DNS Problem - site continues to disconnect

[PStinson]

I'm using the free version of Hubspot for the moment. This is my site: https://stinsontraining.com and the domain provider is Strato. The site was being hosted on Strato before I created the new pages in Hubspot. Then we hooked the site up to Hubspot, but it keeps going down. We've come to the place where it seems Hubspot expects to have a round-robin dns setup, but Strato is not going to allow more than one A record. So now every time the dns cache expires, the site disconnects. Does anyone have any workarounds for this - any info would be appreciated.

[evaldas · Accepted solution]

Hi @PStinson,

It's a bit odd that Strato is not allowing more than one A record. In this situation, there are two solutions that come to mind:

1. Transfer domain to a different registrar that allows more control over DNS records.
2. Connect your website with the "www" to HubSpot, making it load on "www.stinsontraining.com" - this will require only one CNAME record. Assuming Strato allows you to do forwarding, you could then forward "stinsontraining.com" to "www.stinsontraining.com" from the registrar.

Hope this helps!

[evaldas · Accepted solution]

Hi @PStinson,

It's a bit odd that Strato is not allowing more than one A record. In this situation, there are two solutions that come to mind:

1. Transfer domain to a different registrar that allows more control over DNS records.
2. Connect your website with the "www" to HubSpot, making it load on "www.stinsontraining.com" - this will require only one CNAME record. Assuming Strato allows you to do forwarding, you could then forward "stinsontraining.com" to "www.stinsontraining.com" from the registrar.

Hope this helps!

[TStadler]

Hi @evaldas ,

I'am also using Strato and Strato can't help me. Until now I wouldn't like to change the host, so my question is for the variant B.

Can you describe maybe with some screenshot from hubspot domain configuration site, what I have to do? Where I have to put the www for the CNAME and where the forwarding?

And do I have to create a subdomain then in Strato?

Sorry for my questions, maybe you can give me some more informations.

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,

Thomas

[evaldas]

Hi @TStadler,

Sure, I can provide some information on this matter.

Based on your screenshot, it looks like that you have already connected the www sub-domain (as it appears in "weitergeleitete domains"). So you likely won't need to create another sub-domain in Strato (unless you want something differenet from www).

Now you would need to click on "Actions" for the domain in "Landing pages" and then select "Replace primary domain"

This should give you an option to select the "www" sub-domain you have connected.

Then if you want your website "xyz.com" to still work, you would need to make it load on "www.xyz.com". This will require to set up domain forwarding (or domain redirect) in Strato. Here are some support documents to help with that:

• EN: https://www.strato-hosting.co.uk/faq/domain/setting-up-a-domain-redirect/
• DE: https://www.strato.de/faq/domains/alles-zur-domainumleitung/

Hope this helps!

[TStadler]

Hi @evaldas ,

thanks for the quick feedback.

I checked this out, but the problem is, if I select the primary domain:

Then I will get always this failure message:

Here you can see my Subdomain www - There is the CNAME:

This is the first IP-Adress what I got from Hubspot and I configurate this under xsca....:

But where I have to put then the second IP-Address from Hubspot and do you have any idea, why I will geht this errror message?

Thanks.

BR,

Thomas

[evaldas]

@TStadler it looks like you did the setup in Strato correctly.

The error you receive in HubSpot is a little vague, so it's hard to tell what exactly the problem is. 

What you can try doing is disconnect your domains from HubSpot completely and try adding it back with "www" being the primary one.

First, disconnect primary and weitergeleitete domains:

Then delete the Brand domain:

Once that is done, try connecting your domain "www.xyz.com" first to see if that fixes the issue.

[TStadler]

Hi @evaldas ,

thanks for your help. But unfortunately it doesn't work.

Primary is now ok, but under "Weiterleitungs Domain" the problem is there are two A-Records needed. And I can't type it in.

So I think I have to change the host...

BR,

Thomas

[PStinson]

hi, I'm just reading your solution from yesterday and I think that is exactly what my tech person was thinking of doing. I have a related question - why is Hubspot even requiring a round-robin dns setup and is it not possible from the Hubspot side to stop that requirement? Just wondering if you or anyone else knows.

[evaldas · Accepted solution]

Glad to hear these align with your tech team.

In terms of why Round Robin DNS, I have not seen official documentation, but HubSpot is likely using Round Robin DNS for load balancing to distribute incoming web traffic across multiple servers, with the goal of improving performance and reliability.

It is unlikely that they will stop this requirement as it's supported on many domain registrars - and if some don't, the simple solution is simply to change registrars. We've launched dozens of websites with various registrars over the years and never encoutered an issue because of it.

[PStinson]

thanks! I will pass this along to my tech team. I hope it helps! Very weary of the constant tech problems.