Help on DNS issue

I am having a major DNS issues.

Recently (about two months ago) it came to my attention that my domain was set up twice on two diff servers with my host, with two sets of DNS settings. On realising this, my host deleted one of them, as when people entered my domain name it took them to either one or the other. With the wrong one deleted, all should have been well, but now we are experiencing constant issues with the domain name finding the page.

People using my site from all over the world are having this same problem. One minute they are accessing the site and the next they are getting a page not displayed/dns error. However, if they access the site through the ip address, there is not a problem. When this happens, the downtime frame is anything from one hour to one day.

When this happens to me from time to time, I ping the domain name and get host not found, yet I ping the ip address and it is fine. Also, if I log on through my old dial up connection, I can access it ok.

Now my host is telling me it is a problem with the ISP's. I keep telling him that it is happening to everyone that uses my site at least once a week, but he keeps insisting the isps are not clearing out the DNS servers, yet it has been almost two months since the old dns settings were deleted.

I am at my wits end with this problem, as my site is quite busy and I am getting constant emails from people when they cant access it..so I know it is not just from one isp. And my host is just throwing the problem back at me telling me it is the isp's, but I cant see how nearly every ISP in the world is having the same problem with my site.

Also, I have other websites with the same host, and am not having any problems with them whatsoever..just this one..

Does anyone have any idea why this is continuing to happen

www.trazling.com

Thanks..

Your domain configuration SHOULD be fine, but just in case, we're going to make it squeaky clean.

Here's your domain configuration:

http://www.dollardns.net/cgi-bin/dn...=AXFR&submit=DS

Change these records:

trazling.com. MX 0 trazling.com.
mail.trazling.com. CNAME trazling.com.
www.trazling.com. CNAME trazling.com.

To these records:

trazling.com. MX 0 mail.trazling.com.
mail.trazling.com. A 63.247.78.154
www.trazling.com. A 63.247.78.154

Make sure you increment the serial number with this change. After you make the suggested changes and you continue to have problems after 4 hours (caching should occur on your domain for a maximum of 4 hours as configured via the TTL), let me know and we'll start an intensive investigation into the matter.

Ahhh..finally somebody that knows what I am talking about..

Thanks for this..I will try it and let you know how I go.

Ok..have made the changes. Now I just have to sit back and wait and see.

Thanks once again for your help..I knew I picked the right place to ask.

Ok..its been about 14 hours and no complaints about access. However, I have been lulled into a false sense of security before with this problem..but I think this time the problem has been nailed.

Thank you once again..you have no idea how much this has been driving me up the wall.

Well if indeed the problem is fixed here's an explanation for it. I seem to recall reading about how older servers fail when newer servers return results that include CNAME's and A's in the same response. So just remember to stay away from CNAME's like poison.

I'll keep that in mind, no doubt my other sites have the same settings but I just dont hear about down time with them as they are not as busy as the other one. I'll get them all changed to be on the safe side.

I've noticed a distinct increase in speed when loading now, so I dont know if the change had anything to do with that.

Cheers

yeah, leaving out CNAME's can potentially increase DNS resolution speed as well.

Damm..problem still happening.

Can reach it through ip address but not domain. I checked the other sites that I have hosted on that server and they were down too..but reachable via ip address. And in my control panel, server status read ok, so the server was not down.

I am starting to feel there were two problems here, as before when this happened, most of the time I could get my other sites ok, but there were times I couldn't. So I think we have dealt with half the problem..but there is something else going on where it just seems to have a hard time finding sites hosted on that server. Mail also not working.

For the ip address to bring the site up, has me convinced it is a dns issue, but then again...I'm no expert, which is why I am here I suppose.

Back to scratching my head.

More info,

I use my old dial up and it does not have a problem (different isp) but once I am online with the site again, I connect to adsl again while still connected to dialup, move around the site a bit then disconnect the dial up, stay on adsl and I can still move around the site until I close that window. But if I open a new window, it wont find the site again unless I use ip address.

Now I received some info from my host today..



(So why did he not tell me this two months ago when the problem started )



Now it would be ok if it was just me this is happening with, I could easily ring my isp and do that, but this is happening to people from different corners of the globe, and we are all through diff isps, and they have the exact same problem, access through ip but not domain. Surely all of them cant need updating.

Is this my only option, to tell all my users to do this..for it would be a never ending job as you can be sure they wont see my message to do it until after they have problems.

hmm..now I am only confusing myself...so if I confuse you I am sorry

I added the ip address to my network settings as the preferred dns server and off it went straightaway. Mail kicked back in, and I even got old mail through from my other email addresses that run through different servers. Mind you I have never had to do that before.

So maybe the second problem was on my own settings, but I dont see why I needed to do that to access my site.. but it is working for me now, and so far still no complaints from outside, so maybe I should just sit back and wait and see if others are still having the same problems.

Tee hee..feels like I am just having a conversation with myself here..

Well for me to investigate the problem I must know of a situation where the server does not work so that I may test that server. To do this I must know the IPs for the resolver DNS servers for a given computer, then I will query those IPs and test out the problem. So do you know what IPs you had before? Switching your preferred dns server to your own may fix YOUR side of things, bit it doesn't fix everybody else. It is possible that the problem could be only local, but in those cases the problem is persistent and it never works.

Yeah..I had to take it off as it was conflicting with one of my other sites, long story..

Not sure about the resolver DNS???

Does this help

Windows IP Configuration


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.233.178
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

PPP adapter Telstra:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 138.130.146.134
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 138.130.146.134

paste for me the "Name Servers" listed when you do this command at the command prompt:

ipconfig /all

here you go..



Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : chez
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : nsw.bigpond.net.au
vic.bigpond.net.au

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : SURECOM EP-320X-R 100/10/M PCI Adapt
er
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-02-44-1A-B4-AB

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : SMC EZ Connect USB/Ethernet Series C
onverter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-04-E2-17-26-2B
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.233.178
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

PPP adapter Telstra:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 138.130.146.134
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 138.130.146.134
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 61.9.192.14
61.9.192.15
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled