OpenSRS Domain Transfers not going through... and other issues.

[tallship]

I'm using OpenSRS. I started with them long before the first day it was released and I'm not in business to make money on domain registrations - it's a necessary value added service for my business model, IMO.

I'm just deploying this and a customer tried to transfer a couple of domains she registered w/GoDaddy today.

   
• She unlocked the domains at GoDaddy, and didn't change any registration details at all, so it's not blocked.
• She got her EPP codes for a .US and a .COM domain that are each expiring early next month.
• She went to my site, and went through the domain transfer process, putting in the two domains into the bulk transfer order page
• The .COM domain asked her for her EPP code
• The .US domain did not ask her for an EPP code
• Everything appeared to go through just fine until I looked at the order later...
• The order is still in *pending* status.

Here's some screenies:



It's showing the two domain transfers above as *Pending* but I've already charged her the money for the transfers.




Order status is marked above as pending. I have an option to mark the order as *Accepted*, but don't know if that will do anything and thought this should all have gone through automatically - this would be a pain to have to manually accept these transfers, renewals, and new registrations manually each time.

Also above and below, note that the default nameservers I have configured are entered into the record for the .COM domain, but NOT for the .US domain.











Everything is setup in my https://resellers.opensrs.net interface just the way it was w/my purpose built Perl/CGI scripts which put everything through just fine (automatically) before. Any pointers would be much appreciated. 

   
• Why would there be no place to enter the EPP code for the .US domain? Does this mean it will fail?
• Why didn't this go through automatically? Is this normal? Am I supposed to do/config something else?
• Will everything simply complete from my end if I *Accept* the order?
• Shouldn't my default nameservers for .US already be entered in those fields?
• Will my default nameservers for .US be used when the transfer goes through if I don't manually add them now?
• What will happen when/if GoDaddy receives an EPP code for the .com domain but not for the .US domain?

This is a mess. It should work automatically from start to finish unless there's something I haven't set or reset somewhere.
By the way, I'm using modernpanel, and my order page for the domain transfers is the bulk transfer order page. I also have the OpenSRS suggestions module enabled too, which seems to work fine. I don't know if any of that is relevant.


Kindest regards,

   
• Your thoughts / comments please
  

[tallship]

Okay, I waited as long as I could... and then I pressed the button.

Here's screenshots. It appears as if the .com has gone through at this point. I got an email from the opensrs system directly, for a  completed registration certificate, I'll contact the customer and see if she has received her email to confirm the transfer from my OpenSRS system too.

If that is successful, then the next thing that is supposed to occur is that GoDaddy should send her a confirmation email - if she does't respond to that then the transfer should default to go through five days later - perhaps sooner if she responds.

Here's the alarming screenies and it appears that the .US domain continually fails because of an incompatible phone/fax format for the tech contact.

Maybe if I get her to fix that on the GoDaddy side?

I still need to know why this doesn't all just go through automatically. GRrrrrr. This is waaay too much effort for two bucks of net income!
























many of those original questions in the first post still stand, while the main problem I'm seeing now is that the .US domain transfer keeps failing, at least because of the invalid telephone string format for the tech contact.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Kindest regards,

[tallship]

Part of the reason I put so much effort into screenies w/comments is in the hope that it won't just benefit me in the short term, but serve to help others later when they can look and go, "dang it! That's what mine's doing!" - hopefully by then there will be a solution for those folks to benefit from.

Anyway, I finally gave up and relented, went into the backend of my OpenSRS admin center and just fixed it, and put it though. Lawrence, who has a lot of know how when it comes to the ins and outs of HostBill and how to work with some of it's particular quirks, told me that OpenSRS hasn't ever really worked right for him with HostBill.... So that's my cue to keep it simple.

I'll check out resellerclub since I guess I have an account there (never really bothered to checkout how all that works), and if anyone has other suggestions for domreg stuff (@trusteeco, that's your cue to step in here), feel free to offer up suggestions.

I've always liked OpenSRS. No, I can't compete pricewise, but the margin is so small anyway we're talking serious volume, so this is really a value added service for me to offer my customers, and many who come fresh from the outside do need to register a domain as part of the process of deploying some services.

Right now both domain transfers are in process, I think the customer still has to authorize the transfer, and then she should be getting the godaddy email which she can act on or ignore. If she ignores, then everything will take five days longer.

But the mess here isn't that someone's domain transfer is messed up, it's that it's messed up in HostBill. One could very easily (meaning me) fix or even do the whole thing from my OpenSRS account directly, but I want the integration, and many of the other reseller programs aren't going to give me the ability to micromanage a users domain registration when they get into trouble like OpenSRS does - at least i don't think so.

Anyway, I'll post updates to this thread when something happens. My concern now is whether HostBill will sync up with the registrar/registry when everything goes through. I don't see anywhere except in the HostBill admin panel where her domains can actually be managed within hostbill once the transfers are complete and I don't want to begin migrating a bunch of people over into hostbill that have been with me for over decade either, until I know this is going to work for them - I'd rather have ugly and simple and flawless than pretty and broken.

Perhaps this is yet another FAIL-HARD for HostBill - the Jury's still out on HostBill's OpenSRS integration with me at this point.

Kindest regards,

[thetrusteeco]

Hey TallShip.  Sorry didn't read this thread until now because I don't use the OpenSRS module.  If you'd like me to respond to a thread, please feel free to PM me. I won't be offended. 

Also, don't be offended: I'm going to dumb-this-down a bit. You won't be the last person asking these questions. Due to KBKP's excellent documentation and thorough business logic, I had to learn most of this by trial and error. Nevertheless, I've done a lot of transfers with HostBill and generally it isn't an issue.

1) For your .us domain transfer orderpage.  Under "Registrar Setting" is "Require EPP for transfer" checked?  If it is, and the EPP wasn't asked for, I suspect an issue with the OpenSRS module.

For .us (and gTLDs) it should be, but not all ccTLDs use EEP/Auth Codes.  So whenever you add a TLD transfer page you should check whether or not to have the box checked.  By default, it is checked.

2) While you're in the .us transfer orderpage click on "Automation" and check that the "Auto-Transfer domains" is set to "yes".  Then do the same thing for the .com orderpage, and whatever other domains you're offering via OpenSRS.

I suspect the order got caught as Pending because of the missing .us EPP code.  However I will state I've seen a transfers and even some registrations get caught in Pending with no obvious explanation.

3) I know you already clicked Accept Order.  What I would have recommended is to go into the .us domain page (Screen-shot: hb-domtransfer03.png), click the red word "Pending" and add the EPP (after making the change above assuming #1 was not set right), and then clicked transfer on that page. After the transfer was initiated I would have accepted the order itself.  I have had domain transfers fail because of being accepted on the order page i there was missing/incorrect data, so I check everything when they stall in Pending status.

4) Regarding the nameservers: when you transfer a domain, the nameservers set at the previous registrar will be imported.  I recommend customers update the nameservers before initiating the transfer, if a change is needed.

5) Regarding the default nameservers: Are they listed on the Order Page => TLD => Registrar Settings page, or just in the Domain Module App (Settings => Apps => OpenSRS)?

I recommend setting both.  I actually don't know why it's in two places, but believe (based on trial and error) the Domain App sets the Default Nameservers when a customer registers a new domain, while the Registrar Settings page sets the Default Nameservers for the customer's client area (if they change it to something else, and then change it back).  Also, if the customer orders hosting, HostBill will set the domain (assuming one is being registered) to the hosting package's nameservers (set in the cPanel App for example), but if the customer changes the nameservers in the client area, and then sets it back to default, it goes back to the Registrar Settings default nameservers.

OT: This is one of the reasons I want to replace the DNS Manager, and the cause of my post in the HDCP thread.  The DNS manager seems as confusing as this, but all the options are presented to the customer instead of being hidden away.

6) You asked: "What will happen when/if GoDaddy receives an EPP code for the .com domain but not for the .US domain?" Answer: they'll transfer the .com, but not the .us.  I think you figured that our though.

7) About the invalid phone number.  I haven't seen that before for transfers, but it's common for registrations.  Sorry again, I don't use OpenSRS so cannot pin down this issue.  I can say that phone number formats and accented names are common failure issues in domain registration for many TLDs (I have noted that LogicBoxes is particular in its fussiness with phone number formats). 

I saw a couple of bug reports at help.hostbillapp.com about the accented names being rejected, but I don't think this is a KBKP issue (for some TLDs it might be).  Many registries still only accept ASCII names (or in the case of CNNIC, for .台湾, only Chinese Characters).  For the phone, HostBill could reformat it, and I guess for accented Latin-alphabet names ASCII names found be automatically substituted (might be legal issues in some countries though).  However, I would not expect HostBill to translate a Cyrillic or Greek name into ASCII for a specific TLD regardless of how much HostBill cost, or how well run the company was.  I've just informed my customers before (after a failure) to use ASCII names for the relevant registry, or it simply will not work.

Hope the above helps.  If I missed anything let me know, I'm monitoring this thread now.