DNS Transfer In Progress - UPDATE: neoarkcradle.net WORKS!

[Arynis]

Hi everyone!

I've been getting reports that the site cannot be accessed or that it has been down a lot lately.

The site has been up all along, however, our former URL, http://neoarkcradle.net or http://neoarkcradle.net/forum/ won't work until the DNS transfer finishes.

You could formerly access the current forum from the above URL because the site had a redirect to this location, but now that the DNS transfer is underway, the domain no longer points to said redirect, meaning the site would appear as if it was down.

Short Version: The DNS Transfer will finish in a few days, please access the forum from http://188.166.126.212/forum in the meantime.

Technical explanation on the situation below, if you're interested.

What is a DNS transfer, and why did we need it?

First of all, DNS stands for Domain Name System: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Domain_Name_System

In our case, neoarkcradle.net is our domain to make our site easier to remember and accessible over our IP address, which is http://188.166.126.212/ .

Shadowfang explains:

The DNS is a lookup table where your TCP/IP stack goes to ask "soooo... where is this neoarkcradle.net?" and it will answer 188.blabla
And then your IP protocol will try to ask your router to provide a route to that host with the least amount of hops.

Regarding hops, basically you're transferred from computer to computer until you're directed to your destination.

So what's the DNS Transfer about?

Now, we have needed a DNS transfer because we have moved hosts, but our domain was still pointing to our old location, which no longer applies. Ergo, we needed to transfer it so we can keep using neoarkcradle.net with our current host/location.

Shadowfang explains:

First we inform our old registrar to unlock. Then we inform the new registrar we want to transfer.
Then the new registrar asks for a code. Then we ask the code from the old registrar. Then we give the code to the new registrar, which starts the transfer.
Then both registrars send an email to the registered domain admin email address, to ask for confirmation of the transfer.
Then the old registrar removes the A-record from their name servers and we add the A-record to the new registrar's DNS.
The A-record is a piece of text that says "neoarkcradle.net = 188.blabla"
The process of DNS update is one of thousands of servers telling eachother there was a change. And that takes a while for all of them to get the message. Think of it as one of those emergency call lists. Person A calls B and C. Person B calls D and E and Person C call F and G... ad infinitum.
If you're lucky, your ISP uses person A and you see the change within nanosecs. If you are not and your ISP uses person ZZZZZ, it might take 24h.

Since the transfer is already underway, the ETA for the process to fully finish is a few days as most. Once it's finished, you'll be able to access neoarkcradle.net as before.

Also, don't worry about links containing our IP address instead of neoarkcradle.net (such as in forum posts), they will not break - after all, neoarkcradle.net is just a fancy cover for http://188.166.126.212/, our real address.

So there you go, hopefully this explanation helps clear up the confusion.

[Arynis]

Update: The DNS transfer is complete! You can access the forum from http://neoarkcradle.net/forum just like before.

Edit: In case the regular URL still doesn't work, it's likely the DNS change hasn't reached your ISP yet as described above. Try using http://188.166.126.212/forum instead until then. Eventually, everyone should be able to access the website from its regular URL.

[a-hole]

The neoarkcradle.net thing still doesn't work, and the site's actin' REALLY screwy. :/

[Shadowfang]

If you go to http://188.166.126.212/forum and the forum is missing pictures and color and looks like something out of an 80s movie, it is because your ISP has not quite updated its DNS (although it should have, contract states 24h).

Our pictures and styles are already being loaded from http://neoarkcradle.net, but the rest of the content is coming from whatever address is in your address bar.

It looks really ugly, but this will go away by itself in a bit.

Love,

Shadow

[Metamorphosis]

This is weired. I can't log in from 188.166.126.212 (it says I just logged in, but I'm still a guest), but I can log in from neoarkcradle.net.

[Arynis]

Reverted board URL in the ACP settings (this is for links such as the banner at the top) to http://188.166.126.212 until the DNS issue resolves everywhere.

[a-hole]

YAY everything looks normal againz!

[Blue-Eyes White Wanderer]

This is weired. I can't log in from 188.166.126.212 (it says I just logged in, but I'm still a guest), but I can log in from neoarkcradle.net.

I'm having the opposite problem actually. I can't log in from neoarkcradle.net. It keeps saying that I'm a guest every time, but I can log in from 188.166.126.212 just fine.

On the bright side, the email notifications for my thread subscriptions finally started. I've been kind of missing those after the move, so it was nice to get those back.

[Takibi]

I've noticed that if I log in from NAC it might redirect me to 188.166.126.212 or vise versa and it will look like I'm logged out. But if I manually change the URL to the one that I logged in from, then it works. I also noticed that I'm now getting emails for PMs and subscriptions, so yay for those!!

[Lia]

This is weired. I can't log in from 188.166.126.212 (it says I just logged in, but I'm still a guest), but I can log in from neoarkcradle.net.

I'm having the opposite problem actually. I can't log in from neoarkcradle.net. It keeps saying that I'm a guest every time, but I can log in from 188.166.126.212 just fine.

Same problem as Blue. A guest in neoarkcradle.net and successfully logging in from 188.166.126.212. It's OK for me as long as I'm logging in from at least one of the places.

[ethanwhipps43]

also noticed that

[ebrietas]

Yeah...normally, I have it set so that I'm logged in as soon as I enter the forum's URL, but within the last two days, I'm logged out when I come here. And when I first log in, it still says I'm a Guest, but when I refresh the page, I'm logged in. This is while I'm coming in the neoarkcradle URL. I have not tested the IP URL, although I am noting now that it has the IP URL on this page instead of neoarkcradle.

[Arynis]

It's defaulting to the IP address at the moment because it was apparent that the DNS refresh hadn't finalized for people yet. As a result, I set it back for consistency so everyone can access the forum rather than some can via neoarkcradle.net, others cannot because of the unfinished DNS refreshes. So even if you come from neoarkcradle.net, you'll be most likely on the IP address because I set the forum to use that as the default addy.

I suppose I can set it back to neoarkcradle.net by now since it's been days since the transfer's finalizing, so I'll do so tomorrow.

Also, Shadowfang is on a holiday at the moment, so I'll try my best to answer any questions or concerns (and hope the forum doesn't kick the bucket in the meantime due to unforeseen issues). However, this also means no major updates to the forum will be done (e.g., smileys) because I don't have the access to manage those. So please hang in there a little longer.

[Arynis]

Ergh, actually one day late because I've been incredibly scatterbrained by stuff, but changed the board URL to neoarkcradle.net. Everyone should be on the regular address now and not the IP one, and hopefully working everywhere as well.

As for the neoarkcradle.net/IP login issue mentioned above, I'd imagine it's tied to your cookie/session because it's probably recorded separately for the IP address and the proper address, and the website can't make the distinction. For example, if you log in on the IP address and then go to neoarkcradle.net, you'd only have the cookie for the IP address log in, so you wouldn't be recognized as a logged in member.

I could be wrong though, maybe Shadowfang will correct me later on. But if I had to make a guess why it happened, it's probably because of cookies.

[Lia]

I'm successfully logging in from neoarkcradle.net. I seem to stay logged in after few experimental page reloads, so I consider the problem solved for now. Thank you for the hard work, Ary.

[Arynis]

Well, the DNS transfer was performed by Shadowfang, so the thanks should go to him, not me. ^^; Besides, the rest is sorted out by the Internet and ISPs themselves. (Getting the domain up to date so nobody gets 404 for neoarkcradle.net anymore, etc.)

[Lia]

Big thanks to you, Shadow, Ark and everyone who worked on this, then!

[Blue-Eyes White Wanderer]

I'm back on neoarkcradle.net as well. I'm not sure if it was automatic since at one point I had to log in again when I tried to access my profile, but it seems to be working for me too. Thanks so much to Shadow, Arynis and all the staff members that have been working so hard on the updated forms.

[ebrietas]

It works now. Thank you guys so much.

[Kahun]

Server date's still like 4 days in advance.

Edit: Nvm, didn't realize the user CP settings were screwy.