4 ms·

OP here. You can post updates with any relevant information. Probably goes without saying, but if the issue has to do with my billing or address please don't p

OP here. You can post updates with any relevant information. Probably goes without saying, but if the issue has to do with my billing or address please don't post specific details without asking me first. I will link to this comment from TFA for verification. (Edit: added to the bottom. If you need more verification you have my email.) Edit2: I see that the domain is back in my account and listed as "Pending Nameserver Update". I don't think that's because of something I did.

jgrahamc 7y ago
Thanks. Appreciate it. I’ll let the team look into it and communicate with you first.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  I appreciate you're looking in to this.
  - jgrahamc 7y ago
    I’ve worked for Cloudflare since it was 24 people. I care a hell of a lot about our customers. I know eastdakota does also.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      I can tell. Cloudflare has been a delight to use up to now and I'm grateful I'm getting this kind of support when I've only used your loss-leader services.
      - melq 7y ago
        This is probably obvious but you're getting this kind of support because they're getting terrible PR by virtue of your post being at the top of HN. Not because he's such a great guy that cares so much about the customers. Not saying he isn't a great guy, or that anyone at cloudflare actually wanted this to be your experience.
        jgrahamc 7y ago
        If he’d emailed me directly I would have done the same thing I did. I emailed the head of engineering and support and asked for an explanation. I then jumped into the relevant chat room. I do this sort of thing all the time. Sure, it’s unfortunate this is #1 on HN, but shrug. Fixing the problem and figured out what happened is important.
        dkersten 7y ago
        The more important question is what will be done to prevent this from happening again to somebody else (obviously this doesn’t need a response here, I assume an internal investigation is underway and this will be publicly communicated after its complete).
        melq 7y ago
        How was he supposed to know to email you?
        adar 7y ago
        I don't think he's saying that OP should've known to email him, just that he would've done the same thing over private emails where nobody was watching, as he is doing here publicly.
        taytus 7y ago
        Hi John, your website's contact link is pointing to your twitter account and you don't have messages opened. What is the best email to reach out to you? Thank you.
        craftinator 7y ago
        With many other companies I would agree with you, but in this case it is actually just because he's running a tight ship. I've had friends who've reached out directly via email and received the same level of support.
        nickjj 7y ago
        To be fair this seems to happen with a bunch of tech companies, such as Stripe too. I wish more companies took customer support seriously. I remember about 4-5 months ago I spent like 2 weeks going back and forth with Stripe's regular email support trying to understand their docs for SCA. I kept getting a new rep who repeated the same things the previous reps were saying, which also had no bearing on what I was asking. It was basically a copy / paste from a script loop. Then something negative about Stripe was on the HN front page and I happened to comment about a bad experience with the new SCA docs. Within a few hours I was put in contact with a lead developer from Stripe who went as far as creating custom flow charts for my use case that wasn't covered in the docs and it was a pleasant experience, where "pleasant" felt like the person receiving the email was reading the words I wrote instead of just skimming them and pasting a boilerplate response. But it only happened because of the HN comment. If that thread never appeared on HN, I'm not even sure I would still be using Stripe.
      - AviationAtom 7y ago
        You mention loss-leader services, but the model is no doubt setup to funnel you towards profitable services. I switched a personal domain to them, but it won't be long before I get my employer to move their resources over to them, assuming I see this all play out well.
- nodesocket 7y ago
  I do wonder; when a domain is suspended, why don't you send out a courtesy notification e-mail?
  - wu_187 7y ago
    what if their email address is @ the domain
    - nodesocket 7y ago
      Also display a prominent notification in the web interface then.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      I think it's pretty common advice that anything domain-related needs to be a different email. I've heard that, and I've only ever admin'd my personal domain. For exactly that reason I registered for Cloudflare with a gmail account.
    - clowd 7y ago
      Well, that's poor planning on the user's part. In this case the OP stated he registered using a gmail address.
    - belorn 7y ago
      If the only contact information the registrar has is the @ of the domain then that likely mean that the registrar is failing the contractual obligations that exist between the registry and registrar. While I have not read the exact contract that exist for .com registrars, I am confident enough to say that you can not do that.
    - thefifthsetpin 7y ago
      Even if cloudflare stopped publishing the correct MX records for a domain, wouldn't Cloudflare still be able to send email to the MX server that had been specified? Seems like email should at worst be down for everyone but Cloudflare.
    - ananonymoususer 7y ago
- AviationAtom 7y ago
  John, you guys seem pretty awesome about posting root cause analysis and being transparent, can we expect to see at least a comment (if not a blog post) summarizing what took place here?
graiz 7y ago
Maybe contact support first, figure out what happened and why before writing the blog post? Maybe it's a cloudflare issue, maybe it's an honest mistake, maybe they are bad at customer service... either way, it's not great to shame a company before you even open a support ticket or talk to someone to find out.
- subhro 7y ago
  I think it is a bit harsh to say that the OP was trying to shame anyone. He did post a support ticket. When your domain is "off-line" it is literally a shit hit the fan moment, and no one likes to be given the run-around. To combat, hey my issue is always a Sev1 ticket, one can probably institute something like, here is a red button and if you click it, we will charge 100$. If it is indeed an issue that caused you to lose 90%(say) traffic and it was our fault, we will return the money.
  - packetslave 7y ago
    Microsoft used to have this policy (maybe still does) for some support options. It cost $100 to open a case, and if the case was the result of a bug in the product, you got your money back.
    - dkersten 7y ago
      Imagine how you would feel though if you were in OP’s shoes, where your DNS entries disappeared and client emails lost, through no fault of your own, but support won’t even listen to you until you pay money.
      - iudqnolq 7y ago
        I think I'd be fine with that? I would trust Cloudflare to pay me back, and I'm already putting something on the line. If it really was my fault this is going to be very embarrassing. Edit: In case it isn't clear from context I'm the OP so I'm pretty sure I know what I feel.
newman314 7y ago
Has there been a followup update from Cloudflare?
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  Cloudflare followed up with me the day of and resolved the issue at least for me. I'm unsure if it would be appropriate for me to post the email they sent.

jgrahamc 7y ago

Thanks. Appreciate it. I’ll let the team look into it and communicate with you first.

iudqnolq 7y ago
I appreciate you're looking in to this.
- jgrahamc 7y ago
  I’ve worked for Cloudflare since it was 24 people. I care a hell of a lot about our customers. I know eastdakota does also.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    I can tell. Cloudflare has been a delight to use up to now and I'm grateful I'm getting this kind of support when I've only used your loss-leader services.
    - melq 7y ago
      This is probably obvious but you're getting this kind of support because they're getting terrible PR by virtue of your post being at the top of HN. Not because he's such a great guy that cares so much about the customers. Not saying he isn't a great guy, or that anyone at cloudflare actually wanted this to be your experience.
      - jgrahamc 7y ago
        If he’d emailed me directly I would have done the same thing I did. I emailed the head of engineering and support and asked for an explanation. I then jumped into the relevant chat room. I do this sort of thing all the time. Sure, it’s unfortunate this is #1 on HN, but shrug. Fixing the problem and figured out what happened is important.
        dkersten 7y ago
        The more important question is what will be done to prevent this from happening again to somebody else (obviously this doesn’t need a response here, I assume an internal investigation is underway and this will be publicly communicated after its complete).
        melq 7y ago
        How was he supposed to know to email you?
        adar 7y ago
        I don't think he's saying that OP should've known to email him, just that he would've done the same thing over private emails where nobody was watching, as he is doing here publicly.
        taytus 7y ago
        Hi John, your website's contact link is pointing to your twitter account and you don't have messages opened. What is the best email to reach out to you? Thank you.
      - craftinator 7y ago
        With many other companies I would agree with you, but in this case it is actually just because he's running a tight ship. I've had friends who've reached out directly via email and received the same level of support.
      - nickjj 7y ago
        To be fair this seems to happen with a bunch of tech companies, such as Stripe too. I wish more companies took customer support seriously. I remember about 4-5 months ago I spent like 2 weeks going back and forth with Stripe's regular email support trying to understand their docs for SCA. I kept getting a new rep who repeated the same things the previous reps were saying, which also had no bearing on what I was asking. It was basically a copy / paste from a script loop. Then something negative about Stripe was on the HN front page and I happened to comment about a bad experience with the new SCA docs. Within a few hours I was put in contact with a lead developer from Stripe who went as far as creating custom flow charts for my use case that wasn't covered in the docs and it was a pleasant experience, where "pleasant" felt like the person receiving the email was reading the words I wrote instead of just skimming them and pasting a boilerplate response. But it only happened because of the HN comment. If that thread never appeared on HN, I'm not even sure I would still be using Stripe.
    - AviationAtom 7y ago
      You mention loss-leader services, but the model is no doubt setup to funnel you towards profitable services. I switched a personal domain to them, but it won't be long before I get my employer to move their resources over to them, assuming I see this all play out well.
nodesocket 7y ago
I do wonder; when a domain is suspended, why don't you send out a courtesy notification e-mail?
- wu_187 7y ago
  what if their email address is @ the domain
  - nodesocket 7y ago
    Also display a prominent notification in the web interface then.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    I think it's pretty common advice that anything domain-related needs to be a different email. I've heard that, and I've only ever admin'd my personal domain. For exactly that reason I registered for Cloudflare with a gmail account.
  - clowd 7y ago
    Well, that's poor planning on the user's part. In this case the OP stated he registered using a gmail address.
  - belorn 7y ago
    If the only contact information the registrar has is the @ of the domain then that likely mean that the registrar is failing the contractual obligations that exist between the registry and registrar. While I have not read the exact contract that exist for .com registrars, I am confident enough to say that you can not do that.
  - thefifthsetpin 7y ago
    Even if cloudflare stopped publishing the correct MX records for a domain, wouldn't Cloudflare still be able to send email to the MX server that had been specified? Seems like email should at worst be down for everyone but Cloudflare.
  - ananonymoususer 7y ago
AviationAtom 7y ago
John, you guys seem pretty awesome about posting root cause analysis and being transparent, can we expect to see at least a comment (if not a blog post) summarizing what took place here?

graiz 7y ago

Maybe contact support first, figure out what happened and why before writing the blog post? Maybe it's a cloudflare issue, maybe it's an honest mistake, maybe they are bad at customer service... either way, it's not great to shame a company before you even open a support ticket or talk to someone to find out.

subhro 7y ago
I think it is a bit harsh to say that the OP was trying to shame anyone. He did post a support ticket. When your domain is "off-line" it is literally a shit hit the fan moment, and no one likes to be given the run-around. To combat, hey my issue is always a Sev1 ticket, one can probably institute something like, here is a red button and if you click it, we will charge 100$. If it is indeed an issue that caused you to lose 90%(say) traffic and it was our fault, we will return the money.
- packetslave 7y ago
  Microsoft used to have this policy (maybe still does) for some support options. It cost $100 to open a case, and if the case was the result of a bug in the product, you got your money back.
  - dkersten 7y ago
    Imagine how you would feel though if you were in OP’s shoes, where your DNS entries disappeared and client emails lost, through no fault of your own, but support won’t even listen to you until you pay money.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      I think I'd be fine with that? I would trust Cloudflare to pay me back, and I'm already putting something on the line. If it really was my fault this is going to be very embarrassing. Edit: In case it isn't clear from context I'm the OP so I'm pretty sure I know what I feel.

newman314 7y ago

Has there been a followup update from Cloudflare?

iudqnolq 7y ago
Cloudflare followed up with me the day of and resolved the issue at least for me. I'm unsure if it would be appropriate for me to post the email they sent.