not only did not receive a single bit of communication, he was banned from their Discord server. Clients trust their data, communities, and money with RAVNIX, just to get completely scammed. I am fortunate that I left when I did, and that I make regular backups. Imagine opening a bank account and depositing your money with them, just for them to randomly close your account and ban you from the premises.
People need to be aware of what RAVNIX does to their customers. Kayden, Layerized, DSR, whatever you go by, shame on you man.
Update 02/03/2025 This is from their public support channel in their Discord LOL
