Mail Unavailable . .

[marie b.]

My mail has been inaccessible through Thunderbird, after my site went down and came back online approximately an hour later.

 

I can access it through Cpanel with no problems, but Thunderbird spits errors like crazy.

 

I have two domains -- uniquelyalike and odd-socks -- set up on Thunderbird, but only uniquelyalike gives me errors.

 

(I've deleted and re-added the accounts multiple times. Changed settings and changed them back. Emailed Technical Support and they sent me here.)

 

Any ideas?

[TweezerMan]

What kind of errors are you seeing?

[marie b.]

"Failed to connect to mail.uniquelyalike.com"

 

I sent an email to Technical Support and they told me that they couldn't help (?), so I don't know if anyone else can.

[TCH-Rick]

I'm getting conflicting results when trying to do a Whois search on that domain. I checked and the domain is resolving correctly on our nameservers but it looks like there could be a problem at your domain registrar. It is not due to expire for 10 more days but acts like they have disabled it. You should contact them and check.

[marie b.]

I checked and the domain is resolving correctly on our nameservers but it looks like there could be a problem at your domain registrar. It is not due to expire for 10 more days but acts like they have disabled it. You should contact them and check.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm actually switching registrars - from namecheap to networksolutions. I hadn't attempted to yet, so I've no idea why namecheap are wonking things up for me.

 

Luckily, I can remove the registrar lock myself so the process can speed up a bit.

[TweezerMan]

I'll second the opinion that it appears to be a domain problem. I could not verify that the DNS record for uniquelyalike.com actually has an MX record (mail server record).

 

I also did a couple of e-mail tests from dnsstuff.com:

Getting MX record for mail.uniquelyalike.com (from local DNS server, may be cached)...  Received an NXDOMAIN response.

 

This means that the mail.uniquelyalike.com domain does not exist!  No mail can be sent to it.

Getting MX record for uniquelyalike.com (from local DNS server, may be cached)...  Received an NXDOMAIN response.

 

This means that the uniquelyalike.com domain does not exist!  No mail can be sent to it.

[marie b.]

Ok, that's just odd.

 

Uniquelyalike does exist - I'm posting on it now, actually.

 

I'm so confused.

[TCH-Rick]

Your ISP probably has the IP cached so you are able to access it to some extent. I ran a check at http://www.mob.net/~ted/tools/dns.php3?domain=uniquelyalike.com and it is not resolving at most of the nameservers.

[marie b.]

I just posted a blog post, so there's something wonky going on somewhere - my boyfriend is trying to access it on other desktop connected to the wireless network and he can't.

[TweezerMan]

I'm actually switching registrars - from namecheap to networksolutions. I hadn't attempted to yet, so I've no idea why namecheap are wonking things up for me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

uniquelyalike.com currently doesn't resolve for me - I'm getting this in my browser at the moment:

www.uniquelyalike.com could not be found.  Please check the name and try again.

And if I try to look up uniquelyalike.com with WinXP's nslookup command, I get this response:

... can't find uniquelyalike.com: Non-existent domain

[TCH-Don]

It will not resolve for me also.

[marie b.]

Ok, this is seriously starting to bother me now.

 

Only two people so far have been able to access the site perfectly - myself and a friend from Ireland. Other than that, no-one can - not even my boyfriend on the same network as I am, so it isn't a cache or ISP issue.

 

I only changed my domain to my ownership two days ago - it was registered under a friend's name, as he'd bought it for me. An hour ago, I initiated the transfer to another registrar.

 

This afternoon, my site was down for an hour or. Now my mail is down, and people are receiving messages that my domain doesn't exist at all.

 

[TCH-Rick]

Only two people so far have been able to access the site perfectly - myself and a friend from Ireland. Other than that, no-one can - not even my boyfriend on the same network as I am, so it isn't a cache or ISP issue.

 

This isn't necessarilly true. Even within the same ISP there are multiple DNS so you could connect to one while someone else could connect to another and they would have different information. Your computer may have the IP cached so that would explain why you are able to view it while someone else is not. I can't see it at all using the domain but can see it using the IP.

 

The server has not been down so the problem earlier was likely a glitch in the routing or a problem from the ISP.

 

There is something flaky going on with the registrar. It could have something to do with the transfer but it looks to me like someone there messed up something. I have doublechecked the DNS on our end and it is all set up correctly.

[TCH-Bruce]

On your uniquelyalike domain I am getting this when I do a whois.

 

Status: Active

 

Name Servers:

 

 

Creation date: 23 Jun 2004 19:32:01

Expiration date: 23 Jun 2005 19:32:01

 

There are no nameservers listed for the domain at Namecheap.

[TweezerMan]

There are no nameservers listed for the domain at Namecheap.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That would do it!

[marie b.]

That's odd .. I whoised uniquelyalike while my friend was transferring it, and nameservers were listed.

 

I've no idea how to fix all of this.

[TCH-Don]

Go to the cp at namecheap and reset the dns

[TCH-Bruce]

You will need to login at Namecheap and put the nameservers that were in your welcome email back in.

[marie b.]

I went to do that in the first instance, and they were there. I logged in earlier and they weren't there, and I just logged back in to add them and they were there again.

 

Gah!

[marie b.]

And now it's working perfectly fine again. Sigh.

 

Thanks, everyone. I wish I knew what exactly namecheap was up to, deleting and re-adding the nameservers like that.

 

I feel stupid, and more than a little angry.

 

[TCH-Don]

http://www.uniquelyalike.com/

works

but not

http://uniquelyalike.com/

[marie b.]

Both are working here. .

[TweezerMan]

And now it's working perfectly fine again. Sigh.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I take it that means Thunderbird is now working okay?

 

Thanks, everyone. I wish I knew what exactly namecheap was up to, deleting and re-adding the nameservers like that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd chalk it up to a bad Monday - one reason why I hate Mondays!!

 

I feel stupid, and more than a little angry. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please don't feel stupid - your e-mail program quit working, you asked your TCH family for help, and ultimately you found out what the real problem was. Nothing wrong with that!

 

Both uniquelyalike.com and www.uniquelyalike.com both resolve for me now.

[marie b.]

Yup, Thunderbird is working perfectly.

 

I feel stupid because I've lost all of the emails that I had stored in Thunderbird, and some were emails that needed replies - more important than comments, I mean.

 

Valid reason for feeling stupid, I guess.

[TCH-Don]

Now both urls are working

[TCH-Bruce]

Yep, working here too.

[TCH-Thomas]

Yup, Thunderbird is working perfectly.

 

I feel stupid because I've lost all of the emails that I had stored in Thunderbird, and some were emails that needed replies - more important than comments, I mean.

 

Valid reason for feeling stupid, I guess.

I haven´t tried Mozbackup when it comes to thunderbird but I do know that it works great for backing up firefox and the site says it will back up emails too in thunderbird. Might be worth checking out.

[marie b.]

I saw that while I was frantically looking for ways to get my emails back, but I gave up since I was so miffed.

 

Thanks, I'll give it a look over.