Problems with Mountainmods' website?

I noticed this morning that I started getting 'server not found' errors when trying to go to MMs' website.

So doing some digging, it looks like their registrar deleted the domain entry:

Registry Data
ICANN Registrar: ONLINENIC, INC.
Created: 2003-03-22
Expires: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2009-08-24
Registrar Status: redemptionPeriod
Name Server: NS2.ONLINENIC.NET (has 43,078 domains)
Name Server: NS3.ONLINENIC.NET (has 43,078 domains)
Whois Server: whois.onlinenic.com

Wasn't sure what a 'redeptionPeriod' was, but looks like:

REDEMPTIONPERIOD: The registry sets this status when a registrar requests that the domain name be deleted from the registry and the domain has been registered for more than 5 calendar days (if the delete request is received within 5 days of initial domain registration it will instead be deleted immediately). The domain will not be included in the zone. The domain can not be modified or purged; it can only be restored. Any other registrar requests to modify or otherwise update the domain will be rejected. The domain will be held in this status for a maximum of 30 calendar days.

So that tells me OnlineNIC asked their domain be deleted.

Luckily the page I found that on still had MMs' web server address listed:

Server Data
Server Type: Apache/2.0.54 (Fedora)
IP Address: 72.22.88.89 Whois | Reverse-IP | Ping | DNS Lookup | Traceroute
IP Location United States - Arizona - Phoenix - Ipower Inc
SSL Cert: www.mountainmods.com expires in 28 days.
Domain Status: Registered And Active Website

So putting that IP in my hosts file solved getting to their site, but just seems really strange why this would have happened when the domain wasn't set to expire until 2011, or?

I don't think e-mailing them to tell them about this is going to work either since if the domain is now deleted out of the DNS registry, no mail servers are going to be able to resolve that, I'm guessing, to forward mail destined to them.

If they're not aware of it already, anyone have a back channel to someone there they could give a heads up or find out what's going on?

This seems to be their phone number: 503.631.7797

See if that works. :shrug:

Yes we became aware of this, this morning as well about 11:00 PST.
Hosting service decided to do some upgrades and the automatic domain registration update was changed to manual.
Unfortunately we were not informed and the result was the redemption period. We have done what we can from our end and DNS should be pointing to our server "relatively" soon.
Unfortunate reality is that it may take a couple days. Putting our IP in the host file like you did above is a solution until the DNS servers are updated.

For those that may want to do so. Should find the file in windows\system32\drivers\etc or winnt\system32\drivers\etc.

Place the following in and save -

72.22.88.89 MOUNTAINMODS.COM
72.22.88.89 WWW.MOUNTAINMODS.COM

Apologies for the inconvenience.

MM-

Do you guys know if an order placed on the website using the workaround will still get to you guys or not?

Part of the order I wanted to place, that I e-mailed about previously, was a custom panel. From the instructions for ordering a custom panel, it says you have to e-mail support@mountainmods.com to give an example of what you want made. Given that e-mail isn't working to the domain, is there another way to go about doing this?

Thanks!

Yes orders should still process.

You can simply specify the customizations in the "comments" field during the order placement.

If we absolutely need visual, you can save to an online location and send us a link in those comment fields.

wow, thnx very much for this thread, I thought there's sth wrong with mountainmods :D and I'll be placing my order in a couple of days so that wouldn't be good :p:

FYI, looks like the entry was updated today back to active status and everything is working normally again