What the DNS is happening with my new website?
October 18, 2023 11:02 AM Subscribe
Who can I pay to help me fix the setup of my website, and how/where do I find them? I believe I understand what the problem is (a CNAME error), but I would like to throw money at it rather than continue to procrastinate.
Context about my comfort with tech: In another life, I created & maintained medium size websites by hand writing html & css on the command line. I FTP'ed files back and forth. Later, I designed large-scale websites for healthcare systems, including everything from digital strategy to content strategy to interaction design. Believe it or not, I also used to be a Unix sysadmin for a library system. None of that prepared me for the push-button, idiot-proof creation and publishing of personal websites today. Please help this Gen X otherwise relatively tech-savvy person fix what I believe is a simple error related to the CNAME in the DNS settings. I can feel myself aging by the minute.
1. I have a Squarespace site that I have designed and created content for. I have a paid plan. I hit the "publish" button.
2. I've owned my domain, purchased via Network Solutions, for more than 10 years. Finally decided to put something on it.
3. I followed instructions on both sites for redirecting my Squarespace site to my already owned domain.
4. It didn't work. So I called Network Solutions. Lovely people, truly. I gave him everything the Squarespace guide told me I needed. The guy seemed to think all was well and reassuringly told me it would be 48 hours to 1 week before the DNS propagated, and that if I had problems then, I should call back.
5. That was mid-August. The Squarespace site is still not showing on the NS-managed domain.
I can see from looking in Squarespace DNS settings there's a problem with the CNAME, because it's highlighted in red.
I have reached the limit of my patience and capacity to care about the details. I don't want to continue troubleshooting this myself. I just want my website to show up asap, and I'm willing to throw money at this problem. How can I find someone to delegate this to? Is this a Task Rabbit thing?
1. I have a Squarespace site that I have designed and created content for. I have a paid plan. I hit the "publish" button.
2. I've owned my domain, purchased via Network Solutions, for more than 10 years. Finally decided to put something on it.
3. I followed instructions on both sites for redirecting my Squarespace site to my already owned domain.
4. It didn't work. So I called Network Solutions. Lovely people, truly. I gave him everything the Squarespace guide told me I needed. The guy seemed to think all was well and reassuringly told me it would be 48 hours to 1 week before the DNS propagated, and that if I had problems then, I should call back.
5. That was mid-August. The Squarespace site is still not showing on the NS-managed domain.
I can see from looking in Squarespace DNS settings there's a problem with the CNAME, because it's highlighted in red.
I have reached the limit of my patience and capacity to care about the details. I don't want to continue troubleshooting this myself. I just want my website to show up asap, and I'm willing to throw money at this problem. How can I find someone to delegate this to? Is this a Task Rabbit thing?
Best answer: There is little new in the world of CNAMEs over the past couple of decades, so either the CNAME has been entered incorrectly in DNS, or Squarespace is not correctly configured for the appropriate CNAME. Without knowing the specific domain, it's hard for us to troubleshoot. Feel free to MeMail the specific info?
posted by eschatfische at 11:29 AM on October 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eschatfische at 11:29 AM on October 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I too feel like the collective wisdom of mefi can probably help here with a few more details, if yore willing to share. You can always pretend your domain is example.com if you dont want to share that exact website.
What are your name servers on network solutions set to? What are your DNS settings on squarespace?
posted by cgg at 2:13 PM on October 18, 2023
What are your name servers on network solutions set to? What are your DNS settings on squarespace?
posted by cgg at 2:13 PM on October 18, 2023
Response by poster: Y'all are so kind. I have also memailed eschatfische just this minute, but I'm so impatient. I don't remember from the late 90s how all of this works.
On Squarespace, the DNS table entry for www looks like this [fake IP address]
www CNAME ext-cust.squarespace.com 999.99.999.27
...and the last row of the table looks like this
@ A [blank] 999.99.999.27
And that IP address is red in both places in the DNS settings on Squarespace. It's the only red in the whole DNS table. Everything else in that column on ("Current Data") is green and says "Record found"
On the Network Solutions side:
There is no www host entry for CNAME. The actual "Name" (NS) or "Host" (SS) for the corresponding CNAME listing--the long string of random letters & numbers--definitely is the same in both places.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 3:05 PM on October 18, 2023
On Squarespace, the DNS table entry for www looks like this [fake IP address]
www CNAME ext-cust.squarespace.com 999.99.999.27
...and the last row of the table looks like this
@ A [blank] 999.99.999.27
And that IP address is red in both places in the DNS settings on Squarespace. It's the only red in the whole DNS table. Everything else in that column on ("Current Data") is green and says "Record found"
On the Network Solutions side:
There is no www host entry for CNAME. The actual "Name" (NS) or "Host" (SS) for the corresponding CNAME listing--the long string of random letters & numbers--definitely is the same in both places.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 3:05 PM on October 18, 2023
Best answer: It looks like you need 2 CNAMEs to connect a domain to a Squarespace site. One is for verification & one is for the domain. Do you have both of them?
posted by belladonna at 3:10 PM on October 18, 2023
posted by belladonna at 3:10 PM on October 18, 2023
Response by poster: It looks like you need 2 CNAMEs to connect a domain to a Squarespace site. One is for verification & one is for the domain. Do you have both of them?
Yes, I have two CNAME entries. But the problem is with the IP address used for one of them, as eschatfische has confirmed via memail. But I couldn't answer additional troubleshooting questions. My grasp of the details is very thin.
I'm considering posting this on the MeFi Jobs site for $100. Does this seem reasonable?
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:05 PM on October 18, 2023
Yes, I have two CNAME entries. But the problem is with the IP address used for one of them, as eschatfische has confirmed via memail. But I couldn't answer additional troubleshooting questions. My grasp of the details is very thin.
I'm considering posting this on the MeFi Jobs site for $100. Does this seem reasonable?
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:05 PM on October 18, 2023
Best answer: If belladonna or eschatfische can't get you sorted, me-mail me and I should be able to.
posted by jferg at 9:02 PM on October 18, 2023
posted by jferg at 9:02 PM on October 18, 2023
Response by poster: Thanks to eschatfische and belladonna's help, this is resolved. It was a missing CNAME record, for www, on the Network Solutions side. It immediately propagated to at least some servers, because I'm able to see the site. Huzzah!
Metafilter is a gem populated by kind people. Thank you all for your generosity, in the thread and in memail. <3
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 7:47 AM on October 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
Metafilter is a gem populated by kind people. Thank you all for your generosity, in the thread and in memail. <3
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 7:47 AM on October 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 11:05 AM on October 18, 2023 [3 favorites]