More About Etsy DNS Issues

More About the Etsy DNS Issues

Well its July 1, which marks 5 days of having trouble accessing Etsy. Out of boredom and frustration, I decided to make some DNS changes on my computer. These changes were published as a use-at-your-own-risk recommendation by non-Etsy employees in the Comments section of the June 29 post on the Unofficial Etsy News blog.

In a nutshell, there are two workarounds floating around on the web that you may wish to try if you are still unable to access the Etsy site:

(1) Change your hosts file.
(2) Update the DNS settings on your network connection.

If you are like me, adding Etsy's IP address to the bottom of the Hosts file didn't work. So, the next workaround to try is one that you must use at your own risk. For information about these workarounds, visit the following link and read through the comments for instructions. Be sure to note that using this workaround has some risks:

http://etsynews.com/707/etsy-migration-to-new-data-center-may-cause-access-issues/?cp=all#comments

I'm relieved to have access to my shop, but since I had to change my local settings, I don't view this as anything but a temporary fix. It also doesn't address the issue that Etsy buyers also have this issue, and as an avid online shopper, I'm not one to be inclined to change my local computer settings

For the future, it would seem more than appropriate for Etsy to acknowledge that there is a need to notify paying customers about Data Centers moves in advance, especially when its a change that has the potential to disrupt services like this. I live in California, and everyone I know in my area cannot access the Etsy site. The one thing that we all share is the same Internet Service Provider.

Having worked in a position where it was my job to write communications to notify paying customers about the risks and potential of interruptions in network services, I'm miffed that I wasn't notified about such a major change in advance. But, so it goes. I suppose there is nothing else one can do but move on and accept that these things happen, and will eventually be resolved.

For those still having trouble accessing Etsy, the folks at Etsy also posted a Storque article yesterday, which I'm including here if you still can't access Etsy. If you're interested in reading the latest official response to the data center migration issues, here's what was said:

--------BEGIN STORQUE ARTICLE-----------

Title: Tech Update: Etsy DNS Issues
Author: Rokali
Published on June 30, 2008 in Etsy News

This is an update for everyone having trouble connecting to Etsy right now.

What happened?

This past Thursday we moved Etsy's DNS servers to our new datacenter. This is an important step in making sure the site can grow and scale.

This DNS move caused a ripple in some people's access to Etsy.com. By our estimates, 0.01% of traffic to Etsy is not resolving correctly. Still, we understand that for those affected, this is very disruptive. We wish there were an immediate resolution, but we don’t think it’s that’s simple.

Whenever a DNS change occurs, it needs to propagate through various ISPs around the entire world. This can take several days. In this particular case, a lookup error occurred, and this error was cached in many different places: an ISP's own DNS servers, your local router, and even on your computer itself.

What can we do?
Right now we're waiting for all the caches to clear out the error message. Until this happens, some people will be unable to reach Etsy.

There is a quick fix for this: you can change the DNS servers you use.

There are guides on the Web on how to do this, but please understand that this is something that Etsy cannot do for you (though we’re happy to answer your questions if you’d like to send them to support@etsy.com).

We've spent time investigating every nook and cranny, and this is where we're at right now. If we uncover anything else that can be helpful, we'll make sure to let you know.

------------END STORQUE ARTICLE------------------