View Full Version : Domain Pointing Tool
entrecon
11-9-07, 07:53 AM
I know they implemented a new domain pointing tool, but I had purchased the old one they had for the $20 a year, or whatever the price was.
Now, this morning instead of pointing to the directories they should, they are all pointing at the root!
I am submitting a ticket, but I don't understand why, without an e-mail or anything, this would all of a sudden stop working!
Anyone else using it and seeing problems, or just me?
Upadate: Just tried to use the 24/7 live chat and I can only enter messages, it isn't a chat...did I miss an announcement that they were discontinuing this?
entrecon
11-9-07, 08:41 AM
I just got off the phone with support and for some magical reason the tool that had been working until this morning just stopped working. I paid for one year and expired back in August, but I never received any notice that the pointing would stop working or that I needed to renew it for it to keep working.
I am told I can use the new free tool, which I have gone in and configured, but now I get 500 ISE for all of the domains.
I try to check the logs, but the link in the control panel keeps taking me to the CGI and scripted language page and not to the error log.
entrecon
11-9-07, 08:58 AM
Final Update (I hope)
Something was completely hosed on my account. It seems that the CGI was disabled along with the mapping and pretty much killed everything. Once CGI was turned back on, the back end looked better and now I just wait until 9am EST for CGI to process on my account and I can hope all will be well with the world again....or at least my little corner of it.
entrecon
11-9-07, 11:21 AM
The Saga continues...
9am came and went and sites were still down. I am now being told that it appears the CGI was corrupt. I guess they have updated it on the back-end somehow, but now I wait until 6pm to see if that fixes it. I did ask how the CGI got corrupted out of the blue overnight and the guy at the help desk wasn't sure how that could happen "it just happens sometimes" was the best I could get. I will update after 6pm.
entrecon
11-9-07, 08:24 PM
And so it goes...
Waited for the 6pm cycle and still nada. NOW it is being escalted.
Anyone else having problems? This is really looking like something other than the domain pointing.
Move thread to outages forum?
tpoynton
11-9-07, 09:06 PM
guess you are the only one using the tool, and that's why it's free now!
thanks for the updates, hope it works out soon! can you just start using the new tool, to get things working? htaccess?
All three sites came up for me at the time of this posting albeit a tad slowly.
PS. I purchased and have used the domain pointing tool with no problems.
entrecon
11-9-07, 10:20 PM
They Escalated the call after my last post and shortly after it was back up and running. At the end ofthe day I believe that something got hosed when they were trying to update stuff and the domain pointing tool and the CGI were symptoms.
dmacminn
11-12-07, 10:30 AM
I believe I've explained this elsewhere ... but sometimes one or another symlink breaks that causes the CGI to "half-work" ... and, this does just sometimes "happen" on an account-- honest, no hands!
CGI does sometimes break when a plan renews, since the plan code may be changing (i.e. moving from a discounted first year code to the regular one plan code) -- but that happens fairly infrequently.
The domain pointing manager runs from a database -- which in this case could have had a bad record or it just simply stopped because of the CGI issue ...
Essentially, nothing scripted related works very well (if at all) when the CGI is hosed on an account....
YvetteKuhns
11-12-07, 11:51 AM
Essentially, nothing scripted related works very well (if at all) when the CGI is hosed on an account....
I hear that! I honestly rarely had problems here related to CGI, but another host restarts their CGI every month (due to problems) and breaks shopping carts! They don't have a forum and don't notify customers that they restart CGI and/or break customer websites.
While we complain when things go wrong here, at least some staff make an effort to explain and/or listen to our problems. Yes, some don't understand, but that doesn't mean they don't care. Thanks, Dmac!
entrecon
11-12-07, 12:17 PM
My frustration with this issue is that I had to wait through both the 9am and the 6pm cycle before it was escalted. Once escalted it was resolved in under an hour, but my site was down for a full day because we waited for the cycles.
What happens when all the women in Michigan get married? :) Enquiring minds.
YvetteKuhns
11-12-07, 12:46 PM
What happens when all the women in Michigan get married?
They don't all get married at the same time. After each bride gets married, most of them have children. Many children will grow up to brides. Don't worry. There is always more where they came from! ;)
And you are going to get us into trouble for going off-topic!
Funny, I was thinking that since we have a domain pointing tool, we could have a finger pointing tool. It would be nice to keep track of those things. I could use one right now! :D
entrecon, I totally appreciate your situation. I have contacted support with issues that could have taken minutes to fix only to wait weeks for resolution! Maybe after the MySQL issues are resolved, support will have time to handle other problems.
If we had more customers participating in the forum, more people would report problems and trends would be spotted much faster. The normal support strategy is to look at an individual account and assume the problem can be fixed on the client side. If enough customers reported a problem, support may suspect a server side problem.
People still need to use the SPI for faster response from admins. But the SPI needs to be changed to include more topics and if they add a text box, we could explain things better. I suggested this in the wish list a long time ago, but that hasn't been updated in a while. Things take time and we all want things to be fixed immediately.
Just remember that every time you point a finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you! (My gramma used to say that.)
I wonder how many people just pointed a finger to see if it's true. :D
entrecon
11-12-07, 02:14 PM
Doc,
You should know what happens after they get married. They get divorced and eventually get married again!
YvetteKuhns
11-12-07, 02:16 PM
My niece is dumping her husband for a Mexican! They are selling their home. I guess you are right, entrecon!
Shouldn't that be "for a Hispanic"? Political correctness and all that.
YvetteKuhns
11-12-07, 02:38 PM
He is from Mexico, so I just figured that was correct. Is Hispanic preferred over Latino? Just curious.
troycawley
11-12-07, 02:59 PM
Shouldn't that be "for a Hispanic"? Political correctness and all that.He is from Mexico, so I just figured that was correct. Is Hispanic preferred over Latino? Just curious.Hispanic is merely less specific, not "more PC". One definition (http://www.hr.msu.edu/HRsite/forms/FacultyForms/definitionsofracialethnicids): Hispanic. A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race
There is surely an aunt in Mexico lamenting: "He's marrying an American!"
As for the domain pointing tool, I had it and dropped it when Powweb started offering it for free. I fully expected the problems that you are having, but did not have them. I feel very lucky...so far. (Fingers crossed.)
PC depends on where you are in the country, Troy. Some people become offended by the slightest things.
I'd bought the domain pointing tool earlier this year because I couldn't get my .htaccess right.
YvetteKuhns
11-12-07, 03:44 PM
After I read my post, I realized that some people may have mistakenly read it as an insult. Actually, the Mexicans should be flattered that she would leave her husband for one of theirs! My cousin met her husband in Mexico and he is Mexican. Hmm...
I feel sad, because I liked her husband and he was in love with her. I didn't meet the new guy yet, but others have. I am kinda old-fashioned and believe people should take their wedding vows seriously. Our vows said that death is the only way out! Well, at least she didn't kill the poor guy.
I still have rolls of film with their wedding pictures on them that haven't been developed yet. See what you did? I got THAT on my mind. Doc started it. I am using the finger pointing tool for getting us off topic.
I didn't try the domain pointing tool yet, but since it is free now, I may try it. ;)
You're not the only one to have paid - but I'm glad I don't have to pay to renew it. I'm glad it's an included feature. :)
YvetteKuhns
11-12-07, 03:53 PM
If you paid and it saved you time and hassle, it was worth it. Don't feel bad about that! You guys proved that the tool was worthwhile to customers. You were the pioneers! (Sorry, had a flashback from college as we guinea pigs aka pioneers were the first to complete the web design program for a diploma.)
It is a worthwhile tool in it's own right. Hopefully some of the other 'stuff' that is 'Premium' rated will be 'included' in the future - hint! hint! - but until then, where's the Credit card :(
linnetwoods
11-15-07, 02:20 AM
Well if you're going down the PC route then maybe you shouldn't be talking about pointing at all because it's rude to point... perhaps it should be domain indicating...;)
YvetteKuhns
11-15-07, 10:39 AM
If pointing is rude, then I shouldn't let my son watch Saturday Night Fever. That John Travolta was pointing up and down and all around the floor! :eek: :D
Off-topic enough................................
Ciaran Wills
11-29-07, 04:21 AM
Looks like I just got bitten by this, and it's still broken.
I've had several sites running off the one account for months now. Until today, when I tried to redirect one domain to the same dir that another is serving. That hosed everything.
Live chat support didn't really help, but as far as I can work out it's this: when you use the domain pointing manager you have to make sure to reenter each mapping every time. Because when you go to the page it has everything pretty much pointing at the homedir (even though that's not the case). Change one thing and hit update and it takes all the other domains and points them at the homedir...
Disappointed that support don't know about this, but I have a ticket open and supposedly the domain pointer guy is going to be in touch with me...
Croc Hunter
11-29-07, 09:16 AM
I just pointed 4 additional domains to 4 different subdirectories and it worked ok.
I FTP created the subdirectories, did the first /htdocs/sub1/sub then the second /htdocs/sub2/ as tests..
Then pointed all four at once:
/htdocs/sub1/
/htdocs/sub2/
/htdocs/sub3/
/htdocs/sub4/
Hit Update and it stalled. Tried again and it worked.
Ciaran Wills
11-29-07, 12:34 PM
And does the domain pointing manager show you where they are pointing?
I'm trying to do blah1.com/htdocs, blah2.com/htdocs etc and it doesn't like it...
dmacminn
11-29-07, 01:09 PM
By default, all domains attached to an account point to the htdocs folder -- essentially, the htdocs folder is the only folder (together with its included subfolders) that is "supposed" to be made public/published by the webserver.
You can use the DPM to point a domain to a subdir of /htdocs as Croc notes above.
You can also do other things with an .htaccess file (instead of the DPM) , like create additional folders at the root and have an htdocs underneath them, etc.
I would try using just the "blah1/blah2" form -- omit the .com, tld extensions, etc.
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