I have several domains registered with godaddy for various clients. One of the domains' websites went down, so I investigated...

www.domain.dom was down, so I started at the beginning:

dig +short domain.dom NS
ns43.domaincontrol.com.
ns44.domaincontrol.com.

Ok, so let's see if they're responding correctly:

dig www.domain.dom @ns43.domaincontrol.com.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> www.domain.dom @ns43.domaincontrol.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 1757
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.domain.dom. IN A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.dom. 86400 IN SOA ns43.domaincontrol.com. dns.jomax.net. 2007081000 28800 7200 604800 86400

;; Query time: 37 msec
;; SERVER: 208.109.78.180#53(208.109.78.180)
;; WHEN: Tue Oct 30 15:12:00 2007
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 103


UH OH!


dig www.domain.dom @ns44.domaincontrol.com.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> www.domain.dom @ns44.domaincontrol.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 35203
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.domain.dom. IN A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.dom. 86400 IN SOA ns43.domaincontrol.com. dns.jomax.net. 2007081000 28800 7200 604800 86400

;; Query time: 38 msec
;; SERVER: 208.109.80.75#53(208.109.80.75)
;; WHEN: Tue Oct 30 15:12:25 2007
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 103


****; not good - better check if everything is still set up correctly. I haven't logged into GoDaddy in at least a month; there's no reason this should suddenly not be working.

Sure enough, everything seems normal.

Default Hosting Nameservers (NS43.DOMAINCONTROL.COM, NS44.DOMAINCONTROL.COM)
Whois confirms this information.

So I call Go Daddy and spend half an hour on the phone with someone there. He doesn't know much about DNS; he thinks that web browsers do whois queries to find out where a website is!

He's unable to understand the problem. He finally suggests I switch from using their hosting nameservers to their parked nameservers, but can't provide an explanation for why doing so should fix the problem.

The guidance on that page is not helpful:
If your domain(s) are hosted here, choose 'Default Hosting Nameservers.'
If your domain(s) are parked here, choose 'Default Parked Nameservers.'
If your domain(s) are hosted somewhere else, choose 'Custom Nameservers.'

Default Hosting Nameservers (NS43.DOMAINCONTROL.COM, NS44.DOMAINCONTROL.COM)
Default Parked Nameservers (NS05.DOMAINCONTROL.COM, NS06.DOMAINCONTROL.COM)
Custom Nameservers

I want to continue doing what I've done for years: use their nameservers, but not use their hosting, or park the domains either. I want to continue to host the site at another IP, where I have a working web server set up; it hasn't changed in months either.

In the (mis-named) total dns control, there's still an A record for the webserver I use.

Why they decided to break this and screw up their customers is beyond me. I'm tired of them.

If you wish to verify the information provided, please feel free to contact me for the domain name in question.

Still down. Their support folks - phone and email - are total morons.
They insist:

Thank you for taking time to contact Online Support. The domain name is currently resolving without issues. Our nameservers are configured correctly. If you are receiving any errors please provide a link so that we may further assist you with this issue.

Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.

Regards,

Travis T.

Meanwhile, DNSStuff shows quite clearly that this is NOT the case:
http://private.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=www.domain.dom&type=A


DNS Lookup: www.domain.dom A record
mail iconEmail link to results
Generated by www.DNSstuff.com at 20:48:37 GMT on 31 Oct 2007.


How I am searching:

Searching for www.domain.dom A record at e.root-servers.net [192.203.230.10]: Got referral to C0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.INFO. (zone: org.) [took 43 ms]
Searching for www.domain.dom A record at C0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.INFO. [199.19.53.1]: Got referral to ns44.domaincontrol.com. (zone: domain.dom.) [took 64 ms]
Searching for www.domain.dom A record at ns44.domaincontrol.com. [208.109.80.75]: Reports that no A records exist. [took 33 ms] Response: No A records exist for www.domain.dom, and www.domain.dom does not exist. [Neg TTL=86400 seconds] Details: ns44.domaincontrol.com. (an authoritative nameserver for domain.dom.) says that there are no A records for www.domain.dom, and that the hostname www.domain.dom does not exist. The E-mail address in charge of the domain.dom. zone is: dns@jomax.net.
There is no need to refresh the page -- to see the DNS traversal, to make sure that all DNS servers are reporting the same results, you can Click Here. Note that these results are obtained in real-time, meaning that these are not cached results. These results are what DNS resolvers all over the world will see right now (unless they have cached information).

Latest response from customer support - this is a new low for godaddy!

The server's priority on this type of query is very low and it may not respond. This is simply how our server is configured and it is not an error. It may come up as 'improperly' configured if you are attempting to access or query it in this manner, but this type of query is not given very high priority and may error out or not respond. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may cause.

Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.
Sincerely,
Dee Z.
Online Support Technician


Oh, and it's not like it sometimes does respond. It doesn't respond at all - tried 20 times, got 0 responses.

use a couple proxies to see if it shows

It would be helpful if you just posted the domain in question for independent diagnostics purposes.

In the meantime, are the root servers offering the correct referrals for the domain in question.

RESOLVED. Just posting for completeness' sake.

Belated reply to Plumsauce: I'd said:
If you wish to verify the information provided, please feel free to contact me for the domain name in question.

and

dig +short domain.dom NS
ns43.domaincontrol.com.
ns44.domaincontrol.com.

Are you familiar with dig and dnsstuff.com?

Long answer:
Your question doesn't make much sense, literally. The root name servers don't know anything about domain.dom (or domain.com); they just know about .com in general. Evidence:
Output of
dig NS com @F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
~same as
dig NS x.com @F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
very different from
dig NS org @F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.

It's the .com servers that would offer the useful referral info, e.g.:
dig x.com @F.GTLD-SERVERS.NET. tells me the paypal servers to ask for the A record I am looking for.

FYI, the problem got resolved; I still have no idea why the resolution broke in the first place, or why Go Daddy support was reporting successful resolution while their own nameservers were reporting failures when I dug 'em.

I use UltraDNS for a bunch of my domains and I have never had a problem. Give them a call and ask for a Q4 promotion (get unlimited queries).