domains and registrars (rant)

I’m transferring my domain, because the email server/web server for it (hosted by my ex-), is having issues.

The minor fact that I have this email account and web presence linked to all my online bill-pay, contracting and job search… just makes it more important that this go smoothly. Besides, my domain registry is expiring, and I don’t want to pay for another year and have it still hosted… where I can’t control it.

To transfer my domain, I needed the Admin account to point to a valid email account. It turns out that having it point to Admin@... doesn’t work so well, because (a) the account is on the server mentioned; and (b) she turned all of the other accounts off because of the volume of spam that was coming through. (by my request, but years ago).

I also needed to unlock the domain.

Both of these require access to the domain console at tucows, which I’ve never used.

I ask for her help.

A couple days go by…

OK, now the domain admin account points to a real email address, and the domain is unlocked. Yay… I think.

So, I go back to the receiving registrar, resend the confirmation emails that are necessary to make this work; and discover that … after pasting the responses back into the forms…

The domain is now expired.

So, I call my ex- and ask her to make the domain current, so that I can transfer it.

She calls back, tells me that she cannot, because the domain is “in transfer”…

But, according to the receiving registrar; the domain is awaiting authentication by the releasing registrar.

And so I wait…