Register.com suffers DNS problems

I had a completely different experience with their tech support. I called in, was on hold forever, but eventually the person told me that this was effecting a lot of register.com customers, and that they were working on it.

The outage affected a few of my customers. I emailed them about it and they admitted to a problem. Their response is below:

"Thank you for contacting Register.com.

Yarmouth Office is experiencing severe network latency. All investigations currently point to a general overall latency from a external source to the company. Ops, Yarmouth IT, Eastlink, and etc are continuing to investigate this issue

The current outage affects all domain names on our DNS Servers.
Site access issues will be intermittent."

So it does appear there was a problem. I assumed it was a DDOS issue, but there was no mention of it in the news anywhere. This site is the only place I found any information on it at all.

Well it seems their DNS servers are down AGAIN as of 12:43 PM 4/2/09.
When this happens we lose email, websites, FTP, the whole deal. If this happens 1 more time I'm moving all of our domains to someone else, and trust me that's a hell of a lot of domains.

Support is giving the reason as a "denial of service" issue. Our mail is down, and 2000+ customers who connect to our real time services are down causing them to lose sales and data which we DB host offsite.

Basically our company is crashed. I wouldnt be surprised to see some lawsuits.

The "humor" is if you go to their website (when its not down) they have no mention of the outage but they have in big blue bold lettering "100% uptime guaranteed, when 99% is just not enough"

Yep, I can confirm Register.com is having further problems as of 20:00 GMT.

I can't resolve any of my Register.com domains.

Dean Pullen (original author).

Just got off the phone with register.com. They confirmed that their site is down as is the DNS for ALL of their customers who use their DNS servers for their domains. They had no ETA on a resolution, just that a "team" was working on it.

This is the only article returned on Goggle News regarding this huge problem... kudos to Mr. Pullen.
If the register.com website were not unreachable, I'd be moving my domain business elsewhere right now. 100% uptime indeed...

Register.com customer support number 1-877-796-9230

Confirmed. We've experienced over 2 days of outages due to this, and Register has given absolutely no info regarding a RFO. I know they're scrambling, but where's the customer service?

wish they would get their stuff together! We need our customers to be able to access our site!

They have admitted that their servers are down. This is a significant issue and was admitted to be on their end. We're done with register.com at this point (moving all of our names to Network Solutions). It's 2009 and this type of stuff is completely amateur.

Email servers down too.
Can't even browse mailadmin.register.com

We pay allot to have a secure system
Up and running perfect...
This is not right...
We need a free year...35 dollars

Great, another expense: N+1 Domain Registration

My major complaint is register.com blatently lied and denied a problem existed when its clear there was HUGE problem. I hung up from tech support VERY unhappy but before their whole service died I was lucky - I managed to move our DNS over to another provider just in time for the majority of our clients so 80% of our service is still running. From this experience they have lost our biz ..and it was a LOT of biz. Truly unreal how they can treat their customers like that. Why isnt there anything else on this on the Internet ?

I called register.com tonight. They told me that they are getting hit with a denial of service attack, and started to tell me what that is.. they said that the names should be resolving in a few hours. I wonder if conflicker has anything to do with it. The person i talked to had no idea.

I called them at 8:30 pm. They said the servers would be up and running in a few hours. Needless to say, this is ridiculous.

They are always having problems. I use them for business purposes and now my clients are telling me their e-mails are bouncing back. This is just another string of continued problems. I called tech support, was on hold, and after waiting got a message that no techs were available. Could they not have noted that in the beginning!!! I need to find another company but want to take my domain name. I am soooo unhappy with their service and right now just steaming.

I have my company through Register.com and my site went down all the way tonight and when I called them they said that they were attacked by a malicious means and it began yesterday. He said they didn't know if it was the April fools day virus, or what but they thought it was gone yesterday so took no further measures and it resurfaced today. He stated that they voluntarily took down all sites to protect customer banking information, site content, etc and they have no clue when it could be back up and functional. I was supposed to have 4 clients registering with my sight tonight/tomorrow and we are not talking about $4,000+ in losses - do they give a damn - NO. All they can say is we are sorry for any inconvenience. Register.com sucks!!!!! Do they not have anti-virus software??????

I just found out the domain name of my client can't be resolved. I've tried to see what's going on and I've got to do a whhois lookup. Now not even www.register.com resolves!!!!!!!!

Try it and it's going to take you nowhere.

http://twitter.com/register_com

We experienced a DDoS attack today- all customer sites/services have been restored; we continue to have intermittent outages on our website

------------------------------------
you can follow at the above address

Still no response from www.register.com as of 08:30 GMT April 3, 2009

Hope this gets fixed soon.

Good luck to everyone else pulling their hair out.

NT

Inq +1
Reg -1 FAIL

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/01/ultradns_ddos/comments/

who going to cover my losses,site being down.www.tibetangoji.ca

Register.com and got the same runaround as yesterday.

They have the resources to call and fax incessantly reminding me about their renewal premiums, but not to fix this problem.

I'm done with them

You are the only news organization reporting on this matter, which is affecting so many small businesses and individuals.

Congratulation. And please keep trying to help us get some answers -- especially since the company seems more interested in hiding than helping.

I was able to log into my account on register.com and change my domain's name servers to another provider, even though "register.com" is not resolving. To do this, you can tell your workstation how to resolve register.com.

On a Mac, add these lines to /etc/hosts:
216.21.239.101 register.com
216.21.239.101 www.register.com
On windows there is a similar file buried here I believe:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

After telling your local computer how to resolve the domain name you should be able to hit register.com in a browser, log in, and change the name servers for your domains.

all of my websites, email service and backend has been down since yesterday at 2pm est. I was on hold for over an hour only to get a support person at register.com to tell me they are trying to find out what the issue is and fix it! They tell me their IT dept is working on resolving the issues. I asked what issues and she hadn't a clue! I asked if this has ever happened before and she said no, not sure if I believe her. This is so frustrating for a small business owner trying to stay afloat in this economy!!!

My company email and website have errors and google tells me that my website and register.com links are "broken" - not something someone who was laid off and started a new business online needs to see. I called them this morning 1-866-507-1946 and was on hold for a long time, the woman told me they have been down since Wednesday, got it up and running for only a few hours in between, and will hopefully have it back up within the next few hours. I can also call back later when they might have a better timeframe to tell me. Does this happen with them often?

This is so unaccepable. They are still down and there isn't even a message on their phone indicating any problem. I AM SO MAD!

I first noticed register.com's problem last night while trying to check email. Kept getting a google page referring to my site, but no direct access. Called "customer support" and listened to some jazz for nearly a half hour - but no live human help.

Checked my personal email and read a message from their vp/gm of web development owning up to "a" problem, but nothing really specific.

At last check, still couldn't get into my email, nor my sites.

I'm done with them.

My site and email access went down yesterday... still offline. Email is accessable via sprint? go figure... further - thought the problem was w/ TWC b/c they had access to my s@#t and I did not... at one point I could still log onto register.com but not my domainname.com or mail.mydomainname.com... seems to be a ping attack where the server is blocking people trying to access b/c of false ip pings... who knows - i am not a techi and just wish they would fix it!

Because of moving our offices, I had to make some changes to DNS at Register.com on April 1. I had been in all day off and on with no problems. Around 5:30 CST I started getting kicked out. Since we had been having other issues because of our ISP, I at first thought the problem was elsewhere. Because the changes had to be made, I called Register.com's support number at 6:30 CST. The young woman I talked to told me that there was at least a 15 minute wait for tech support, that the servers were indeed having problems, and that all their techs were working franticly to solve the problem. She said she had been flooded with other calls from desparate clients, and that they were doing everything they could do to find the cause of the problem and fix it.
This was actually quite refreshing after the last 2 months of dealing with our ISP and our co-location providers, who answered the phone promptly, gave me immediate answers, and were always wrong. They have lied and schemed to get our business, even if it put us out of business because or their incompetence. Maybe Register.com decided to start stonewalling after I talked to them. We used work arounds yesterday, I got the changes made, and everything seems fine so far today. Does anyone have a DNS registrar that they can garantee will not have any of this kind of problem and also provide better customer service, I might consider changing.

hey theinquirer.net...you don't seem to have a problem. Where are you DNS server?

Thank you for your post David..I was able to log in and update over 10 of my domains to a new DNS server and they are now all up! But I just tried to get back in to update one I missed and my machine will no longer resolve with that IP info. Maybe Register.com saw everyone logging in to change their DNS server or possibly changing to a new registrar all together and decided to change their IP so no one else can change :-(

Does anyone know if register.com allows for automatic zone file pulls from another, secondary dns server? I tried to get onto their web site and it is down (12:25pm, est).

So much for 100% up time. Looks like their servers are down again. Looks we'll be moving registrar at this rate.

I can't even get to register.com to see what is going on with my domain.

I have my new business sites down still, and I'm amazed that this isn't a much larger story in the press?? I would think that the scope of this outage is very large, and the impact on thousands of customers is huge.

Looks to be still down at 1:30 on the 3rd

Register.com has a major problem. Where is the redundancy and security in their systems? I am very disappointed.

third day in a row that this is down-yet i still keep getting emails from them to renew my account-what a joke. they should be giving all of us a free year at least.

David, thanks for your help, I'm moving all my DNS.

I can't believe it's taking them so long to fix this!

As of today, I still can't access either of my sites and can't get a live person to take my call. I thought they received the JD Power & Associates award for customer service? What's up?

I just got off tech support at 11:25 PST - they still cannot give an eta when their dns servers will be fixed. she said it would be a slow repair process! i hope they didn't lose my data.

Register.com is having major DNS issues. I can't even access their own site to transfer my domain.

Can someone please post a possible way for us to move our domain to another company, we are suffering major economic damages !!! No orders ! Customers getting pissed off.

Register.com Under Attack: ISP 100% Guarantee Worthless, by Kirby Sommers
April 3, 2009

Register.com has been "under attack" for the last three days -- meaning small and medium sized business owners like myself are losing money hand over fist.

When I first called their customer service center and was kept on the phone for more than two hours on April 1st, I was offered $10 (!!!) to compensate for what I originally believed was a $1,200/day loss of business.

When it happened again the following day I got madder than mad and hunted down the CEO, Larry Kutcher at their New York City headquarters. The call was taken by his assistant, Sandy, who told me verbatim: "I am not going to lie to you. We are under attack." She then put my call through to Mr. Kutcher's voicemail.

To his credit, Mr. Kutcher returned my call, however, did not speak with me directly. No mention was made by him on the message he left to indicate that his company was going to compensate me for my loses...let alone for the thousands of small to medium sized companies that have also been impacted by this fiasco.

Register's latest advertising push has been geared to customers like myself. People who own their businesses and rely on their websites for sales. During this difficult economic time, my business is geared at helping people save money. Not only have I been impacted as a small business owner, but potential clients who look to my money saving services such as purchasing landlord data (Landlord Links: http://kirbysommers.com) or cheap movie tickets (MovieStub.net) are also on the losing end.

I called Mr. Kutcher again today and once again got Sandy on the line. Once again, she told me they were "under attack". She further claimed their CTO is "on it." Once again my call was forwarded to Larry Kutcher's voicemail. Once again I left my complaint. My businesses, my good name, the reputation I have spent a lifetime building is taken a huge blow. I may very well be put out of business by the very people who promised "100% commitment because 99% isn't enough".

-by Kirby Sommers

Have we come to this then, that we expect and demand absolute perfection in everything? Jesus...

I wonder if your customers can't live for a few days and that your rock solid businesses will survive for a few hours sans internet access.

If the power goes down for a few hours you must be contemplating suicide.

Take the afternoon off, chill out and deal with it when it all comes back.

If you are looking for a server that will never have a problem, good luck with that.

It gets worse.

I got an email, ostensibly from
Jason Cassidy VP, GM Website Solutions
with a customer service phone # at the bottom...call that and you get another 800 number...for a porn service.

Lovely.

Hey! I don't understand this bit of info from David:

On windows there is a similar file buried here I believe:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

What do I do with that?

I need my site up ASAP! It's crucial!

Someone please help! Thank you!

po'd,

changing the hosts file lets you access www.register.com, but it can't fix the problem of other people not able to access your website.

president,

are you serious? porn site? I'm on the phone to request authorization code to transfer out of register.com now...

Does not exist, if you are a Pizza Shop, and the power goes out because someone vandalized it, do you sue the power company? No, that’s life, no power company has 100% up time, and neither does any registrar. If they tell you they do, they are lying.

For your help http://twitter.com/register_com

What is a DoS attack?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

I am not losing thousands of dollars like one poster, but, from what I understand, it's not like they did something to cause it, it's a malicious attack.

Our site, http://www.InkRepublic.com has been affected by this dns problem for 2 days...... no website, no email. We called register.com these two days, support guys are nice, but they always told us to wait couple hours... which has been....2 days.

the register.com live chat support is down too. no dns, no human readable url :(

we cant believe register.com has no backup dns server, or should register's clients like us, need to get a secondary dns by our own. We have been so loyal to Register for 10 years, and have been in Continuouse Ink System industry for so long and have been recognized as the best CIS and 3rd party ink provider, cant believe the DNS would damage our business and reputation like that. Now we have no way to reach clients nor to receive mails/orders from clients.

InkRepublic Team
inkrepublic@gmail.com

HOW DO I CHANGE THE HOST FILE???

I DON'T UNDERSTAND. PLEASE EXPLAIN!

THANK YOU!!!

po'd, changing host name ip will only let your local computer links to your website/webserver. Other of your clients still do not understand what your ip address is if there is no domain name server (dns) in between.

For example, if you go to our website: a href="http://www.inkrepublic.com" you cannot go there now, but if you go to our web server directly by using ip address, for example:
http://202.160.121.40/

If you link inkrepublic.com and 202.160.121.40 together in your host file, you then do not have to worry about the ip address, your host file will translate the ip address from the domain name you give it.

This is the similar concept to DNS. DNS maintains all ip address and domain name, and does the translating job for you so we all do not have memorize the ip address but readable domain name.

InkRepublic Web Team
http://www.InkRepublic.com
inkrepublic@gmail.com

It appears they are down again, which makes 3 days in a row now.

I want to change my host file so I can access register.com and transfer my domain to another registrar!

How do I do that???

I need my site up NOW!

Ok, well it's working again...

Not sure what to do now...

Three days running
interrupted access to all email
NOT WORKING HERE IN SW ENGLAND
P L E A S E Register.com
GET IT TOGETHER!
And quickly!

So on top of this ridiculous Conficker Worm that's got more than half of our clients panicking about every little thing that goes wrong:
"I can't get online! Is this because of that Virus?!" ... "No, your modem got unplugged..."

We've been trying to patch our clients servers for this ridiculous thing and no one though to check if their websites were actually up and running. Our clients for the majority run websites for informational purposes only, so it wasn't completely obliterating them, but MANY people were having trouble getting e-mail!

Researched: "exchange bouncebacks conficker"; "exchange 5.1.1 account does not exist"; "exchange conficker account does not exist"

All those searches leading to NOTHING! And all this time it was the friggin DNS issue! Realized SOMETHING was fishy when I went to one of our clients sites today for the first time... It didn't load. This client had been complaining about not getting e-mail. I called him and told him his website was down... He says: "Oh yes, I know that... I called the hosting company already and they're looking into it." So I told him what the problem was and the fact that his website was down was DIRECTLY related to why he wasn't getting any e-mails! But because we're only their IT company for the Office and have nothing to do with their website, he assumed they were not directly related. Common mistake I guess.

So only today did I try to check his DNS settings on his register.com account... HOLY CRAP! REGISTER.COM WON'T LOAD! I started checking other website on my PC... Flushed the DNS cache on our server and tried other ones again to make sure the IPs weren't cached or something! It was for real! Register.com WOULD NOT LOAD!

So that's how I found this article: Googled - "register.com 2009 down" BANG! First one on the list!!!

So now I get on the phone with a whole crap load of clients letting them know that WE have no control over this issue. And nor is there any point to putting a call into Register.com because why? #1, you're going to be on hold for hours because everyone ELSE that's having the same issue is already on hold trying to get through to them. #2, I'd rather not distract them from trying to fix the issue. Conficker... April Fools... Led me on a 3-day goose chase looking for issues with mail servers, Active Directory, etc.

UGH! Hope they get this fixed ASAP! This is out of control!

Status as of 5:22PM EST - DNS Working. E-mails NOW being received. MX Records not allowing traffic on port 80. I understand DNS works on 53, but some of my clients can NOT get to OWA by going to mail.domainname.com/exchange. But it works fine if they go to ipaddress/exchange. I AM able to ping mail.domainname.com without any issues, but traffic isn't being routed for some reason. This is where it goes over my head. That's something MUCH higher up in Register.com's intertrap.

There's only one reason I made this so detailed... So google indexes it and people searching for the same things I was searching for will at least get this in their search results.

The sad thing is, this has happened before. Two years ago they suffered the exact same kind of outage, during another internet worm that caused massive recursive DNS lookups. Obviously they've done NOTHING to rectify their vulnerability. I don't see any other DNS providers having the same problem.

How long to this is SORTED!
And will this be repeated?
Do we ALL need to migrate from 'register DOT Con'
And I mean CON

i'm surprised by the lack of media concerning this. this is a huge attack. the attack doesn't come as a surprise but the length of time down does. networksolutions are you listening???

After 5 hours of no email's...it is finally working.

"F" register.com for their many mistakes.

1. Not inoculating itself for better protection.
2. Not offering better communication to its customers. You would think they would have performed better on Twitter other than their "thank you for your patience" attitude.
3. Better customer phone support when you called in to see what the "F" was going on. Reps were clueless....or perhaps not and acting like they were?

Screw them...register.com is history with our company. Their crisis management team flunked big time with us.

All those that say it's not their fault are simply "whistling by the graveyard".

Keep whistling while you lose more business!

Whistle while I work!

Thanks to the Inquirer for informing. Our email and web servers were apparently unavailable for several hours on 4/3. I was wondering why I was getting customer emails well after business hours - now I know.

Register.com has not worked in over 1 month every day since March i have not been able to get into my emails. my website keeps going down, and i can never send or receive emails....
Iam so fed up with this BS... as a small business owner REGISTER.COM has made me loose over $3000.00 dollars in business these past few weeks. I have mouths to feed and a business to run and all i get is headache from REGISTER.COM FOR ANYBODY READING THIS...do not use Register.com you will regret it! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ down the drain!

REGISTER.COM SERVICE ALERT.
We are conducting Emergency maintenance on our email services. A small number of customers may not be able to login until approximatley 6:00pm EDT. No Email messages have been lost during this maintenance. All messages will be restored by 8:00am EDT 04/16/09. We Appoligize for this inconvenience and are working urgently to restore your service.

It is April 16th and I still cannot access my email reliably. Neither webmail or POP works. I called their customer service line and there is a message saying a few customers are experiencing email issues. BS. This is ridiculous and I am now going to change providers. I have used Network Solutions for another business and in 10 years I have had less downtime than with Register in the last week.

register.com now become joke they are not even answer phone line ????

Looks like Register is going to lose a ton of business. Does anyone know exactly what the cause of the outage was? is it confirmed?

I recently switched DNS providers myself. I think its definitely important to outsource your DNS to a company that focuses on only that. you can read up on some of the more popular dns providers and read various user reviews at www.dnsreviews.com. looks like a pretty new site, but has a ton of good info.

Getting email through domains at register.com is a problem again this morning (June 29, 2009). Where does a user go to get current information? Their tech support lines have been busy when I try to call.

Same problem here. Email has been down all morning. Support chat sessions are cancelled and support line rings busy. Frustrating.

There is a message on the webmail login screen now saying:

"Service Alert: As of 1pm EDT, June 29 - Some of our email customers are experiencing intermittent login issues with their accounts. We are working to solve this problem as quickly as possible. We will provide updates throughout the day."

Not by email presumably ....

I am also leaving register dot com immediately, or at least as soon as they answer the phone lines! Their email service has always been problematic, slow, or just not working at all. For the past 2 days, the POP3 email will not connect. Phone lines ring busy without even a message. My site has been down for days with no notice, or any attempt to make it right. I am furious with them and in my opinion they are a company that should be avoided at all costs. Any time I've been able to get through to tech support, they never have an answer or resolution, just a special team is working on the issue bullshit. i am almost embarrassed for them.

I was receiving e-mail as normal since Friday 26/June, but then it went down just after midnight. I called customer support who told me that they will get back to me...next day down again....tried live chat...was told that the appropriate department was handling it.... No answer 3rd day, 4th day...

Then tonight was told I don't even have an email account with register.com. This company is really p@ssing me off.

Tony J.: Thank you for visiting Register.com's Live Support. How can I help you?
Scott Fong: My domain is (deleted).com
Tony J.: Hello Scott.
Scott Fong: The problem is, my e-mail has been down since Friday!
Scott Fong: This is our work e-mail and no one can receive their mails at work.
Tony J.: Thank you for providing me with the domain name. Can I have a few minutes while I check the records for you?
Scott Fong: ok
Tony J.: Thank you for waiting.
Scott Fong: no problem.
Tony J.: I have checked and you do not have any email accounts with us.
Scott Fong: that is not possible.
Scott Fong: I have the additional storage service also.
Scott Fong: I gave my user login to customer support to double check on the phone the day before, and she could see my mail accounts.
Scott Fong: She said that she'd send it to customer support for a response, and I tried live assistance last night, and till now, no one has got back to me.
Scott Fong: I have been receiving e-mail up till Friday Hong Time until mid-night.
Scott Fong: from that point onwards, there has been nothing and I cannot log into my webmail account.
Scott Fong: But I can still log into my administrator account.
Tony J.: Can I have a few minutes?
Scott Fong: OK
Tony J.: Thank you for waiting.
Tony J.: Your issue is being handled by the appropriate department.
Tony J.: They will email you soon.
Scott Fong: This is the reponse I got last night, and it is not appropriate. I have to go to work tomorrow again and the whole company still cannot get e-mail. I am toast.
Scott Fong: As you can understand, it is a bad time.
Scott Fong: What is the problem actually?
Tony J.: There are no email accounts listed in your account and this needs to be further investigated.
Scott Fong: Do i simply need to sign up again?
Scott Fong: I dont have the ability to keep on waiting. Customer e-mails are being bounced, and I am in deep trouble.
Tony J.: I understand your concern.
Tony J.: The appropriate department will resolve your issue soon.
Tony J.: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
Scott Fong: I would like a direct number to call - to discuss this problem.
Tony J.:

Our Customer Service department can be reached toll free in the U.S. and Canada at (800) 899-9724. If you are an International customer, please call +1 (902) 749-2701.

Tony J.: You can contact at the above phone numbers.
Scott Fong: no, i want to talk to the department who is actually dealing with this problem.
Tony J.: Unfortunately, you cannot contact them.
Scott Fong: why not?
Tony J.: They can only contact you.
Scott Fong: No, that is not good enough.
Scott Fong: Please give me a number to call - so that I can resolve problem tonight.
Tony J.: I apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Tony J.:

Our Customer Service department can be reached toll free in the U.S. and Canada at (800) 899-9724. If you are an International customer, please call +1 (902) 749-2701.

Tony J.: I have not heard back from you, therefore, I am ending this chat session. Please do feel free to contact us again if you need any further assistance.
Tony J.: Thank you for visiting Register.com - Don't just make a web site - make an Impact!
Bye.
Tony J. has disconnected.

AVOID Register.com! I have been dealing with since April 2 with NO resolve! They keep telling me it will be fixed especially now that we have been "migrated to new e-mail server"... This has only made matter worse! Cant get e-mails, very delayed emails, cant open email attachements and messages, cant forward... you name it. They keep telling me they are on it and "escalting the issue" and openin another "trouble ticket"...and will contact me upon completion... well never get that call, its not fixed, and I start all over again! Today, 7/13 no e-mail coming through again... calle them, same thing... but I find out that register.com does NOT even own the emails etc... they are just a re-seller of other e-mail programs and hosting from other companies such as blue-tie. No wonder they cant fix it, its not their system and no wonder they are more expensive for everything. Terrible service, terrible company!