Transfer domain? Get ready for trouble

I write this text rather as a warning, so that newcomers do not step on a known rake to show how it sometimes happens, and how to request comment on the situation of more experienced colleagues.

Usually, domain transfer does not cause difficulties and is well described in the documentation of registrars. I personally transferred more than one dozen domains between different registrars and everything was without overlays. But according to the law of meanness, when transferring the domain of its largest project, it received a lot of new impressions and downtime service in a few days (!).

So that immediately there is a specifics for checks on whois and other things: the domain bits.media was transferred from the old Godaddy registrar to the new Internetbs .

The transfer of the domain between the registrars is not a difficult task, and it is done quickly, if you give hands to both of them, but this time something went wrong. After the transfer was confirmed by both registrars, the domain for WHOIS became already under the control of Internetbs, but hung in the status of “transferPeriod”. Godaddy removed the DNS domain entry from its NS servers, but the WHOIS NS servers are still listed by Godaddy. It is not difficult to guess that after an hour or two, when the DNS cache expired, and domain records flew out of it, users' browsers stopped opening the Bits.media website and everything that is its subdomains.
')

Debriefing

Well, it means time to communicate with those. support. Internetbs has an online chat, and the situation was described there first. An Internetbs employee assured that they could not do anything as a receiving party, and that Godaddy could complete the transfer in a few minutes manually, then all values ​​could already be changed.

Ok, since the online chat on the Godaddy website did not work, a letter was written to them, and I sat on to figure out how this happened. After several hours without an answer, I waited for the start of the working day at 9 am (the benefit was not long) I called Godaddy. An employee of Godaddy said that the domain had left them, they could no longer make any changes, speeding up the process, too. See the WHOIS, there is a new registrar already, the problem is on their side.

Then there was still a lot of correspondence and calls, I will not describe everything, but the point is that each registrar said that the delay was not his fault, seek appropriate actions from another registrar. In Godaddy, we managed to achieve a support conversation with the administrators, although it didn’t give any sense, on Internetbs any attempts to obtain a technical justification for the current situation, as well as 2 attempts to get in touch with the management were unsuccessful.

The offer to give all the necessary access to communicate with Godaddy and jointly solve the problem also turned out to be ignored. Confirm the mole transfer from Godaddy, or wait a few days. Godaddy is on his own, that they can not do anything, the domain has already left, and they have no rights and opportunities to change or accelerate anything. Well, and so on in a circle.

Alternative solutions

Ok, but the Godaddy servers that are currently registered with the NS are registered with the domain, why not enter the domain data there before the transfer is completed? Even so, why delete this data from the NS servers before the end of the transfer? Apparently, this is the policy of Godaddy, no regular tools were added to the records, the support after communicating with the admins notified that they could not do anything. I understand that they rather do not want to get into the automated system with their hands than they cannot. Customer focus, yeah. One way or another, and there is a refusal.

Well, but since the domain is already running Internetbs, maybe there you can specify other NS servers, where to write the necessary records? Again a bummer, Internetbs says that no changes can be made until the domain is in the status of “transferPeriod”. In further attempts to solve the problem, I am trying to reach a higher level now, I have already written to tldregistrarsolutions, but there are no answers yet.

Wise veteran admins say they don’t use a registrar’s DNS at all, you need to either have a third-party service or keep your NS servers. Yes, the decision is reasonable, thank you. Although I have already encountered problems with DNS services, nothing pleasant. I would know where to lay, would lay) Yes, and before this case, not the first ten domains were transferred, somehow I didn’t expect a trick from this side, you can rightly be blamed for curvature.

A moment of humor from Godaddy

Separately, after all this parsing delivered the answer from the support Godaddy, remember the very first letter? It was answered the same) Truth in the answer was literally the following, if translated:

All codes are entered correctly, there are confirmations, the domain transfer process has been successfully completed, no more actions are required.

This is just an ancient evil of the first line of support aroused, which found the letter and tried to answer. After 14 hours from the beginning of the debriefing, it was already perceived as a kind of humor.

What is the result?

The site, forum and everything on the subdomains for the second day are not available to users. While the solution to the problem is not visible. After about 4 days, one way or another, the domain should be transferred successfully, but such a period of downtime is a complete fur-bearing polar animal.

So if you have any suggestions or interesting thoughts, how can you speed up the process? Share it boldly.