Tech Problems

If you are seeing this post, count yourself lucky. I finally figured out why so many people can’t access the page.

The site domain is registered with Google Domains.

The wordpress portion of the site is hosted with Hostgator. Hostgator support denied there is a problem. Google has not responded to an email detailing the problem.

The problem is this, unless you are pulling up the blog on a mobile data connection, the site will not load at all. I can use hotel wifi for everything, but when I try to load the blog or the blog admin pages, it will not work.

Furthermore, when I have the phone in Airplane mode, and using only the hotel or cafe’s wifi, the blog and admin will not load. Furthermore, the WordPress App will not post a blog post, and after typing a medium legth one, it did not even cache it to Drafts. It just disappeared.

Turn off wifi, enable the mobile data connection, the page and the app work just fine.

So, since I have about a dozen domains registered Hostgator, and elsewhere, and the ONLY one I have registered at Google Domains is atl2arctic.com, I must conclude something is wrong with their setup.

Whatever is wrong must be triggering firewall protections in residential and small business wifi/router devices.

Hostgator denies the problem even exists, which is one thing. Google has not responded to support requests.

Advice to all of you: Do not use Google as a Registrar. They clearly have issues.

Meanwhile, if you want to track the trip, you can always keyword search hashtag:
#atl2arctic

Thanks for your patience, and I apologize this has not been as useful or fun as I had hoped it would be.

Google finally responded about a day later. They disavowed any ownership of the issue, and put the blame onto Hostgator. Remember, Hostgator, already disavowed ownership of this problem, blaming my Registrar, Google Domains.

Here is Google’s Response:

On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 8:30 AM, <registrar-support@google.com>wrote:

Hi there,

Thank you for contacting Google Domains.

I pulled up your account settings and I can see that you are using a custom name servers. Please be advised that if you use custom name servers, these servers will be managed by your DNS provider (not Google Domains). If you want to create resource records, do so with your DNS provider. The Google Domains resource records will not work with custom name servers. I also performed a test and I can see your website completely and I was connected via ethernet. I have also attached a screenshot of your website.

I would recommend to check this issue with your web host.

Hoping for your kind response.

Cheers,

Joseph, Google Domains Support Team