Domain Issue

DampCat · 24 Jul 2019 at 12:52

Jeez I hope someone has heard of something like this before.

I bought a domain in february, we'll call it dampcat.co.uk. I bought it from GoDaddy because i'd heard of them before.

Last week I bought hosting from TSOHost, in order to host a wordpress site. I transferred the domain from GoDaddy to TSOHost. GoDaddy changed the *something* (i cant remember the word) to UKWEBHOSTING in line with my new hosts, and removed the domain from my account page.

The domain shows up in my client area for TSOHost. It's attached to my hosting package. Wordpress installed with no issues in cpanel. I can create emails such as [email protected]. I can send emails from that address. However, I cant receive any. I dont get any bouncebacks of any form (however Microsoft gives me an error when trying to sign up for Office365 "Please provide a valid email address, using an existing domain name, that is configured to receive email (has MX records), for example [email protected]".).

TSOHost say they can't access the domain directly as they're just the registrar, so i have to call Wild West Domains in Arizona who i suppose GoDaddy buy from, in order to change the MX records/DNS to point to a new server (which i have here but im not sure if i should post it). Wild West Domains say they cant access it as it's no longer in the godaddy account. (they accepted my godaddy account info when i called?)

So now Im stuck in some kind of limbo where neither company can access the domain to change where it points to, and my entire business is built on that and cant recieve emails.

Soes anyone have absolutely any ideas of where i should start looking in order to sort this out?

Cromulent · 24 Jul 2019 at 13:05

There was no need for you to transfer the domain just to host a WordPress site. When you can transfer it to Name Cheap or Gandhi.

Steveocee · 24 Jul 2019 at 13:20

There should be an option in your TSO control panel to take ownership of the DNS records or move the DNS to them. This is very simple stuff and TSO should have advised you of this.

DampCat · 24 Jul 2019 at 13:28

Steveocee said:
There should be an option in your TSO control panel to take ownership of the DNS records or move the DNS to them. This is very simple stuff and TSO should have advised you of this.

There's a Custom DNS section that allows me to manually change some bits laid out thus:

Code:

Name       Type     TTL       Priority       Content
domain.co.uk       NS        86400                   xxx.xxxx.net

I can also add more and theres a "click to set all MX records to Gmail".

Is this what you mean and what i should be askin about when i call them back shortly?

Steveocee · 24 Jul 2019 at 13:32

???
OK I misread the situation, so TSO are your registrar and authoritative DNS. Who are you hosting your mail with? The MX records should point to them.

DampCat · 24 Jul 2019 at 13:38

Steveocee said:
???
OK I misread the situation, so TSO are your registrar and authoritative DNS. Who are you hosting your mail with? The MX records should point to them.

Everything is hosted with TSO. It's just the domain that has switched hands from GoDaddy(Wild west) to TSO.

Sending email TO the domain, nothing recieves. Send out from it is fine. Does it even sound like a domain issue?!

Steveocee · 24 Jul 2019 at 13:43

DampCat said:
Everything is hosted with TSO. It's just the domain that has switched hands from GoDaddy(Wild west) to TSO.
Sending email TO the domain, nothing recieves. Send out from it is fine. Does it even sound like a domain issue?!

It could be, it's domain or mail host.

If you do an NSLOOKUP for the MX record of the domain who does it point to? If the record is pointed fine then it's the mail host, if the record is wrong then it's domain/DNS problem. <<Would have been done already if you'd posted the domain name lol

DampCat · 24 Jul 2019 at 14:04

Steveocee said:
It could be, it's domain or mail host.

If you do an NSLOOKUP for the MX record of the domain who does it point to? If the record is pointed fine then it's the mail host, if the record is wrong then it's domain/DNS problem. <<Would have been done already if you'd posted the domain name lol

I get different responses from different sites.

edit: Ive called everyone back, GoDaddy got angry and shouted a bit but seemed convincing. I spoke to someone else at TSO and it seems that she just knew more than the other guy and has said that's she's updated everything and it will take a few hours to propogate.

I guess i should have tried the old "please may i speak to someone else" routine before posting. Sorry all.

Steveocee · 24 Jul 2019 at 14:50

DampCat said:
I guess i should have tried the old "please may i speak to someone else" routine before posting. Sorry all.

Had you not posted then you may not have known or been inclined to go back to them :-)

Always worth checking with the collective mind of OCUK

Beansprout · 24 Jul 2019 at 15:06

This is impossible to answer without knowing the domain and any error messages, but if they changed the IPSTAG to UKWEBHOSTING then I'm assuming you bought a .uk domain and transferred it to Tsohost from Godaddy.

Godaddy own Tsohost anyway although they still operate as separate brands.

After moving the domain to Tsohost it would have shown up in your my.tsohost.com and would have probably needed its nameservers changing to the Tsohost ones to use your hosting with them.

I don't understand why Tsohost would refer you to wild west domains, shrug. Maybe they saw the nameservers were still set to Godaddy/wild west and got confused. Then when you called back, someone else realised the nameservers just needed updating to point to your hosting account.

All this is incredibly basic and in a sane world would be a thirty second phone call.

DampCat · 24 Jul 2019 at 15:56

Beansprout said:
All this is incredibly basic and in a sane world would be a thirty second phone call.

I posted the domain briefly, but i removed it again when the situation resolved. I really would rather keep my post history seperate from my business :eek:

It probably is basic. I've literally never done any back end web stuff, so im struggling through. Following the tuts is easy enough, but everyone has different names for things or different layouts so it can snag. Also, i kind of have to trust everything people say, because i dont know better. So when 1 guy says "they screwed up", its hard to know if thats the case.

We got there in the end.

Now trying to work my way through adding a TXT record to verify domain ownership for microsoft

touch · 24 Jul 2019 at 19:06

DampCat said:
Now trying to work my way through adding a TXT record to verify domain ownership for microsoft

If you log in to your office365 admin account (the one with the [email protected] address) you can go into the DNS settings part and it'll tell you exactly what you need to do. It can even set up all your DNS entries for you automatically on some providers. Don't know if it can do that with the TSO hosting but I've done it with amazon aws before and it worked perfectly. It'll give step-by-step instructions on how to set up with other hosts which it can't directly interface with.

DampCat · 24 Jul 2019 at 23:45

touch said:
If you log in to your office365 admin account (the one with the [email protected] address) you can go into the DNS settings part and it'll tell you exactly what you need to do. It can even set up all your DNS entries for you automatically on some providers. Don't know if it can do that with the TSO hosting but I've done it with amazon aws before and it worked perfectly. It'll give step-by-step instructions on how to set up with other hosts which it can't directly interface with.

Turns out it does do it automatically, after 6 hours of my trying to do it manually. It does require me to change my nameservers which I've done but I think TSOs backpanel is garbage, as changes I was making to DNS Records weren't sticking, but did when done through CPanel. Can't see an option to do nameservers through CPanel so I'll call them to fix it tomorrow.

touch · 24 Jul 2019 at 23:55

DampCat said:
Turns out it does do it automatically, after 6 hours of my trying to do it manually. It does require me to change my nameservers which I've done but I think TSOs backpanel is garbage, as changes I was making to DNS Records weren't sticking, but did when done through CPanel. Can't see an option to do nameservers through CPanel so I'll call them to fix it tomorrow.

What did you change the nameservers to?
If you're using the office365 nameservers then you won't be able to make any DNS changes through TSO.

Beansprout · 25 Jul 2019 at 00:20

DampCat said:
Also, i kind of have to trust everything people say, because i dont know better.

Exactly my point

I don't understand why this wasn't a quick phone call (or simple contact of some kind) with your hosting provider. If you've transferred the domain to them, and want to host it with them, the next step is to update the DNS. Incredibly basic. Hard to say precisely given I've only heard your side, but it sounds like the first person you dealt with might need more training.

DampCat said:
Turns out it does do it automatically, after 6 hours of my trying to do it manually. It does require me to change my nameservers which I've done but I think TSOs backpanel is garbage, as changes I was making to DNS Records weren't sticking, but did when done through CPanel. Can't see an option to do nameservers through CPanel so I'll call them to fix it tomorrow.

You don't want to change your nameservers. Use your hosting provider nameservers. Otherwise you have to copy all the hosting settings into the O365 system which will be a pain.

With cPanel hosting you just need to add the records to cPanel - Zone editor or ask your provider for help.

I suspect the DNS editor in the my.tsohost.com area isn't linked to cPanel, and should warn you so. I mean, when me/Adam created it that was certainly the case

DampCat · 25 Jul 2019 at 08:48

touch said:
What did you change the nameservers to?
If you're using the office365 nameservers then you won't be able to make any DNS changes through TSO.

Yeah im not very good at explaining myself. I'd changed them to MS nameservers in TSOs panel, but it wasnt sticking. Turns out it just needed 12 hours or so to propogate. It does say that, in fairness.

DampCat · 25 Jul 2019 at 08:56

Beansprout said:
Exactly my point

I don't understand why this wasn't a quick phone call (or simple contact of some kind) with your hosting provider. If you've transferred the domain to them, and want to host it with them, the next step is to update the DNS. Incredibly basic. Hard to say precisely given I've only heard your side, but it sounds like the first person you dealt with might need more training.

I mentioned this support ticket to the person who solved it, she said she's not sure why it wasn't done. (i can Copy Paste to prove my innocence!) Doesn't matter, it got sorted out

Beansprout said:
You don't want to change your nameservers. Use your hosting provider nameservers. Otherwise you have to copy all the hosting settings into the O365 system which will be a pain.

With cPanel hosting you just need to add the records to cPanel - Zone editor or ask your provider for help.

I suspect the DNS editor in the my.tsohost.com area isn't linked to cPanel, and should warn you so. I mean, when me/Adam created it that was certainly the case

At this point I just want to get it working so i can get on with setting up. I'm pre-trading at the moment but i need domain emails to start ordering things. I used the O365 auto setup, and it wanted me to change the nameservers to theirs, so i did that. the domain is still pointed to TSO so that's fine. Because im pre-start i dont have to worry about migration.

Anyway it looks like im up and running for now. I'll be getting a contract with a local IT company to take care of this sort of thing, it's just a little further down the line. They can make things more efficient if they need to.

I appreciate all your guys's help. I'm sure i'll have more issues shortly!

touch · 25 Jul 2019 at 09:27

DampCat said:
I mentioned this support ticket to the person who solved it, she said she's not sure why it wasn't done. (i can Copy Paste to prove my innocence!) Doesn't matter, it got sorted out

He's not saying that you should have known better, he's saying that the guy you spoke to on the phone should have known better. This is all basic stuff in setting up a domain but it's all new to you so you can't be expected to know how to do it. It's the support guy's job to deal with this so he should have been able to offer a lot more assistance.

DampCat · 25 Jul 2019 at 09:31

Ah, it was tongue in cheek really. I wasnt trying to be defensive x

Beansprout · 25 Jul 2019 at 18:57

DampCat said:
I appreciate all your guys's help. I'm sure i'll have more issues shortly!

I think the sum knowledge of OcUK is often greater than any first line support so do use us

touch said:
He's not saying that you should have known better, he's saying that the guy you spoke to on the phone should have known better. This is all basic stuff in setting up a domain but it's all new to you so you can't be expected to know how to do it. It's the support guy's job to deal with this so he should have been able to offer a lot more assistance.

Yeah exactly, if I was being a bit obtuse it's because I was trying to speak generically, I wouldn't want to say bad things about my previous employer where many friends of mine still work. I try to stay neutral and stick to facts and observations.