Hostgator and purchased domain name and FreeToastHost 2.0 not playing well.

I'm totally flummoxed. Everything was running fine. I then switched DNS service from Yahoo to Hostgator. I was having so many other problems with issues at Yahoo that I have finally given up on them. As far as TM was concerned, everything WAS working.

For about five days I couldn't get the club purchased domain: positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org/ to point to: 9352.toastmastersclubs.org/

Problem #1: Note, we have no www in the purchased domain name. After working with Hostgator support I found out that I cannot actually define the redirect of the domain address, they have to do that, which they did. Now it works, if I go to URL positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org/ the club page does show up. However, in the admin section, it keeps showing www.positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org in the Custom Website Domain, and won't let me change it. When I do, I get the message: "Basic Settings Tab - This domain is not yet pointing to the IP address 50.19.253.65. In your domain registrar's DNS area, modify the exisitng "A" and "MX" records for this domain, to point to 50.19.253.65, wait the amount of time as specified by your domain host, then try again." I couldn't figure out where to do this, and how, on the Hostgator admin page. Help?

Problem#2: In the club email addresses, it now wants to include the club # 9352, which when it was a Yahoo server, it did not (names replaced with xxx):
president-9352@toastmastersclubs.org (xxx)
vpm-9352@toastmastersclubs.org (xxx)
vppr-9352@toastmastersclubs.org (xxx)
secretary-9352@toastmastersclubs.org (xxx)
treasurer-9352@toastmastersclubs.org (xxx)
saa-9352@toastmastersclubs.org (xxx)

It says FreeToastHost created these for out club, how do I change it?

Currently the members cannot send any emails to these addresses because they still have the old addresses in their mail tools, they don't know it changed. I could comb through the records and find all their addresses and send them a notice this changed, but if things get fixed, then I'd have to have them change back.

Anyone have any ideas on any of this?

Thanks

Dennis

I am the FreeToastHost system developer. There is a reason we specifically call out custom domains as an *advanced feature*.

You cannot use a domain redirect. Those are not supported.

Your DNS settings are incorrect for FreeToastHost. My guess is that HostGator never carried the DNS settings over from Yahoo for you.

They need to be:

positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org A 50.19.253.65
mail.positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org A 50.19.253.65
www.positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org A 50.19.253.65
positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org MX-10 mail.positivelyspeakingtoastmasters.org

These must be set correctly to link your custom domain to your FreeToastHost website and to allow email to routed correctly. You do not purchase www as part of the name. You just set it up in your dns settings to route to the same place as without it. (which is what the above does) That way, people can find you with or without the www (either way).

Currently your DNS settings are here: www.viewdns.info/dnsrecord/?domain=posit...kingtoastmasters.org

You need to adjust your DNS settings via the domain registrar. Call Hostgator customer support and refer them to our DNS settings doc.

The doc for that is here: support.toastmastersclubs.org/component/...r-various-registrars

You will be forced to use the club number version of the email addresses until you get your dns and custom domain issues worked out.

The system is designed to prohibit use of custom domains until everything is correct.