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Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

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Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#211

Post by SahAssar »

mark_and_sweep wrote: post #180
Paul-ish wrote: post #96

> However, I'm unable to log in to their community forum. When I click the login button I'm redirected to my dashboard, and when I then click Support on the dashboard I'm redirected back to the forum without being logged in. I suppose it's possibly an issue with Firefox blocking cookies (although I disabled tracking prevention) so it's possible this part is partly a problem on my end. I'm into issues like this more a…

This is not Firefox becoming less and less viable. This is developers caring less and less about supporting older browsers, less capable hardware and, I guess, long-term maintenance in general. Just had a similar case today: My Mom tried to order something online on her old Android tablet - and it didn't work. She blamed the tablet for it, saying "It's just too old, it doesn't work correctly anymore! I used to be abl…

Well, it's also a problem of device manufacturers dropping support for devices too quickly. There are still android 4.1 devices sold on amazon, and you really can't expect web developers to support that.

The manufacturer should be required to support it for the full lifetime of the device. Especially since your mom uses it to order stuff, which usually includes some pretty security sensitive information. I think you are putting the burden on the wrong party.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#212

Post by nodesocket »

wu_187 wrote: post #207
nodesocket wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder; when a domain is suspended, why don't you send out a courtesy notification e-mail?

what if their email address is @ the domain

Also display a prominent notification in the web interface then.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#213

Post by e_proxus »

iudqnolq wrote: post #85
paulfurley wrote: post #77

FWIW I recently evaluated a few DNS companies after Namecheap ballsed up our MX records in a similar way. I actively looked for someone we could pay money to, so we are their customer (as opposed to being a free tier user, effectively a cost) The winner was DNSimple[1], who do exactly 1 thing, and they do it extremely well. And they are small enough to not take themselves too seriously[2], which I really appreciate.…

Thank you. Looks like I'll just have to pay more. Any recommendations for a registrar?

I’ve been using iwantmyname for many, many years and have been super satisfied with them.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#214

Post by iudqnolq »

Mojah wrote: post #189

Occasions are rare where I get to say "hey, I built a thing that might help here!" - so forgive me as I take this opportunity with both hands. Whether this was a bug or a rare protective mechanisme, there will be times when your DNS provider makes a mistake and removes records. You mentioned in your post your DNS isn't hard to reproduce, but how certain are you that _all_ records are restored? How long do you have to…

(OP here). That looks really useful. If I was running a real service I would definitely look into it. Because this is just the personal website and email of a college student I don't think I could justify the expense when using something like Uptime Robot to monitor if a single record points to a web server would probably give me close to the same reliability.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#215

Post by CamelCaseName »

awill wrote: post #152
andrewstuart wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've put this idea forward a number of times here on HN in regards to other big tech companies. Technology companies need an "ombudsman" - a contact that customers can go to when the normal tech support processes have failed. The Ombudsman must not be part of the technology companies ordinary support processes, it must be entirely separate, and have highest level authority to demand action within the company. To avoi…

This is a really great idea, but I don't think it's possible for this to not get overused for every little issue. Once it's overused, it becomes useless.

I like the setup my bank's Ombudsman has -- you must first take your issue to first level support, then escalate it with them if not resolved. If the second level of support denies you, then and only then can you reach out to the Ombudsman.

Any requests that haven't gone through the proper process get auto-rejected.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#216

Post by davchana »

mpitt wrote: post #133
andrewstuart wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've put this idea forward a number of times here on HN in regards to other big tech companies. Technology companies need an "ombudsman" - a contact that customers can go to when the normal tech support processes have failed. The Ombudsman must not be part of the technology companies ordinary support processes, it must be entirely separate, and have highest level authority to demand action within the company. To avoi…

jgc is not a "random" Cloudflare person ;)

For a regular generic Cloudflare customer like me, for personal use, jgc is one of the random Cloudflare person. I have started a spreadsheet with his name, email, comment link, and my copy of screenshot of comment; just in case if I need to email him anything in future.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#217

Post by nickjj »

melq wrote: post #147
iudqnolq wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#218

Post by Mojah »

iudqnolq wrote: post #214
Mojah wrote: post #189

Occasions are rare where I get to say "hey, I built a thing that might help here!" - so forgive me as I take this opportunity with both hands. Whether this was a bug or a rare protective mechanisme, there will be times when your DNS provider makes a mistake and removes records. You mentioned in your post your DNS isn't hard to reproduce, but how certain are you that _all_ records are restored? How long do you have to…

(OP here). That looks really useful. If I was running a real service I would definitely look into it. Because this is just the personal website and email of a college student I don't think I could justify the expense when using something like Uptime Robot to monitor if a single record points to a web server would probably give me close to the same reliability.

Oh I absolutely agree!

If you're a business, whether it's a SaaS or "just" a marketing website for your brick & mortar store, I think it's crucial to have back-ups. Most people think of backups as files, database dumps, previous versions, etc of their website. But the configuration data (in the form of DNS) isn't often considered.

You're tech-savvy and can restore your DNS records because you know yoru servers' IP address and your MX records, but who else could do the same?

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#219

Post by bonestamp2 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #125
jgrahamc wrote: post #83

This is being looked into internally and I am involved. Likely won’t post an update here as it pertains to a customer account (unless customer agrees). BTW If you, dear reader, ever find yourself so frustrated with Cloudflare that you feel like your only recourse is a blog post... my email is jgc@cloudflare.com and I’m happy to hear from people.

I've put this idea forward a number of times here on HN in regards to other big tech companies. Technology companies need an "ombudsman" - a contact that customers can go to when the normal tech support processes have failed. The Ombudsman must not be part of the technology companies ordinary support processes, it must be entirely separate, and have highest level authority to demand action within the company. To avoi…

I like this idea a lot. Some people below are suggesting that the ombudsman should be the last stop in a support queue if your problem isn't resolved, and that makes sense sometimes, but other times you can't wait that long!

So, all support systems should have a triage type system with a "nurse" having a constant eye on every new case that comes into the support system. When there's an emergency, such as the one associated with this post, then it should be forwarded to the ombudsman or some other emergency team immediately.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#220

Post by basch »

jlawer wrote: post #200
jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20 won't stop anyone with using it. If it is refundable, make it $300. That is high enough that only people and businesses with a showstopper situation will use it.

$300 becomes a pretty high barrier for a lot of people. There a places with decent connectivity where that is a good weeks wages

But you get it back, the point is to make it a penalty if you are wasting their time.
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