new here, trying to migrate, some questions

[michelle]

Good evening, trying to ask questions here instead of bombarding tech support constantly.

 

I just opened an account here and am in the process of moving my two wordpress websites from Bluehost. I have two domains, one more important than the other. My main domain (the main one I signed up with here) is still on bluehost until I get all the quirks worked out, but I recently redirected the nameservers and changed my email settings for my addon domain because this one is less important and I'm using it to test out the move. I have two questions:

 

1) Is this going to work? While I understand the two domains are separate, I'm wondering if since I'm fussing with my addon before my primary, if things are going to get jacked somehow.

 

2) It seems as if, suddenly for some strange reason, PrimaryDomainEmail (still on Bluehosts servers) and AddonDomainEmail (now on MDD) cannot talk to each other. If Primary sends Addon an email, Addon does not get it, if Addon sends Primary an email, Primary does not get it. However Primary and Addon can email the fake yahoo account I have and yahoo can email Primary and Addon. I don't understand this.

 

Thanks, and sorry if these are lame questions.

[kuemerle5]

Just to make sure I understood everything completely, basically what you want to do is fully transfer your second domain & website to MDDHosting (nameservers and email settings) before you begin transferring your primary one. First off, if you don't change anything related to your primary domain, nothing should get "jacked" Second, make sure the nameservers you are using (I assume MDD's nameservers) have an MX record to indicate where the mail server for that domain is. In your case, for your second domain, assuming you changed the nameservers to ns[x].mddservices.com already, in cPanel>Advanced DNS Zone Editor there should be an MX record that points to yourdomain.com. Here's what mine looks like using CloudFlare (it'll look similar-ish in cPanel):

http://i.imgur.com/rE8DX.png

Also, in terms of your last issue of mail not being sent, make sure when you send the email, you can start to figure out where the bug is if you use an IP address for the mail server instead of just yourdomain.com. Second, make sure you are using an SMTP server to send the emails, aka using an IP address again and make sure you authenticate because I believe most shared hosting smtp servers require authentication. I have a feeling that once the MX record in the nameserver propogates through the internetz, the problem might fix itself. Hope this helps!

[michelle]

Okay I guess I'll be patient with the email thing, but the reason I'm confused is because both Addon (MDD) and Primary (Bluehost) can email other places and get email from other places, but they can't get email from each other. I feel like that makes no sense.

 

Also I finally moved my addon domain and it's currently making it's way across the internet, but can anyone tell me why it makes those annoying page flashes when you click from link to link? IE does this all the time and I hate it, but when I view my website in Firefox I'm noticing this now too, it didn't do that before. I must be missing something. I'm using wordpress and the suffusion theme if that matters, but I was using that on Bluehost and it didn't blip. The site is lilferd.com. If you see "coming soon" then it hasn't updated for you yet. If you see an actual site, then you're looking at MDD.

 

Thanks again.

[kuemerle5]

Hmm, still a little odd with the whole email thing. That part is probably best solved with a support request.

 

As for the "flashing," I'm not seeing it (using FF 8 beta). Maybe trying clearing your cache?

[michelle]

Made a quick video of the flashing I'm seeing. I cleared the cache this morning and it's still doing it:

http://www.screencast.com/users/MichelleSE/folders/Default/media/6ae9cbfa-61f3-4cf6-adc5-a8ba799a63d3

 

My site is lilferd and the whole page, like, loads when I click a link. With that other website, also using Suffusion, it behaves in a way that I would call normal.

 

Michelle

[fshagan]

As to the mail delivery issue, have you completely removed the add-on domain from your BlueHost account? One part of the equation, the inability to send email from the BlueHost account to the MDD account might be that BlueHost still has an MX record for the account now on MDD.

 

It might be that the mail server on BlueHost is looking at the MX record on the local name server. If that's the case, then you have to wait for the update to that name server. If you remove the add on domain entirely, it should delete the local name server's records, although in my experience, things seem to be "sticky" for a few hours even after deletion.

[fshagan]

I checked the site ... there is a problem with "webkit" browsers where any site with dark background colors will flash between pages.

 

See this link for a forum message about the issue. His solution, to add a specific color command to the opening html tag should be rendered this way for your site:

 

Find:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en">

Replace with:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en" style="background-color: #444;">

 

You would make this edit by going into your Wordpress admin panel, selecting Appearance, then Editor. Select the file "Heater (header.php)" in the column to the right. The HTML tag should be the second line of text.

 

As to why it happens here and not at BlueHost is a mystery to me, so I'm not sure this fix will work. But its an easy edit to do, and easy to reverse.

[michelle]

Okay for the email issue, keep in mind I'm NOT emailing myself, so it's not like I'm using michelle@lilferd to try to email michelle@lilferd. I'm using michelle@lilferd (on mdd, nameservers redirected, mac mail using mdds stuff) to email greg@barajayart (on bluehost, nameservers still with bluehost, outlook still using bluehosts stuff) and he does not get my emails. But if I use michelle@lilferd and email my fake yahoo address and my other normal email address, then those addresses DO get my email. Same thing happens in reverse. Greg@barajayart emails michelle@lilferd and I don't get those emails, but greg@barajayart emails my other email addresses and his other email addresses and he gets it.

 

I didn't remove michelle@lilferd from bluehost yet. I'm going to do that now and see if anything happens.

Also going to investigate the dark background thing. Will report back.

[michelle]

Okay I'm back. I did the header.php thing and now Firefox is easy on the eyes, but Chome and Safari are making me sick. It's doing just what that link said it would do - the background stays but the wrapper blips. Gross. But aside from changing the theme (which I'm not sure I'm into at this stage of the game) I don't know what else I can do. I find the blips nauseating, what do you guys think?

 

I also checked my other domain (still on bluehost) on the webkit browsers. It blips too - not the background, just the wrapper. But it's not as offensive because the background is light. It's also not using the suffusion theme. I think lilferd's white blipping on brown is more obvious and jarring than my other domains beige blipping on red/cream/pastels. So maybe that's just... that?

 

 

Also I removed michelle@lilferd from bluehost and then I had greg@barajayart email me there and this is the bounceback he received:

 

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: test

Sent: 10/19/2011 1:53 PM

The following recipient(s) cannot be reached:

'Michelle <Redacted>' on 10/19/2011 1:53 PM

550 No Such User Here

 

But then I emailed michelle@lilferd from my yahoo account and my lilferd address received the mail. So I might open up a support ticket unless you think I need to wait a few hours for things to sort out or if there's anything else you can think of. Thanks for being so helpful!

Edited November 6, 2011 by MikeDVB
Redacted last name.

[fshagan]

It may take a while for the MX records on BlueHost to be purged. There's a "local nameserver" that caches the results. You sometimes have to wait 24 - 48 hours for the name server cache to catch up. You can also enter a ticket and see if they can correct it; it is possible they have the "TTL" (Time to Live) set too high on their MX records.

 

I have the flashing behavior on a couple of customer sites as well. Its sporadic, but very annoying. The dark background in the HTML tag hack didn't really work on those sites.

[SnakEyez]

That's a really strange bug that I've never heard of fshagan. Guess I've been using a Mac so long I've ignored or somehow become accustomed to it. A lot of sites seem to reference the flash as a FOUC or Flash Of Unstyled Content. Basically it's not loading the CSS styles fast enough and rendering HTML too quick. I'm wondering if the reason it's more prevalent is because of caching. The caching here will be different then the previous cache that is in your browser because the address of the server has changed so your browser should be recognizing the page as a new site, even though it may be transparent to you Michelle. I'd be interested in messing around and seeing if there is a way to get around it.

 

And just to further what fshagan said, I looked at your code and you appear to still be missing the style portion. From what I see:

 

<html dir="ltr" lang="en">

 

You need to add: style="background-color:#444;" after the lang="en" in your header.php file.

 

With regards to your email question. You can email support here they are pretty good. But from experience if some places work with a moved domain and others don't, I tend to lean on the side of DNS propagation. Your first post was last night, so I'm not sure how "new" your account is, but I'd give it a day, 2 max, but no more than that. BTW, I also sent a test from my gmail account entitled "Test from MDD" so I'll see if that goes through.

[michelle]

Hello, I've completely abandoned suffusion and I'm hacking away at the default twentyeleven. I don't know if it's going to give me what I want so I might be doing this in vain anyway, but it's not flashing, that's for sure.

 

Got your email, and replied. So why can you (and my other email addresses) send me emails, but barajayart cannot send me an email. His website, nameservers, and email stmp stuff all still points to / lives on bluehost. It's weird. I'll contact support tomorrow if I can't function still. I think I opened this MDD account on Monday, maybe swamped the domains Tuesday? Forget already!

[fshagan]

Hello, I've completely abandoned suffusion and I'm hacking away at the default twentyeleven. I don't know if it's going to give me what I want so I might be doing this in vain anyway, but it's not flashing, that's for sure.

 

There's a theme called "Weaver" that is based on the default TwentyEleven theme, but has a number of child themes and extensive Admin panel options for headers, colors, etc. The author is still very active and the theme is frequently updated. Its one of the best free themes I've found.

[michelle]

Well I think I successfully hacked at twentyeleven so it looks nearly like suffusion did. IE gave me serious grief, but hopefully I can get on with it now. Flashing is minimal to none. Still having the email problem this morning so I opened a ticket. Thanks for being so helpful! It's rough when things stop behaving as I think they should.

[michelle]

And all is resolved. Still not sure I grasp the email snafus - I think I mostly get it, but something still nags at me. It seems like wanting to wait to move domain1 ended up just causing confusion for me. So, both sites are up, functional, *generally* non-flashing although there are occasional blips in the webkit world, which I'll live with. Emails are coming and going properly. I don't think I'll regret the move at all.