Posts tagged DNS Issues
Tumblr custom domains not working? Try this.
So for the past couple months I’ve been having trouble with my Tumblr custom domain (www.mattdemers.com) habitually breaking. It’ll redirect people to an error page, won’t let me hotlink to my posts and is generally acting pretty dumb.
The solution to this lies in your domain’s DNS settings: in order to get your domain to “point” to your blog, you have to direct it to 72.32.231.8, then set it up on Tumblr’s back end.
By saying (in settings) “hey, Tumblr, recognize that when MattDemers.com talks to you, you better redirect it to mattdemers.tumblr.com”, you can use a custom domain. By placing that IP there, you tell GoDaddy (or whoever) to talk to Tumblr when someone types in your URL.
My friend Matt directed me to this post by Quantum Pie, which offers the solution to my problem.
There are other servers that Tumblr uses to deal with custom domain names, but it does not publish these publicly. The trick is to let the internet know that these other servers can be used to find your custom domain.
To do this you must create additional A records in your DNS settings that point to your site. Just repeat the standard Tumblr instructions for setting up a custom domain name to create an A record for each of the following IP addresses:
- 50.22.53.155
- 50.22.53.157
- 72.32.231.8 (the default Tumblr IP address)
- 174.121.98.156
- 174.121.66.230
It may take a few hours for the changes to take effect.
If you use a custom domain name with Tumblr, you should add these extra records. It will increase the robustness of your website.
THAT blog post takes concepts from other post, which states:
So if the first [address] goes down, your browser will move on to the second server, and if that goes down, to the third, and so on. For the techies out there, this is called a round-robin DNS technique.
Makes sense, right?
So by adding some new addresses, I’ve fixed my problems with MattDemers.com. Now you guys can come appreciate my nerdery all the more often.
And by the way, thank you for that. Your visits and notes mean a lot to me.
Anyways, hope I could help some people.
