Hetzner terminated my account and says my data is permanently deleted — but the VPS is still running and all files are still there. Any way to get temporary network access?
Hi,
I'm in a pretty unusual situation and I'm hoping someone here — possibly from Hetzner — can point me in the right direction.
My Hetzner contracts were terminated because the payment card on my account had expired and I unfortunately missed the payment reminders.
I have now paid the outstanding invoice, but Hetzner support informed me that the termination is permanent and cannot be reversed.
I understand and accept that.
The part I don't understand is the data situation.
Support told me:
>
However, the servers are still visible in Hetzner Cloud Console, they are still running, and I can log into them through the web console.
The original filesystem is still there.
I can see my files, Docker data, configurations, etc. The disk usage also clearly shows that the old data is still physically present.
The problem is that the servers have been completely network-blocked:
- SSH from my computer times out
- outbound Internet access from the VPS doesn't work
- IPv4/IPv6 networking appears blocked
- creating a Snapshot gives me
Insufficient permissions for this request - the only access I currently have is through the Hetzner web console
I'm not asking Hetzner to restore the contract or reactivate the account permanently.
I simply want a short window — even 1–2 hours — to retrieve the data that is clearly still present.
For example, any of these would be enough:
- temporarily whitelist my public IP so I can use SSH/rsync
- temporarily restore outbound networking
- temporarily allow me to create a Snapshot
- provide some other way of exporting the existing disk
I also found Hetzner's documentation regarding locked servers and temporary IP whitelisting, but I'm not sure whether that can be applied in a case where the contract has already been terminated.
The frustrating part is that I'm currently looking directly at the files through the console while being told that they have already been permanently deleted.
Has anyone experienced something similar?
Is there a specific Hetzner department or technical escalation path I should contact to request temporary data retrieval access only?
I have already opened a support/unblock request and can provide ticket IDs and server details privately if a Hetzner employee sees this.
Thanks for any help.