In the final analysis, you will save money by going with a slightly more expensive hosting plan from a reputable provider. Over the years I had very good experience with Hostway and Site5. Not that they are completely problem-free, but they work with you to resolve any issues. Site5, for example, has lightning-fast support: they seem to start working on your problem tickets even before you finish typing them.

I don’t know what in the hell I was thinking signing up with a hosting provider I knew nothing about. I guess I have to blame myself and, maybe, WordPress.org for listing Bluehost as a recommended host.

In the early days of the world wide web I used to work for a web hosting provider. It was a brave new world and probably ninety percent of our customers would have thought you wanted their stool sample, if you told them to check their logs.

Somehow I doubt the average site owner got much smarter since then. Bluehost management seems to bet the future of the business on loyalty of the remaining ten percent of their clients, who would know better than to poop into a ziploc bag.

My account has been deactivated two times for almost the exact thing mentioned above. Both times it was merely a table that needed to be repaired. In both instances the table size exceeded the size which I could repair via phpmyadmin and needed their assistance.

Essentially, they think its better customer service to shut long-term customers accounts off than to simply send an email stating, “Hey, you have a table that could use some attention.”

We are slowly migrating our business to a dedicated host who promises to keep their tech support in house.

But seriously – get a cheap VPS, like one of the many covered here

http://www.lowendbox.com/

Or try Dreamhost.com for a well-run, cheap, and popular shared host. Some HUGE sites – a few popular chans for example – off Dreamhost shared accounts no problems.