Had them before - absolutely awful customer service and rather a lot of downtime.
GigaNetwork are good for retros as they are almost in the community, xHosts is a risk.
I am currently using PortServers - competitive prices and good servers.
That's fine, try replacing the checktheban with a different one, otherwise post the code and we'll try to find the error.
And for a suggestion of ban page if you wish to change yours: https://devbest.com/threads/revcms-banned-page.59463/ (Dunno if the images on Imgur still work, will have to...
Many CMS' released, find a ban page from there and just copy the CSS files if needed.
Checktheban.php can also be taken from another CMS, otherwise hit me up and I will help with that.
I would edit the banned page and add a button on there. That way it stops users from being able to access the site and then just don't include a ban check script on the ban appeal pages
Example HTML:
<p class='appeal-text'>If you feel you have been banned unreasonably, please click the button...
@funkystrainz Navicat is a fundamental, faster, simpler, more efficient and much better for editing the database than phpMyAdmin.
Also, message me and I will help you as Imgur doesn't load on my PC