Transferring Woes: What the Heck is DNS Caching?
I’ve done everything in my power to resist switching hosts for Simply-Basic. Really, I have. Why? Because I’ve never done it before and felt very lost in the whole process. But I finally decided that it was time to make the plunge. I signed up for a new hosting account for a cool $83/year. Everything seemed to go very smoothly. My new host transferred all my files and databases for me. They transferred my domain and updated the DNS records. They even edited the wp-config.php file to reflect my new database on their site. What swell guys. Really, it was just sit back and make sure everything that needed to happen happened.
Where I went Wrong
After a few days of neglecting to update this site or respond to comments due to the transferring process, I finally noticed that the Whois for Simply-Basic finally showed that the DNS name servers pointed to my new host. Excellent. But something just seemed odd. I updated the site from school one day, and when I came home it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in my drafts or anything. OK, fine, maybe there was a hiccup in the database during the transfer.
So I go back to school, and the post is again there on the home page. Excellent! Looks like everything is working. So I go to my hold host and decide that since all is well I can remove Simply-Basic as a hosted domain from them. I check my website, every thing’s working (after I fixed a permalink problem with the .htaccess). Then I go home, and I get a “500 Internal Server Error” message. Except the message is coming from my old host. I know that can’t be right because the DNS name servers are pointed at my new host. So I do the obvious. I clear the cookies, cache, and temporary internet files from all my browsers. I then try three different browsers on two separate computers. I get the same error.
DNS Caching? Gesundheit
This is about where I start to panic. I call the tech support at my new host and submit a ticket at my old host. They both say that my site is pulling up fine and the problem is on my end. But that’s what you expect, of course. The problem is always not with the host, right? After an hour of Google searches I finally come accross something I hadn’t ever heard of: “DNS Caching”. Apparently your computer actually caches the DNS settings of sites you visit so that it can connect to them quicker. That makes sense I suppose. So let’s flush the cache.
To do this, open “Run” in the start menu (for Windows XP) and type “cmd”, without the quotes. In the dialog box that opens, type the following: “ipconfig /flushdns”. Again, no quotes. This will flush any caching of DNS name servers from your computer. That was easy enough. I try my website again, but I get the same problem. Now what do I do?
After a little more Google searching I find something else that is interesting. Apparently most ISPs cache their DNS as well to improve connection speeds. With your ISP there is no way open the command diolog box and tell it to flush its DNS cache.
I currently have DSL through Qwest with MSN bundled as my ISP. I get on the phone and give the Qwest tech support a call to see what their policy is on this. After talking to two people who neither spoke English nor knew what DNS even was, I asked to talk to a supervisor. This guy was actually helpful. Apparently Qwest only refreshes their DNS cache twice a month. Yes, you read correctly. That’s why I couldn’t access my site only when I was on my home network. Simply-Basic had a new home, and I had effectively deleted it’s old home. Qwest’s servers, however, hadn’t refreshed to know this. Thus they were sending my requests to view my site to the old host’s servers. I explained to the manager what was happening and he said he would put in a support ticket to have the DNS cache flashed in the next 6-8 hours. So hopefully it works.
So what does this mean?
What I should have done, and you should do in the future, is leave your domain alone at your old host for a week or even a month. I dumped the domain to quickly and not all servers had refreshed their DNS cache to reflect my new DNS name servers. What will happen in this case is some visitors will see your old site while some see your new site. This happens until everyone’s servers get on the same page. Yeah, that would have been nice to know earlier this morning. So now some of my visitors will see the newly hosted site and some will see absolutely nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true. They will see a wonderful “500 Internal Server Error” from my old host. Lucky dogs.
But such is the hosting process. Hopefully everything will get corrected over the next few days and there’s not too many frustrated readers. I apologize if you have trouble accessing anything. The transfer process is complete, now it’s time to clean up the mess.
Well since i’m commenting on this i must be a lucky one who the site works for correctly! I’ve never switched hosts or anything so thanks for the heads up if i ever end up doing the same. By the way, I know you were using freehostia and was wondering if you heard how they’re switching the accounts to an actual paid server. Less down time maybe?
@James I haven’t heard anything about them switching accounts or anything like that. I started out on their free servers and then moved to their $1.95/mo plan for a while. I did notice a stability increase (slight) when I switched. But the down time was still pretty bad, expecially lately. Luckily I won’t have to worry about that anymore!
Great article! It explains my current problem. Everyone else in the world can see my site, but from my own house (Qwest). Now, I wonder what two days they refresh?