I think it's the registrar (Tucows) that has the problem. If you do a whois at network solutions it shows it's been renewed already.

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So, uh, what exactly is a registrar?

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

The registrar is the entity from which you buy your domain name. These days, most registrars are hosting providers too, but they are seperate functions.

The registrar tells the Internet Root Servers that your domain name exists and what DNS servers are responsible for it.

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Ah. Thanks.

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And if that fails, your domain sits there on its hosts chugging along just fine.

But it wonders why everyone quit calling.

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So. Do we drop Tucows a line?

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

One of the special issues with ApolloHoax is that it was being hosted for free... John pays for the domain name but not for the webspace. It was a special deal between the original owner of ApolloHoax (Jonathan Ploegman) and the owner of the hosting company (I don't remember his name... and he kind of disappeared).

The hosting company may have decided they don't want to donate the webspace... if they are under new ownership and weren't aware of the special deal they might have considered ApolloHoax an unpaid account and cancelled it.

Once again; It's not the hosting that's the problem. It's the registration. These are two completely unrelated things. They can be provided by the same entity, but in this case they are not.

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I think I might know what is going on.

I seem to remember John saying he doesn't pay for things with credit cards... it's possible he has renewed the domain but the registrar is waiting for his check/cash payment to arrive in the mail before telling the internet root servers that it has been renewed. It would explain the "Domain status: REGISTRAR-HOLD" line in the WHOIS results.

Is there any way to e-mail John and ask him, or is his e-mail at the same domain?

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I think I have his email address somewhere...

Let us know if you find it and hear back from him.

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Might it be:

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No, Jonathan doesn't have anything to do with the site anymore. I can, however, contact him if necessary to see whether he has to do anything to transfer the ownership.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

John's email address in his registration here at BABB is...

johnwitts@btopenworld.com

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I was able to access Apollohoax yesterday after I put the IP in my Hosts file, and even made a post. Just now I just attempted to view Apollohoax and received this message from the following URL http://metroid.vosn.net/suspended.page/. This looks like trouble for the site.

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Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.

Oy. That is bad.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

I think it is dead. I just got a reply from John... he has been busy with work and wasn't even aware of the problem.

The "account suspended" message that Astronot posted is not a good sign. I don't think renewing the domain name is going to be enough to get the site up and running again. I don't really expect the host to provide the webspace for free like they were before, so unless someone is willing to pay $100US/year I'm not sure we should bother trying.

Can we move to a different (and free) host?

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

None of the free hosts that I am aware of allow you to run PHP scripts like phpbb. You also need a mysql database, another thing free hosts don't provide.

John is going to try contacting the original owner for help, but if the host isn't willing to donate the webspace there's not much we can do.

Would Jay be willing to host it? Maybe we could just make it a Clavius forum instead.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?