My domain's DNS is not working and my host says it could take a couple days

Question

I have taken a domain name trickwarehouse.tk and set the name servers of hostinger.in in my domain's DNS. But when I try to access the file manager, I get an error message:

Your domain is not pointing to our nameservers at the moment, so services such as FTP, File Manager, E-mail (and others) will not work correctly. You can find our nameservers at the "Accounts -> Details" section. Please mind that DNS might take up to 24 hours to propagate when the change is submitted.

They are telling me that "DNS might take up to 24 hours to propagate when the change is submitted".

Will it really take 24 hours to set up?

Solution 1

As Vishal said yes it can take up to 48 hours for the DNS to fully propagate.

Doing a whois lookup of your domain shows your nameservers as:

  NS4.HOSTINGER.IN
  NS3.HOSTINGER.IN
  NS2.HOSTINGER.IN
  NS1.HOSTINGER.IN

Hopefully they have propagated and you are now longer seeing that message.

Personally for various host I have seen it happen almost instantly to over a day. Also I have seen cases where I could see a site after changing the DNS while someone else could not. It took a bit longer before they saw it.

If you are still receiving the message after 24 hours then try contacting your host support.

Solution 2

DNS propagation can take a period of time ranging from a few minutes to as long as 48 hours. However, it does not appear your DNS is setup correctly.

If I do a trace on your DNS, your domain registrar appears to have an issue sending NS records for your domain.

I would contact whoever you registered the domain with about this issue.

The DNS lookup dies at the .tk nameservers. The .tk nameservers should return the NS records for NS1-NS4.HOSTINGER.IN. Since they are not returning these records, your domain resolution fails.

The trace dies with .tk's nameservers.

dig  +trace  trickwarehouse.tk

; <<>> DiG 9.8.2rc1-RedHat-9.8.2-0.23.rc1.el6_5.1 <<>> +trace trickwarehouse.tk
;; global options: +cmd
.                       69709   IN      NS      j.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      k.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      i.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      c.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      g.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      a.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      e.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      h.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      l.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      d.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      b.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      m.root-servers.net.
.                       69709   IN      NS      f.root-servers.net.
;; Received 228 bytes from 192.168.2.254#53(192.168.2.254) in 1257 ms

tk.                     172800  IN      NS      b.ns.tk.
tk.                     172800  IN      NS      d.ns.tk.
tk.                     172800  IN      NS      a.ns.tk.
tk.                     172800  IN      NS      c.ns.tk.
;; Received 278 bytes from 199.7.91.13#53(199.7.91.13) in 282 ms

tk.                     3600    IN      SOA     a.ns.tk. joost\.zuurbier.dot.tk. 1403120457 10800 3600 604800 3600
;; Received 95 bytes from 194.0.40.1#53(194.0.40.1) in 138 ms

This shows a good result. The .tk nameservers return proper NS records for dot.tk.

; <<>> DiG 9.8.2rc1-RedHat-9.8.2-0.23.rc1.el6_5.1 <<>> +trace dot.tk
;; global options: +cmd
.                       72980   IN      NS      j.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      g.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      c.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      b.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      m.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      h.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      f.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      i.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      e.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      a.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      k.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      d.root-servers.net.
.                       72980   IN      NS      l.root-servers.net.
;; Received 228 bytes from 192.168.2.254#53(192.168.2.254) in 858 ms

tk.                     172800  IN      NS      a.ns.tk.
tk.                     172800  IN      NS      b.ns.tk.
tk.                     172800  IN      NS      c.ns.tk.
tk.                     172800  IN      NS      d.ns.tk.
;; Received 267 bytes from 128.63.2.53#53(128.63.2.53) in 277 ms

dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns1.dns.tk.
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns2.dns.tk.
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns3.dns.tk.
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns4.dns.tk.
;; Received 276 bytes from 194.0.41.1#53(194.0.41.1) in 361 ms

dot.tk.                 300     IN      A       91.215.158.51
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns4.dns.tk.
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns3.dns.tk.
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns2.dns.tk.
dot.tk.                 7200    IN      NS      ns1.dns.tk.
;; Received 116 bytes from 194.0.40.2#53(194.0.40.2) in 138 ms

Comments

[Vishal Barot]

Yes, Setting up DNS may take 24hr to 48hrs to go into full effect.

[jeffatrackaid]

This is not a propagation issue but a failure of the .tk registrar to return appropriate NS records. Propagation is irrelevant here since the sponsoring registrar is failing.

[AndyHua]

@jeffatrackaid - Based on the question asked my answer is valid as it appears to be just waiting for the propagation. Obviously you researched deeper and found another issue.

[closetnoc]

I agree that there is something wrong with the DNS set-up. Regardless of changes and propagation, a +trace should always complete to something more than it does here. There are no NS records and A records in the SOA NS. @Lynda is right that the question is about propagation, but this answer is closer to the problem. There is no solution here. Not to be critical. You are on the right track. It may be good to edit the answer to expand on DNS, SOA, A, and NS records and provide a road-map that will help the user. Thanks in advance!

[jeffatrackaid]

Perhaps I should have put this in bold: I would contact whoever you registered the domain with about this issue. As this fails at the .tk registrar since they are not returning the NS records that would permit further lookup.

[closetnoc]

Well and good. I was not being critical. However, a few lines about adding records would help others who may come across a similar issue. It was a suggestion. I more than appreciate that you used Dig to look at the domain rather than making any assumptions. You discovered the problem is not a propagation issue at all. I am with you.

[Sandeep Bhaskar]

There is no propagation at all in the DNS.