Fun with Mr Site's shrinking website

I've been the proud owner of a Mr Site website-in-a-box since 2009, and jolly good fun it's been too. Easy to use, and not too expensive, it allowed me to transfer my previous website (which had been on Yahoo's Geocities freespace before then) and to keep updating it. So it was that I was able to direct everyone to one address - comicfestival.co.uk - for everything to do with my work. The Scottish Falsetto Socks, my Comic Art, my Comic Art Masterclasses and most importantly lots of pages of artwork from The Beano and Doctor Who to the Socks calendars and other nonsense.

(Actually, there was one problem that no-one could help me with and that was the inability to update the very front page - utproductions.co.uk. This remains out of date, and with an incorrect phone number on it, but no matter how often I try and upload an amend I can't, I can only upload one that appears at utproductions.co.uk/index.html. If anyone can help me change that, that would be great, though so far a dozen people have just suggested exactly the same things, like "make sure you're uploading to the www.root folder" and "remove the previous version" all of which I've tried and none of which works).

Anyhoo, everything had been dandy with me and Mr Site, right up to and including the last time I'd tried uploading anything, at the end of August. Not a problem. Then at the start of this week I try updating my front page (just the "/index.html" page obviously, I've long given up on being able to amend the front page proper) when suddenly - horror of horrors - I can't log in. A lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the helpful folk at Mr Site and they provide me with a new username (though no reason why the old one had changed) and away I go, for a bit of happy up-dating.

Only now I find I can't upload a tweaked version of the index.html page. It bounces back, telling me:



... which if you can't make it out is telling me I can't upload because I've over-filled my allocated webspace. Overfilled it by over 600 per cent! I've used 496MB of space and I'm only supposed to have 75MB. Who knew? I certainly didn't. And how come they've only told me about this now. Worse, not only has my new front page not uploaded, the old one has vanished, leaving my website blank. Helpful.

As, on their instructions, I go through and start removing picture after picture, it becomes clear that I very obviously went over my 75MB allocation on the very first day I uploaded my website. 50 comic strip pages would fill that space, and I've had hundreds up there.

So I guess I should count my blessings that Mr Site let me have four years of excess web space for all that time, but I can't describe what a frustrating process it's been having to remove all that artwork. And meanwhile I have to begin the search for a new web host now that'll allow me to keep the artwork up there. Almost all of the pages of comic strips by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses have had to come down, and if anyone was hoping to read my Prince William He's Second In Line To The Throne strips from 1990-93, don't look for them, they're not there any more. Neither is BS1, Sinnerhound, the Gladiators or dozens of others. For a taste of the frustration of peeling the pages from the walls of my site, which took an agonising and non-constructive morning, here's the Twitter trail I left between about midday and shortly after 2pm:

Sadly most of my comic strips are coming down from my Mr Site @mr_site web pages (have to remove 275MB worth, ie... http://fb.me/2l8RSE6m2

Grrr, loads taken down from @mr_site (most Beano, Dr Who, Gladiators, kids comics) & still 95MB to remove. I need free web space. Anybody?

Grr still 68MB of art to remove from my site before @mr_site will let me carry on using it. 200MB of comic strips removed #likebeingevicted 

Aaargh! Still 57MB to remove! I'm gnna be left with nothing on this site. It's like @mr_site have let me use a room then removed 3 walls.

Just 35MB of art to remove from my website & @mr_site will let me use it again. I'll do this even if I'm left text only! #newwebspaceneeded 

Just 24MB of pictures to remove and @mr_site let me use my site again! Nearly there! http://utproductions.co.uk/princewilliam1.html … 

11MB to remove from my @mr_site website before i can use it again. I'm down to skin and bones here. #iknowicanimsureican

Nearly there @mr_site 6.48MB of pictures to remove from my website and I can start using its worthless husk again! http://utproductions.co.uk/index.html

Ha ha ha!!! 555.545KB to remove and the @mr_site site is mine again! I'm Kilobytes away!!!! Mwaa-ha ha haaa!!!!!!

Yes! I did it! I removed 250MB of stuff from my website and @mr_site have let me use it again! http://utproductions.co.uk/index.html  Hooray!!! (Now, lunch)

Kev F Comic Artist, and the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, can be found as always at comicfestival,co.uk, which currently diverts from utproductions.co.uk/index.htmlutproductions.co.uk/index.html and will soon, no doubt, divert from somewhere else.