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Custom Domains, and a Second Typical "404 Not Found"

Sometimes, even with a properly setup custom domain, you (or your readers) may encounter a well known problem
Server Not Found

Error 404
I wrote about this earlier, about a symptom that has no obvious cause.

Sometimes, the well known "Server Not Found Error 404" symptom has a cause, but you may have to look carefully to find it. Many times, you find no clue in the DNS addresses. This is a normal (asymmetrical) DNS address configuration.
mydomain.net.            3600    IN      A       216.239.32.21
mydomain.net.            3600    IN      A       216.239.34.21
mydomain.net.            3600    IN      A       216.239.36.21
mydomain.net.            3600    IN      A       216.239.38.21
www.mydomain.net.      3600    IN      CNAME   ghs.google.com.
---
ghs.google.com.         282206  IN      CNAME   ghs.l.google.com.
ghs.l.google.com.       300     IN      A       74.125.43.121 


Here, an (abbreviated) HTTP trace will give you a clue.

Sending request:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: mydomain.net
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:
1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 209.85.171.121
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...

Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://www.mydomain.net(CR)(LF)

Sending request:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.mydomain.net
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:
1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 209.85.171.121
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...

Receiving Header:

HTTP/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://start.mydomain.net(CR)(LF)

Unlike the previously noted "Server Not Found Error 404" symptom, this one won't be solved by merely publishing back to Blog*Spot, then re publishing to the custom domain.

What we see here is that the Start Page service in Google Apps is apparently enabled, and published to "www.mydomain.net". In this case, you're going to first have to disable Start Page. If you don't, you're going to see another old friend
Another blog is already hosted at this address.
After doing that, then you can publish back to Blog*Spot, then re publish to the custom domain.

Similar to the Start Page redirect, you may on occasion see a redirect to the Google Sites service.

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Comments

Kaos-Anna said…
My blog: www.annaskaos.blogspot.com

Many thanks for the information.

Do you think you can help me to find the problem by looking on the printed screen on my blog?

http://annaskaos.blogspot.com/2009/02/detta-suger.html

Use Firefox ;-)

Many thanks!

Anna
Nitecruzr said…
Anna,

Technical conversations like what you need are much better conducted from GBH: Something Is Broken, or in Nitecruzr Dot Net - Blogging.

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