This morning we started getting reports from users that our web site wasn't accessible. Checking with our registrar (eNom/BulkRegister), the domain is no longer listed in our account. We have a couple dozen domains with them, have them all set to autorenew, and in fact there was a renewal just on Monday. Whois says this:

Domain ID:XXXXXXX-XXXX
Domain Name:XXXXXX.ORG
Created On:03-Feb-1997 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:14-May-2010 15:02:41 UTC
Expiration Date:04-Feb-2011 05:00:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:HOLD
Status: PENDING DELETE RESTORABLE

So it sure looks like it wasn't a renewal issue. We can't get much out of tech support, the front-line tech I talked to this morning mentioned it had a status "rollback" he'd never seen before and said I'd need to start a ticket to escalate the issue. Which I did while he was on the line. After several hours, the ticket has been acknowledged but nothing else. Of course, our whole operation is crippled with no web or email services.

Anyone seen anything like this before?

if time is critical, consider paying the extra fee to renew it and getting it operational again.

then ask for a refund of the extra fees.


also, check your payment accounts to see if a renewal was actually paid.

There was no domain listed to renew. Completely gone from our account.

They seem to have corrected the problem. After 6 hours and numerous phone calls, they escalated it to the top of the queue and the domain appeared in our account again. DNS still reads as above, but I am assuming at this point once it propagates it will be back to normal.

It appears this was an eNom data issue. We did nothing to correct the problem except complain. It was all them.

Hmm, if the Domain is back again you have been lucky, DNS may take up to 24hours before it is active again. But did you get any statement from Enom?

I'm afraid I'm not being specific enough.

The domain name is back in my Bulkregister/Enom account. As of Friday afternoon. The domain is still not operational and the whois info is still displayed as above. It's been nearly 48 hours now and I'd hoped it would have propagated by now.

eNom's only feedback so far is that it is fixed. No explanation.

what nameservers are you using?


check your domain at intodns.com and see what it says.

We use godaddy for DNS. eNom made some changes to bulkregisters DNS management features when they took over bulkregister that we were very unhappy with so we moved DNS to godaddy. And it allows us to have avoid having both on the same server.

intodns.com says:
"Can't get nameservers at parent server!<br>I only check domains not subdomains!"
I most definitely didn't enter a subdomain, just our xxxxxx.org domain.

Your problem is that the domain hasn't been renewed. Do you have a receipt for the last renewal? You may need to look that out. But I agree with CD Burnt. Pay whatever you need to renew the domain and then discuss with eNom who is at fault and who should pay.

On what are you drawing that conclusion??? Do you see the line above that says:

Expiration Date:04-Feb-2011 05:00:00 UTC

That's 2011, 9 months from now.


Yes, it's acting like you would expect an expired domain to act. But it's not expired. And eNom hasn't suggested that it is. In fact they've refused to give any answer of what the problem is. Which suggests to me that they had a royal screw up internally.

Sometimes that expiration date is incorrect - the registrars often add a year because they renew it even if you haven't, which is how Enom manages to have it hang out in your account for months after it expires (i.e. the extended period that costs hundreds to reactivate).

Not saying that's the case here, but it could be.

Then you would expect them to ask for payment prior to putting it back into our account, wouldn't you?

We have all of our domains set to autorenew, using the same card, the card is good and in fact another domain was autorenewed on Monday, and several in the last month. Plus, we get email notifications when domains are expiring, and we haven't gotten anything on this one lately. We do get the courtesy notifications of autorenewal. This is not a renewal issue.

Domain ID:XXXXXXX-XXXX
Domain Name:XXXXXX.ORG
Created On:03-Feb-1997 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:14-May-2010 15:02:41 UTC
Expiration Date:04-Feb-2011 05:00:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:HOLD
Status: PENDING DELETE RESTORABLE


I think the domain was not renewed.

I just went in to my account again to take a look around. We use the "custom" DNS option to host our DNS with godaddy for that as I've said before. But I thought "maybe if I update the DNS settings it will trigger an update to the DNS servers". So I click on Save, and it kicks back an error:

"Nameservers for xxxxxx.org cannot be registered"

So I call Bulkregister tech support again. Techie looks over the ticket and the domain record and confirms "yep, this is something the developers have to fix. It's Sunday and there's nothing I can do about it right now". Again, he won't tell me what the problem is. Doesn't ask for any money. He also has no idea what "rollback" status is, had never heard of it before.

Here's a screen shot for the doubters

16826

Luckily this isn't a democracy, and no matter how many of you vote that it's a payment issue that won't make it true. I came here to find out if anyone had experienced something similar or knew what "rollback" would mean in terms on a domain status at eNom, but since no one seems to know I'll just keep you all informed of progress to see how it turns out.

Wait - I didn't say I doubted you. Just offered another suggestion about the end date thing.

I've been with both BR and then they waived an Enom account is front of me after they bought BR from Alabanza and I jumped ship for the extra functionality, so I have hundreds of domains through the years going through both those systems, but never heard the term "rollback".

If the internal expiration date on your panel says 2011, it definitely sounds like they screwed up somewhere.

Fair enough. The techies at BR don't know what it means either. Or they're not saying.

In databases, "rollback" means (basically) to undo a transaction set. I'm sure they manage their own business in a database (duh). To me, "rollback" means that they screwed up, know it, and know they need to fix it. That's my interpretation anyway.

Notice I didn't say it's NOT expired, but that it's not a payment issue. Possibly they improperly marked our account as expired and then normal processes took their course. I'm sure it's all automated, but humans are still involved in the software programming and data management.

Also, if we hadn't made payment it wouldn't have gone from "everything's OK" to "account deleted" in one day. I've had payment screwups before, such as expired cards, and know how they work. Shortly after your expiry date your domain stops working and you pay your bill, it comes back online. If you don't, it eventually gets to a "redeemed" status that takes a boatload of money to renew. This domain didn't hit any of those interim steps. It was OK on Thursday, and completely gone from our account on Friday. Then back (but so far non-functional) on Friday evening. And BR hasn't asked us for any money so far. And the techies you can reach on the phone don't know what "rollback" means. And they say the developers need to fix it. Just sayin'.

I'm going to try that next time I screw up. Just call it a rollback. Sounds nicer than "We really screwed up." I guess.

I have had a domain going into Redemption mode before (was a client payment issue) with Enom and I know it took somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-12 hours for them to pull it back from the brink. I thought that "PENDING DELETE RESTORABLE" was the designation for domains that had been flushed back to the registry that they could still get back but wasn't necessarily in their system anymore.

Seems to me they may have flushed wrongly, and when they pulled it back they screwed that up, too.

You have my sympathies, man, this sounds like it sucks royally.

Good luck with the problem, but really the domain is expired, this indicates the state of the domain that you placed. No doubt you pay, I doubt that was renewed

Well, it's resolved. The site and mail services are back up and running.

I called them first thing this morning, and techie confirmed that this issue was at the top of the programmer's queue and that they had just arrived at work.

I monitored the control panel frequently. The domain disappeared from our panel again at about 9am (at least I knew they were working on it)

No change by 10am, I called the techie again to see if there was any internal info available that was not yet on the ticket yet. There was not. I asked to speak to the tech manager. After about 10 minutes I was transferred and he confirmed that they didn't have any specific information about the cause. I told him that we hadn't been asked for any fees yet but that we'd be happy to pay immediately if there were any issues. He confirmed that his records said that we'd paid. He said that he had no means of direct contact with the programmers to find either the cause or the status of the problem, but that as soon as he had any new information he'd call me.

At about noon one of our staff skyped me that she had just gotten an email, and sure enough everything was back up and working. The tech ticket was updated shortly thereafter to say it was fixed, but there was no further explanation.

So, now I am mid process in moving our domains elsewhere. Big relief...

Glad it finally worked out for you - and sorry it was such a nightmare. Sheesh.