FeedMedia: PJS not the master of its own domain
May 5, 2008 in Watchdog Tags: PJStar
I know I shouldn’t gloat … considering my own issues with domain expiration.
But still.
I’m sure the domain will start working …. tomorrow. In the evening.
UPDATE: It’s 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. I’m still getting that placeholder page. The same thing happened to me. The site was unavailable for at least 18 hours for some of my readers.
I feel your pain, PJS.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This is what happens when they slash and burn in the IT department. They don’t have enough staff or the people with know-how there anymore. They can’t even keep their domain name properly registered, how can they support a newspaper!?!?!?
May 6th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Per source, this was NOT what it appeared to be. It was a Gatehouse housekeeping issue.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Not likely a GateHouse issue. PJ Star has not moved to the Zope format like most GateHouse newspapers.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I was told by the online person at pjs that Gatehouse had moved to Zope format and it was comcast’s responsibility to cope with the situation. The direct quote to me is the onus is on comcast to support the new system and forward it to the customers of comcast internet. I called comcast and asked about this and they said they had never heard of such a thing but that they would look into it immediately. In the meantime the guy from comcast had me try several different things to see what the problem was and all we kept getting was this hold page. So we will see within the next 24 hours who fixes what.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Unless Comcast is hosting the JS’s Web server OR managing the domain registration, Comcast has nothing to do with it.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Once again, PJStar is NOT on Zope.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Down again tonight. I tried to purchase the domain name for $14.95/yr from NetworkSolutions, but I was told “Sorry The domain(s) you searched for are not available.”
You CAN get pjstar.us.com, .cc, .bz, .name, .ws, .be, .am, .fm, .at, .la, and about a dozen or more others.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I was pretty annoyed & called & talked to someone there and they have been in the process of going to their new website…and part of it is Gatehouse doing something with their domain name (registering it to Gatehouse?). The domain is not for sale either.. but the journal star isn’t on their new website yet. The person also said it could take up to 3 days for an Internet Service Provider to recognize the new records (website going down and then reappearing). THey said some people are seeing it no problem because they have comments.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
A simple search says that the domain is registered through 2010; PJS didn’t let it expire. In fact, they are not to blame for this. From what I was told, Gatehouse took over control of the domain from the PJS and is GOING to host the site. Aren’t yet but going to. Sounds to me like Gatehouse jumped the gun and left PJS in the dark.
And SD, I don’t know who “the online person at pjs” is but he/she doesn’t sound too knowledgeable. It doesn’t matter to the ISP (Comcast, AT&T, Mediacom, etc) what format the site is built in. As long as the domain is pointed to the right servers it will load. “the onus is on comcast to support the new system” - what a stinkin’ crock…
May 7th, 2008 at 2:31 am
I heard a couple weeks ago that there was a delay in PJStar going Zope — but not a long delay. It will get worked out.
BTW, the JS did cut some IS people in the basement, but it has beefed up its newsroom Web team by two people. I can’t help but copy-edit the site for free when I’m reading. There have been far fewer errors in the past couple weeks.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Okay, so officially it may not have been the inept IT staff at the newspaper. According to today’s front-page story it was a “glitch” during a “scheduled transfer”. But what kind of “glitch” takes 72 hours to resolve? And if it was “scheduled” what was the plan B?
I smell a cover up…
May 7th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I am enjoying reading all of the theories as to what people *think* they know are going on at the PJS.
Bleedblueink — how do you know the I.T. staff at the newspaper is inept? Do you have facts to back this up? I happen to know some of the I.T. people over there and they have a staff of brilliant people. Some of the best around, in my opinion.
What happened was that Gatehouse jumped the gun doing the transfer and it’s taking the internet DNS servers some time to obtain the new records based on DNS cache refresh rates at certain ISP’s. Sometimes, this can take up to a week to fully propagate across the internet. Some people with certain ISP’s can access the site, while others can’t, which points to the DNS cache issue I just mentioned.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I smell someone who doesn’t have clue how Domain Names work and what happens when they get transferred.
Lastly, from what I’ve heard the current IT staff would have had to have been a part of plan A in order to implement a plan B…
May 7th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Shark: What you say is true about DNS cashe refresh rates at certain ISPs. However, when I had my little domain renewal snafu last month, I was able to access site from my home computer (connected to Comcast) within a few hours.
Is there ANYONE out there reading whos who can access pjstar.com?
May 7th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Yes, I can access PJStar. I check the site at least eight times a day, and I have never had a problem in the past week. I have MTCO DSL.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I can access it from my work…don’t know who the ISP is. I can’t access from home and I have ISP. It is obvious it depends on your ISP. Apparently many others can too as there are plenty of comments on the articles. Go Gripe to your ISP.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
The glitch is a common one. Unfortunately, it really does take up to 72 hours for some of these problems to get resolved. And there really is nothing the Journal Star could do about it.
Names such as pjstar.com and peoriapundit.com were created to help users remember Web site addresses. When a user types the address, your browser sends a request to a computer to look up the correct address for the name. The Journal Star’s actual Web address is http://12.179.27.20.
There are a number of companies like Networks Solutions that manage these names and numbers. When a change is made, they broadcast the changes across the Internet. The other Internet service providers on then on the hook to update their records.
Unfortunately, there was nothing the Journal Star could do about this problem.
Jerry Smith
Online Editor
Journal Star
May 7th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I have Comcr*p and still can’t get past the Network Solutions ad site. We’ll see after 72 hours.
Shark: I know people in all the departments there and not one of them has a good thing to say about the current newspaper IT staff. They all complain about the level of knowledge and how nothing is being done to help them with their computer problems. No one has described them as brilliant that’s for sure. Gatehouse needed to keep the people around that would be easy to control and to fire later. With this recent issue catching them off guard it looks like corporate made the right call.
Bleedblood: I may not have clue about DNS but I have a clue about competency. What “brilliant” IT staff doesn’t have a plan B to any problem??
May 7th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Drats. I was hoping pjstar.com got squatted on by a domain name registration company. I did a whois and notice they have not updated that info from network solutions. A little slow but not my readers and such that can’t find me and my advertisers
Mistakes like this do cost money.
Also good reminder to change my comcast dns addresses back to Sprintlink as I had it before.
Mediacom’s only fault with me before the change to Comcast was crappy DNS resolution at times.
Since Comcast is gonna stink also It’s back to Sprintlink.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Jerry: I clicked on that link, and it did indeed start to take me to the Journal Star homepage. THEN it re-directed me to the same place-holder page that I have been getting: http://tinyurl.com/64fhw6
May 7th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Billy,
I just clicked on Jerry’s link and went to pjstar. Page looks normal. In case this is any help, my ISP, MTCO, has been using OpenDNS the past couple years.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
And I am now able to access the JS site.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
bleedblueink - who exactly do you know at the Journal Star, the guy who fills the vending machines? The reason I ask is because it’s the only explanation for your complete lack of knowledge on the subject, and willingness to spew it forth. Your posts are proof enough that you don’t have a clue about competency.
It’s my understanding that Gatehouse kept the IT folks that they needed to produce a paper.
Have a nice day. Spend more time on pjstar.com now that you can again. If you still can’t get to it, read the paper.