My week from hell

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This isn’t good!

So I get a phone call from one of my clients raving about a new web design company they have found. The thing is they have their own web server so can their domain be moved to point to the new server. I say “sure thing” and phone the ISP who host the DNS.

After waiting in a queue for almost an hour I get the usually formality questions before getting to the problem. I ask to get the domain name to point at the new server and I get “your domain name isn’t hosted with us”. I say “that’s strange as I have an invoice from your company saying that you host the domain”.

There is some frantic typing from the guy on the keyboard and then I get “sir, you don’t even have a broadband account with us”. I reply with “that’s strange, the ADSL router has a username from your company in it”

Then I get “hold the line”. After a few moments the guy says “ignore everything I just said, how can I help?”

After putting the guy on hold for a few mins I shout some colourful four letter words and I then tell him that I would the www A record to point at a new I.P. The guy says that this request will have to come from the company on headed fax paper. I sigh and then hang up, then I phone the client to send the fax which he does.

3 days later the DNS hasn’t replicated so I phone the ISP back to find out what’s going on. The guy says they didn’t understand what the fax meant by www A record and they haven’t done anything about it. I ask to be transferred and speak to the guy who has the fax and tell him to repoint the website domain to the new server and leave the MX records as they are. “Sure thing”

2 days later I get a phone call from the client as I’m driving along saying they cant get email. My heart sinks! I pull over and phone another engineer who is onsite. I say “stop everything, go to a command line, type nslookup, set the type to mx and tell me where its pointing”. Turns out the ISP has moved ALL of the DNS records to point to the new server including the MX records! So I’m left with a major client (around 100 people) without any email!

I jump on the phone and tell the guy at the ISP to change the MX records back ASAP, I get the usual “sir, this request has to be made on headed fax paper”. I explained that the original request had been messed up and I had not requested changing the MX records of the domain. After 30 mins of complaining I agreed to send the fax (I had to drive for an hour) to send it from the client site.

This was done on Thursday and I’m still waiting for the MX records to replicate, the thing is if they haven’t actually made the change then its not gonna happen until next week!

ARRRGH!

Rant over!

 

Its all a bit of a joke to be honest, I’m not mentioning the name of the ISP because I don’t want to bring this website into it.

I just can’t believe how such a simple thing can be messed up, also when I explained that a company can’t get email they didn’t seem to care. The bottom line is that I look like an idiot in front of the client through no fault of my own.

It doesn’t look like the MX records have replicated yet so I’ll have to phone tomorrow to make sure somebody has clicked the “yes” button.

On a more positive note I finished a SBS installation today and the client gave me a bottle of whiskey for being, and I quote, “a top dude”! Not quite sure what that means but the booze was good! <hic>

 

Got that right, I should by shares in it!

 

Yup, Id like to thank Mr Jack Daniels for that!

 

I’ve got no problem sending a fax from the company to verify who I am. The problem I do have is when the request has been mishandled and when I phone back I get no help whatsoever. I don’t shout at whoever I’m talking to on the phone, that doesn’t help anyone.

I’ve just checked the MX records and they still have replicated and it’s almost been 72 hours, great, P45 for me.

Will phone today to chase up again but I’m sure the guys who actually change the DNS records will only work Monday-Friday.

The_geek, as Bluerinse said its probably better posting another thread for the SBS error as there are many of us who have experience in using SBS.

 

Thanks Jak.

Just to let you know that the MX record has been changed back, I rang twice today and the guy told me the change was made around 3pm today. To me this is totally unacceptable.

The client got so frustrated he phoned up the ISP to find out what was going on. The guy told him that the MX record had been changed (it hadn’t) and there was a problem with the mail server. This would be the Exchange server that I have installed and maintain every month. That REALLY annoyed me as it put my professional integrity on the line with the client. Luckily I get on well with the client so he believed me when I said the MX record was causing the problem and not the actual server.

I’m writing a letter of complaint first chance I get. I don’t usually do this kind of thing but I just think this whole situation has been a joke. When I flagged to the ISP that they had made an error with the DNS change they should have reacted immediately rather than waiting for a few days with me phoning every day to get an update. Each day I was told the change had been made and they were just waiting for replication, bulls**t!

If the DNS record was changed back on the day I phoned I would have left it at that, we are human after all!

P.S just for the record I have the original fax which states that one www A record should be changed so I know the original request was correct.

 

LOL