Custom domain setup troubleshooting

How to access your site when custom domain malfunctions

Your Wild Apricot account comes with free domain (e.g. nycs.memberlodge.org) that, if your account's custom domain name malfunctions, can always be used to access your account. This domain is always present, it cannot be remove but you can rename it if required, see: Domain name management
If you do not remember this domain name, you can always find it in the emails that were sent to you when you first opened Wild Apricot account.

Check your DNS records

On average, it might take up to 48 hours for DNS records on Internet to pick up your new settings (though usually it happens much faster). If it is not working after this period you might need to check your settings.

As a first step, check that your DNS records are showing correct information. For more details and help on this contact your domain name host.

Check your setup

It is important that you follow setup steps, see Custom domain setup, since it is the only correct way to setup your Wild Apricot account to work with your custom domain name. Make sure to avoid the following mistakes:

• One of the most common mistakes for custom domain setup is a domain redirect to your Wild Apricot domain. 

• Also, avoid setting up your custom domain by putting Wild Apricot site within an iframe (aka domain masking).

• Make sure that you add custom domain to the domain list and set it as primary. See: Domain name management

These mistakes can create all kinds of problems, including the following: PayPal payment problems, reset password problem, broken registration links etc.

DNS Servers

We do not provide DNS servers ourselves since most domain registrars already provide this service at no charge for every domain (e.g. godaddy.com registrar in our example).
However if you have registered your domain through one of small reseller domain registrars you might not have direct access to your DNS settings, just the ability to change your DNS servers.
Here are your options in this case:
1) Contact your domain registrar and ask if they can set it up manually for you - use their domain servers to point your domain to our server (via CNAME or IP address). This is the best option as many domain registrars can do this even if they do not provide web-based self-service interface for you to do it. The biggest challenge is to get hold of a knowledgeable service rep at the domain registrar - since this is a relatively rare situation, many service reps will have hard time understanding what you need them to do.

2) Contact your hosting company (the one whose DNS servers you currently use) and ask them to change their name server settings to point website to us. Whether they would do it or not - and what would they charge - depends on a particular hosting company. This is the option to follow if you will still use the hosting company for email hosting.

3) Transfer your domain to another registrar which provides DNS servers and online access to their settings. This takes a few days and incurs a one-time charge (depends on each registrar).

Email hosting note

• Be careful regarding your email. We do not provide email hosting with Wild Apricot account (we think it is better left to experts!) so make sure not to change the email settings for your domain. Your email should work in exactly the same way it worked before you make the website domain change above.

See also

• Custom domain setup
• Domain name management
• Godaddy DNS Setup example
• Email setup and WildApricot