I'm extremely frustrated with the service we've received from Square/Weebly and I’m reaching out to this community in hopes of finding some resolution or at least sharing my grievances.
We started working with Square Online on May 16th, expecting a smooth setup and functional website. However, since May 26th, we've been facing continuous issues, and despite countless interactions with support, we still don’t have a functioning website.
Each time we contact support, we are assured that the underlying issue has been identified and will be resolved within 24-48 hours. Yet, nothing changes. When we follow up, we're either ignored for days or passed to a new representative, causing us to start the process over from scratch.
To make matters worse, our domain, which was officially transferred to Weebly on May 29th, is not discoverable. The server cannot be found, and it shows as a "not secure" page when using the link provided in editor for viewing purposes on my end. This downtime has caused us to lose out on sales and negatively impacted our online visibility, as Google updates show we're missing out on numerous searches due to the website being down.
Adding insult to injury, it turns out that one of the representatives was using ChatGPT to respond to our issues. I was literally having a conversation with a robot instead of getting support from a qualified professional. This is inexcusable and unacceptable on every level.
The last straw was when support claimed that the reason we're receiving these error messages (see screenshots at end of thread) was due to bad SEO. This response was completely unhelpful and misleading, as our issue is with the website's functionality, not its search engine optimization.
To move back to our old web host, we now face an additional $10.99 fee to transfer the domain.
Not only are we starting back at square one but we're also paying for it. Our customers are growing anxious, and this unresolved situation is damaging our business.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues? How were they resolved? Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated or if we are doing something wrong I would love to understand and fix it.
Thank you,
Cindy.
Wow, it worked! You (and your web developer friends) are absolute heroes! It still shows as not secure but honestly, that's the least of my concerns right now. What is the next step?
It does. Save that and do the rest. By the way I just compared my DNS lookups vs. yours. There are at least 4 US based DNS servers that do not think your web site exists, and three of those are located in the Southeast US. That seems like more than a coincidence. Ha.
Wow, it worked! You (and your web developer friends) are absolute heroes! It still shows as not secure but honestly, that's the least of my concerns right now. What is the next step?
You aren’t going to like this but… The next step is to wait AGAIN! I’m slowly seeing your new IP address being propagated to all of the DNS servers worldwide. A few minutes ago you were not listed on at least 5 of them in the US. That number is down to 3. Like I said, the internet infrastructure is very old (a half-century old!) and these things take time. But I’m seeing more and more servers taking note and updating the route to your website. We just have to wait.
First, you need to go back and change those DNS servers on your internet/WiFi connection back to what they were. One of those (1.1.1.1) is CloudFlare, which LOTS of ISPs use. It will eventually update, most likely overnight.
Tomorrow morning when you wake up, try again. Let me know and we’ll go from there. But the changes we made (including resetting your DNS) seem to be having the desired results. It just takes time, now.
You’re very welcome. I’m happy to have been able to help, assuming this all works out in the next few days. I’ll set myself a reminder to check in with you but PLEASE come back here and let me know if there are any other issues, AND if this finally works.
Also, please don’t mark any post here as a best answer. As you are very aware, this was a process. I’m going to make a final post here summarizing your issue, its causes and our (hopefully) ultimate solution and I’ll mark it as a best answer. But I want future sellers who find this post to understand that this was both not typical, nor was it something Square could have really helped you with. That’s why we fellow sellers are here, though — to lend our real-world experiences to solving problems.
Good morning. I just checked and it seems there wasn’t much movement on propagation last night (see screen shot). As you can see, at least 3 US DNS still haven’t been updated. So, I guess we are still waiting since it has only been 12 of the up to 72 hours this can usually take. Ugh. 🤞
Yup. That’s the only attitude to have for now. Interestingly, I’m seeing other weirdness with your DNS propagation. One of the biggest is that OpenDNS (1.1.1.1) still has absolutely NO clue that your website even exists. Based on a screen shot you sent yesterday, your ISP uses OpenDNS as its nameserver. Also, since a lot of ISPs use OpenDNS, that is somewhat troubling. First screen shot below shows the results of looking you up directly in OpenDNS — nothing. Second two are using a tool (digwebinterface.com) which verifies that OpenDNS doesn’t seem to like you. And yet that same tool — when I query the authoritative Nameservers — shows they ALL have you listed.
This is not normal behavior at all, and it is the very reason that web engineers are mostly bald — from pulling their hair out because of such weirdness! Fingers cross it works out. If it hasn’t by tomorrow, I’m going to suggest that you contact OpenDNS. I’d hope that they had a tool (like Google and others) that allows us to flush their caches specifically for a website URL. Alas, it doesn’t seem that they do. Ugh.
Good morning, Chip!
I tried retracing your steps to better understand the situation and figure out how to approach OpenDNS for assistance, but I'm still as lost as ever, LOL. Can you guide me on what to do next?
Thank you!
Cynthia.
Good morning. Give me a little while. I’m going to reach out to someone at Square to pick their brain. I’ll admit this is one of the weirdest DNS propogation issues I’ve come up against, and I’d like to get their thoughts before continuing. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
@CynthiaPierce So…. The Square person I spoke with agrees that this is definitely a weird DNS prorogation issue. They told me that they had reset a few things on their end, but unfortunately their efforts only serve to restart the waiting clock once again. I have set a reminder to myself to check results on Monday (which is much more than sometimes 72 hours this sort of thing can take to fully propogate, but let’s be safe just in case). If you would, please do the same — on Monday morning try to access your site and come back here and let me know. Most likely I’ll already know but it can’t hurt for both of us to do this.
I’m sorry that we keep going back to the waiting game, but this is the unfortunate drawback of the internet as we know it. Thanks for hanging in there!
Good morning, @CynthiaPierce. So I saw a few hours ago. The screen shot below still shows that Google, OpenDNS, CloudFlare and others still have no idea that your website exists. A few hours ago I updated my Square contact. However, they are on the west coast so probably just now getting into work mode. I’m sure they will reply when they can. Honestly, I have now officially exceeded the level of my incompetence here and need someone much more techie than myself to pick up this ball and run with it. I’ll update you once I know something concrete to tell you.
Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if your old website host has not fully relinquished and transferred your site to Square/Weebly. Something is in conflict for sure. But, that’s just a guess. Let’s see what I hear a little later.
