The root domain stucked on Awaiting Netlify DNS

[Yu-Qi]

Netlify Site Name:
usdt-price.netlify.app

Custom Domain:
usdtprice.com

Issue Description:
I’m experiencing DNS-related issues with my custom domain. The domain status is very unstable, switching between “Awaiting Netlify DNS” (80% of the time) and “Netlify DNS” (20% of the time). This inconsistency is preventing users from reliably accessing my site.

Steps I’ve Taken:

1. On GoDaddy, I’ve set up an A record pointing to 75.2.60.5 and a CNAME pointing www.usdtprice.com to usdt-price.netlify.app.
2. On Netlify, I set the primary domain to www.usdtprice.com and the root domain to another.
3. I confirmed via dig that GoDaddy’s DNS settings have propagated correctly.

Netlify Support Response via email:

• Netlify support indicated that since I’m not using the Netlify DNS zone and it’s inactive, I should remove it.
• They also mentioned that I had multiple A records configured and recommended keeping only 75.2.60.5 (Netlify’s Load Balancer IP address) while removing the others.

Action Taken:

• I removed the DNS zone as suggested and only kept the A record pointing to 75.2.60.5.
• After doing so, the site worked correctly in Chrome and Arc browsers (tested in incognito mode), but Safari still failed to redirect properly.
• I have not removed any of our company’s other A records because I am unsure if they are safe to delete.

Questions:

1. Netlify DNS: When I configured my domain, the Netlify DNS was automatically added. I assumed this was necessary. Can you confirm if that’s correct?
2. A Records: Should I only configure the A record on GoDaddy pointing to 75.2.60.5 for my domain? How does Netlify correctly recognize my custom domain and direct it to my app?
3. Safari Issue: While Chrome and Arc browsers successfully redirect to the site, Safari does not. Could this be related to DNS or caching issues?

I would greatly appreciate any help or guidance on this!

[Melvin]

Hi @Yu-Qi,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to Netlify’s Support Forums!

I do see that you removed the Netlify DNS Zone. With Netlify, when configuring a custom domain, you’ll want to use either External DNS or Netlify DNS. External DNS is when you configure the A Record that points to 75.2.60.5 for the bare domain (usdtprice.com) and the CNAME Record for www.usdtprice.com.

If you setup Netlify DNS, but don’t use the Netlify name servers, you get an inactive DNS Zone. You can read more about inactive DNS zones, how to detect and fix them here:

[Support Guide] How to detect and fix inactive Netlify DNS zones

Last reviewed by Netlify Support - June, 2024 What is an “inactive Netlify DNS zone”? First, it would help to define the term “DNS zone”. Quoting wikipedia, it says: A DNS zone is any distinct, contiguous portion of the domain name space in the Domain Name System (DNS) for which administrative responsibility has been delegated to a single manager. To paraphrase, a DNS zone is a collection of all the DNS records for a production domain. When you add production domains to Netlify DNS we cre…

I’m still showing that the IP addresses 3.33.130.190 and 15.197.148.33 are configured:

DNS Propagation Checker - Global DNS Checker Tool

If you’ve recently removed them, it can take up to 24 - 48 hours for the records to propagate:

[Support Guide] Why do DNS / SSL changes take up to 48 hours to propagate? (TTL)

Last reviewed by Netlify Support on June 2024 How do time to live (TTL) values affect changes to DNS records? People often ask why the changes to DNS (Domain Name System) records are not taking effect. The answer to this often involves a core mechanism of how DNS functions - the “time to live” (TTL) values for the DNS records themselves. This topic is here to answer those questions! ! If you’d prefer a TL:DR; in the form of a video, check this out: [WHAT IS PROPAGATION? - Netlif…

For Safari, could you ensure that the cookies and browser cache have been cleared? That may be causing the differences between the browsers.