Making Beginner Mistakes with DNS Changes

Every now and then I take time to consolidate hosting and domains that are spread out across different registrars and hosting providers. I do this to be more organized and most often I’m consolidating on a less expensive / more appropriate solution for my personal projects.

For example, I find AWS has flat fees for domain registrations that are cheaper long term than other domain registrars. (I hope this turns out to be the case in the long run). It’s also easier on to navigate.

Every time I do this I tend to brake a lot of things while I learn the ropes. I thought I’d document my most recent frustration switching a domain from name.com to AWS Route53.

My mistake was simple, and probably common amongst rookies: I transfer my domain and didn’t update my name servers on my old registrar. Not doing this means that my name servers are not updating even though my new registrar has new NS records. I’m still investigating details, but resolvers seem to cache name servers listening to the registrar on record for any changes. No changes from the cached registrar and the resolvers will not make the change.

Then problem is, once the domain is transferred the old registrar cannot make any changes to the records. Agh.

I assume the name servers will update eventually, but I’m not sure if or when this will happen. If you’re reading this and know the solution, please let me know :)

I thought I’d document this rookie mistake not only to share but to be able to look back and say “ah, those were the days…”.