123 Bork? Six-day DNS record-edit outage at domain name flinger 123 Reg enrages users Customers of the UK's self-professed #1 provider of domain names, GoDaddy-owned 123 Reg, have had a frustrating few days after finding DNS records disappearing from their dashboards. The issue is a nasty one as the vanishing of the records prevents users from assigning domain names to IP addresses or making edits. This is …
How is 123reg still a thing? At least once a year they have some sort of major incident and yet keep going.
Been using Namesco myself for a while, haven't had any issues and they didn't try and pull a fast one with .uk domains that I never asked for appearing in my renewal unlike some registrars.
I recently had a glimpse at a friend's 123-reg admin panel and was shocked. It looked like, if not identical, to the one I used 8 or 9 years ago. And it was terribly dated and slow back then.
Personally I always advise clients and friends to stay away from 123-reg. I always recommend Yay.com/domain-names/ for most people - it is significantly cheaper and feature-rich.
If you have more than a few domains or you want total control than I recommend becoming a registrar
From the article: Outbound domain transfers do seem to be working
a feature that is, no doubt, being used quite a bit...
I don't have either of the registrars that I use managing anything but the registered domain. The actual DNS is either done by the ISP providing the web site stuff, or by me. Bind is NOT hard.
rndc freeze
delete the transaction file for the zone
edit the zone file using your favorite text editor (pluma, ee, nano, whatever)
rndc thaw
no problem
(also need to set up the DHCP hooks for on-demand naming by DHCP clients, but that's not hard either, using isc's DHCP server)
as for the registered domain name, no problems with either verisign or godaddy. Ok maybe I pay more, but sometimes you get what you pay for.
I find myself nervously looking at fasthosts who have been * touch rigid, organic cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose based structure * pretty good for the 10+ years I've been using them in various capacities.
It does always feel like money for nothing though until they fall over like this.
Gimp icon because I'm probably going to suffer for my comments (in one form or another).
Hmm, in that case I suggest you absolutely refrain from doing a search for Fasthosts here on El Reg as you might find things are not quite as rosy as you assume:
And then in a shockingly honest update to the previous press release...
"Following a recent domain platform update that we totally couldn't be bothered to test properly before making live (because we're cheapskates), some customers were prevented from viewing or editing their DNS blah blah blah"
Every time you have an issue with $Company record the date & time the issue happened, the exact nature of the issue, & any steps you had to do to (try &) correct it. Update the file to include any email/phone contact attempts you make to resolve the issue, whom you talked to, what they said, etalia. You want to maintain a facts-only paper trail that can be used later in court if need-be.
Once you've recorded ten issues in a short amount of time (the number & span is up to you) then contact $Company with a copy of the log file to that point & ask them what they'll do to keep you as a customer. "I've had ten issues in as many months. That is unacceptable. What will you do to keep me as a customer?" If they make you a deal to discount service for a few months then calculate what the total discount would be spread across all the incidents so far -- is your time worth (more/less) than that amount? If they refuse to make it right then feel free to add that to the log file as well (after the part where you've contacted them to discuss the matter) & then post a PII-stripped copy to social media as a name-&-shame of $Company.
You can then start researching other companies with which to do business & can offer them copies of the log file as a warning example of the crap you won't put up with from them either.
It's amazing what a paper trail can do when it comes time to nailing someone's arse to a wall or defending yourself against someone else trying to nail YOURS to one.
OP here. I don't want to get banned by El Reg for flooding their servers with a text post of that size. I think the server might shite itself after the first terabyte of logs. Besides it would take too long to proofread to make sure I didn't maek ane spleling miztakes. *G*
"Maybe you could set up a website and point us to it?
123-Reg allow you to register a domain, have you tried them?"
I had occasion to create a list of four issues over a decade that took place between myself and the John Lewis Partnership (not as an employee I might add).
They subsequently banned me from all their stores (including Waitrose), Shell filling stations associated with Little Waitrose, online, forex and their relationship with HSBC (Partnership Card). Apparently not even someone who has stolen from them or assaulted their staff has ever had such an over-arching ban placed on them.
Why? Because I recorded a conversation with their outsourced call-centre ("calls may be recorded" - so I did just that) which proved that I didn't lie to them when in a store. They couldn't accept that two of their own "Partners" were caught out by my record keeping. Rather than deal with an internal matter of dishonesty, they went after me.
I have no plans to ever let them welcome me back.
I had occasion to create a list of four issues over a decade that took place between myself and the John Lewis Partnership (not as an employee I might add).
They subsequently banned me from all their stores (including Waitrose), Shell filling stations associated with Little Waitrose, online, forex and their relationship with HSBC (Partnership Card). Apparently not even someone who has stolen from them or assaulted their staff has ever had such an over-arching ban placed on them.
Why? Because I recorded a conversation with their outsourced call-centre ("calls may be recorded" - so I did just that) which proved that I didn't lie to them when in a store. They couldn't accept that two of their own "Partners" were caught out by my record keeping. Rather than deal with an internal matter of dishonesty, they went after me.
I have no plans to ever let them welcome me back.
So, no great loss then?
"Obligatory mythic beasts recommendation"
I love the Beta Service message at the top of this page.
"The company told those still wondering just where in blue blazes the functionality they were paying for..."
I haven't used 123 reg for about 5 years, but I suspect the dashboard looks the same and no, you're not paying for DNS - it's included.
Its 2020, if you're running a business using their DNS - jeez.
I have posted on here MANY times in the past about my lack of confidence in 123-reg. After them losing my website, email and everything to do with my hosting a couple of years ago, I left. They restored from a backup but it was too-little, too late. They wanted to retain my business and offered me a year free hosting (realistically a year more incompetence) so said no-thanks. Not had a problem of note since, and have had better customer service with the hosting companies I have used since. I am with ZEN now, and they have been brilliant. I really can't believe that 123 are still in business. Anything so important as a website or email shouldn't be trusted to these guys.
This is still going on after 10 days! Two domains from one client affected - one fixed after 8 days and numerous ticket requests, but the other one is still inaccessible and claims the domain is not in the account despite having to first select it from their pre-populated list of domains in the account. Looks like I'm going to have to reschedule their email system migration for the second week running. I will be recommending that the client removes their domains as soon as this is over. Appalling incompetence from 123-Reg.
I'm still having issues with all 3 of the 123-reg accounts I manage for customers, so it doesn't appear to be very isolated. I'm having "the domain isn't in your account issue" which has been the same error all along.
They have offered to update DNS records if I send details on a ticket, not very good when you are trying to moving hosting provider (away from godaddy) for all your domains. They haven't responded to my request to cover my additional hosting costs, or any costs associated with moving to a provider who can actually provide a working service.
On the plus side, I've been looking around and it seems that I can save £1.50 per domain renewal by moving to namecheap - anyone got experience of them for DNS?
Bunch of clowns.
Additionally it looks like the issue persisted after they reported it fixed. After we got the all clear we made a variety of DNS updates, none of which applied after 24 hours and thus resulted in an additional support case. All of these changes appear to have been rolled back this morning along with a email claiming that maybe we didn't make the changes. So now not only are they so incompetent that they can't run a DNS service, but they're willing to blatantly gaslight their own customers.
Further to this my client still cannot access the DNS control panel for one domain where we are waiting to install a new server, despite the ticket supposedly being escalated two days ago, and we now discover that the lack of mail on another domain for two days is because their "Major update" made on Monday to fix the DNS control panel issue had actually reverted the nameserver settings to the ones for a previous host that were changed over a month ago!!
Believe it or not, this is still broken for one of our domains after 23 days. We get a popup saying that the domain isn't available on the account. 123-reg have been making DNS changes for us, via our original ticket, but it requires a follow-up 20-minute-in-hold telephone call to get them actioned in any sort of timely fashion. At one point after a lovely message apologising for the inconvenience and asking if there was anything else they could do to help I requested another DNS change. That was ignored for about a week before I followed up. Then they closed the ticket with the original issue of borked DNS management still outstanding. The last change they made they did incorrectly and I'm still waiting for it to be corrected.
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