Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here

[carob]

I suggest a new thread titled Problems, Bugs and Fixes at Afternic - Report Problems Here. Then we can all list our issues so Afternic have to fix them. These Afternic probs have been repeatedly flagged up across numerous threads on here over a period of time, including the need for 2FA. Godaddy own Afternic and have the resources and motivation to fix it - this risky mess is unacceptable and reflects badly on their brand.

For info, Afternic keep reverting some of my domains to "In Review" status for no reason, and I only know that if I log in there to check on them. Until I then ask support to take them out of Review they are not listed for sale and will not sell at Afternic.

@Joe Styler When can we expect Godaddy to take action on Afternic, including implementing 2FA?

 

[Michael M]

I am just taking a guess here... but it seems like Godaddy may be planning on abandoning Afternic and transitioning it all to Godaddy. I would imagine they would then offer a path for other registrars to allow the management in their admin panel. This would allow Godaddy to consolidate the platform instead of "bandaiding" things on both sides to keep things working and make progress going forward.

This is just a guess as to what may be going on - but announcing suspension of updates to a platform could be a signal of this decision. (though I would expect full transition to be a good bit away.)

 

[carob]

I am just taking a guess here... but it seems like Godaddy may be planning on abandoning Afternic and transitioning it all to Godaddy.

Some of us wondered why they did not do that in the first place when they bought Afternic!

 

[tonyk2000]

Godaddy may be planning on abandoning Afternic and transitioning it all to Godaddy

This would be a nightmare for them to setup. Domains with different registrars... customers that have different accounts @ Godaddy ... or > 1 account @ Afternic due to accounting reasons, historical reasons etc.

 

[Joe Styler]

I am just taking a guess here... but it seems like Godaddy may be planning on abandoning Afternic and transitioning it all to Godaddy. I would imagine they would then offer a path for other registrars to allow the management in their admin panel. This would allow Godaddy to consolidate the platform instead of "bandaiding" things on both sides to keep things working and make progress going forward.

This is just a guess as to what may be going on - but announcing suspension of updates to a platform could be a signal of this decision. (though I would expect full transition to be a good bit away.)

No we will not be doing that.

 

[Joe Styler]

This would be a nightmare for them to setup. Domains with different registrars... customers that have different accounts @ Godaddy ... or > 1 account @ Afternic due to accounting reasons, historical reasons etc.

Yes we will not be getting rid of Afternic we are simply trying some additional ways to help people manage their domain listings.

 

[Joe Styler]

Why am I not surprised. We were committed (by you) several changes over the course of this thread. I understand priorities change. But critical requests, a lot of which are bug fixes, are again being deprioritized despite constant requests by your users!

I try and let people know what is happening as soon as I know. We had some other big projects come up that are taking priority. Fixing bugs is different than adding new features and we routinely fix any bugs we see and add smaller new features. There is also ongoing work for changes that come as a result of partners on the platform and making sure that domains are still able to be sold across a network of over 100 major resellers each with their own technology and platforms. Afternic gets a lot of development work done each week.

 

[xynames]

While updates would be nice, at a minimum these various issues I noted below should be addressed. I am back to having to email Afternic support each time I set a BIN price on a domain, to prompt the FastTransfer process:

As I have posted before:

I do have issues with AN Fast Transfer, and AN in general. All my domains are registered at DD. After I set a $25,000. or lower BIN price at AN, then one of three scenarios happens:

1) I received the email stating that I need to click to allow the fast transfer at DD. Actually, I never receive any subsequent email from anyone with a link to click anything, but instead what I do is login to my DD account and click on the relevant domains to "Set afternic" and thereby allow Fast Transfer.
I do so within my DD account, and then it shows as YES over at AN (Active) for Fast-transfer. All is well.

2) I received the email stating that I need to click to allow the fast transfer. I do so within my DD account, and on the DD side it shows that AN Transfer is in place ("Quick Info afternic") but then still it shows as NO (Requires Submission) over at AN for Fast Transfer. I go back and reclick at the DD side - still issue not resolved and still shows as NO over at AN for Fast-transfer.

3) I never receive any email requesting that I allow the fast transfer at DD, and the option is not available on the DD side. Obviously as well, shows as NO over at AN for Fast-transfer.

ALSO:
4) On one occasion so far, I set the BIN price at AN, and then a few months later I logged in and saw that there was no BIN price listed at all at AN, that it had vanished.

5) Another time I got the email from AN "Price Request," logged in soon afterwards, and nowhere in my AN domain control panel was the usual notification that I needed to set a price. I set a price anyway, but it seemed odd that the price request had disappeared.

The Fast Transfer system and AN in general seem buggy.

 

[Arca]

Yes we will not be getting rid of Afternic we are simply trying some additional ways to help people manage their domain listings.

So if Afternic is here to stay - Why not fix the website? The cost of doing so would be earned back quickly when people see that the platform has become functional and proceed to increase their use of it. A lot of domain investors don't use Afternic because the platform is such a pain to use.

The subsequent increase in listings (and sales, and by extension, commissions earned by Afternic) upon a platform update would pay for the initial cost of updating the platform.

 

[Arca]

How hard it is to change the 50 domains per page layout to 500 or 1000 per page?

Showing more than 50 domains at once at Afternic.com is in fact widely considered one of the most difficult issues ever encountered in the area of website development.

It’s an incredibly complex issue and no solution is currently known. The brightest heads at GoDaddy worked on it for years, but they were just not able to figure the convoluted and mysterious workings of the Afternic platform, and the issue was consequently de-prioritized. The developers working on it were ordered by management to stop trying the impossible mission of improving Afternic, and return to their regular and more familiar task of developing new systems for up-selling add-on services to registrants that don't want them at GoDaddy.

Hence the challenge remained. GoDaddy then proceeded to enlist the help of the computer lead scientists at Space X to figure out this most daunting challenge, but to no avail:

“Getting two Falcon Heavy side core rockets to return to earth and land simultaneously side by side, perfectly balanced, was an easy task compared with trying to show more than 50 domains at once at Afernic.com. It is a challenge that is on par with the technological challenges we face in our quest to colonize Mars” one of them is quoted as saying.

It is hoped that by 2028, major advances in AI and quantum computing will finally enable GoDaddy to figure out how to show as many as 100 domain per page at Afternic. Until then, GoDaddy has announced, they will not touch the Afternic website.

 

[Embrand]

Showing more than 50 domains at once at Afternic.com is in fact widely considered one of the most difficult issues ever encountered in the area of website development.

It’s an incredibly complex issue and no solution is currently known. The brightest heads at GoDaddy worked on it for years, but they were just not able to figure the convoluted and mysterious workings of the Afternic platform, and the issue was consequently de-prioritized. The developers working on it were ordered by management to stop trying the impossible mission of improving Afternic, and return to their regular and more familiar task of developing new systems for up-selling add-on services to registrants that don't want them at GoDaddy.

Hence the challenge remained. GoDaddy then proceeded to enlist the help of the computer lead scientists at Space X to figure out this most daunting challenge, but to no avail:

“Getting two Falcon Heavy side core rockets to return to earth and land simultaneously side by side, perfectly balanced, was an easy task compared with trying to show more than 50 domains at once at Afernic.com. It is a challenge that is on par with the technological challenges we face in our quest to colonize Mars” one of them is quoted as saying.

It is hoped that by 2028, major advances in AI and quantum computing will finally enable GoDaddy to figure out how to show as many as 100 domain per page at Afternic. Until then, GoDaddy has announced, they will not touch the Afternic website.

LOL

Maybe Bob Parsons can return and fix it.

 

[Joe Styler]

Showing more than 50 domains at once at Afternic.com is in fact widely considered one of the most difficult issues ever encountered in the area of website development.

It’s an incredibly complex issue and no solution is currently known. The brightest heads at GoDaddy worked on it for years, but they were just not able to figure the convoluted and mysterious workings of the Afternic platform, and the issue was consequently de-prioritized. The developers working on it were ordered by management to stop trying the impossible mission of improving Afternic, and return to their regular and more familiar task of developing new systems for up-selling add-on services to registrants that don't want them at GoDaddy.

Hence the challenge remained. GoDaddy then proceeded to enlist the help of the computer lead scientists at Space X to figure out this most daunting challenge, but to no avail:

“Getting two Falcon Heavy side core rockets to return to earth and land simultaneously side by side, perfectly balanced, was an easy task compared with trying to show more than 50 domains at once at Afernic.com. It is a challenge that is on par with the technological challenges we face in our quest to colonize Mars” one of them is quoted as saying.

It is hoped that by 2028, major advances in AI and quantum computing will finally enable GoDaddy to figure out how to show as many as 100 domain per page at Afternic. Until then, GoDaddy has announced, they will not touch the Afternic website.

That I must say is hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

 

[anantj]

I try and let people know what is happening as soon as I know. We had some other big projects come up that are taking priority. Fixing bugs is different than adding new features and we routinely fix any bugs we see and add smaller new features. There is also ongoing work for changes that come as a result of partners on the platform and making sure that domains are still able to be sold across a network of over 100 major resellers each with their own technology and platforms. Afternic gets a lot of development work done each week.

I can list at least 10 bugs that have been open for nearly a year now (reported on this thread) that have NOT been fixed. These are bugs, not feature requests (although some of the smaller feature requests would be good to have too :D)
Honestly, I think most domainers here (and possible elsewhere) would appreciate bug fixes and some of the long standing feature requests than newer registrar partnerships. The former is much more important at this point than the latter as we have to struggle with Afternic day in and day out.

And really, I'm sorry if my venting comes out on you. I fully understand and appreciate the position you are in (I'm a product manager too ). Most of the frustration and anger is with Afternic, the platform and the organization. You, unfortunately, are the namepros face of it so it all comes out on you.

 

[xynames]

Yes, to reiterate and add one more at the end:

I do have issues with AN Fast Transfer, and AN in general. All my domains are registered at DD. After I set a $50,000. or lower BIN price at AN, then one of three scenarios happens:

1) I received the email stating that I need to click to allow the fast transfer at DD. Actually, I never receive any subsequent email from anyone with a link to click anything, but instead what I do is login to my DD account and click on the relevant domains to "Set afternic" and thereby allow Fast Transfer.
I do so within my DD account, and then it shows as YES over at AN (Active) for Fast-transfer. All is well.

2) I received the email stating that I need to click to allow the fast transfer. I do so within my DD account, and on the DD side it shows that AN Transfer is in place ("Quick Info afternic") but then still it shows as NO (Requires Submission) over at AN for Fast Transfer. I go back and reclick at the DD side - still issue not resolved and still shows as NO over at AN for Fast-transfer.

3) I never receive any email requesting that I allow the fast transfer at DD, and the option is not available on the DD side. Obviously as well, shows as NO over at AN for Fast-transfer.

***I often have to prompt the AN system to initiate the FastTransfer, after setting a BIN - it does not always happen automatically. (In fact lately, it never happens automatically - I must message AN support to request that they set a given domain that I just set for BIN, for Fast Transfer.)

ALSO:
4) On one occasion so far, I set the BIN price at AN, and then a few months later I logged in and saw that there was no BIN price listed at all at AN, that the BIN set price had vanished.

5) Another time I got the email from AN "Price Request," logged in soon afterwards, and nowhere in my AN domain control panel was the usual notification that I needed to set a price. I set a price anyway, but it seemed odd that the price request had disappeared.

6) I have logged into my AN and noticed a Price Request, and never received any email notifying me of the request. This has happened a few times lately.

The Fast Transfer system and AN in general seem buggy.

 

[tonyk2000]

In this (or in one of realted thread) there was an idea recently posted and discussed - other IT companies not only appreciate receiving bug reports / improvement suggestions, but do really pay bounties if a bug is confirmed (and, naturally, fixed) or if a suggestion is implemented. And, it is NOT "ethical hacker" reward - we the domainers are not hackers, but we've seen hundreds of different registrars and know how things should work because of this reason alone.

GD/Afternic indeed might want to consider something similar.

So far: I reported a specific bug with GeoIP-based visitors routing on GoDaddy website in August 2017. My account manager asked me for screenshots, even videos and http logs. He got all this. This bug was never fixed. Only GOD knows how many $$$ did GD and their shareholders lost because of this bug.
Wouldn't it be more logical to fix it and maybe to reward the reporter with some account credits? I do not mean to say that I plan to make living on earnings for reports I may routenely and frequently generate. What I mean is that FORMALIZING bug / suggestion processing with such a "$$$ reward" feature may and should make somebody on GD end to become more responsible to developing and applying fixes in timely fashion.

I am aware of 3-4 more bugs that should be fixed, but lazy to report them as the customer I can live with it, and also I have doubts that somebody will really fix these...

Moreover, once I found something that does not directly affect GD account functions or domain operations or website security, so no practical sense to spend time compozing a report, which I can reasonably expect will be "buried" as many other bug reports are, but I can tell for sure that should for example current higher GoDaddy management become aware of this finding - they will order their Senior Engineer to fix it asap.

Long story short - @Joe Styler , did GoDaddy ever consider bug bounty program (not in ethical hacking aspects, but for real bug reports and suggestions from professional customers) both for GoDaddy and Afternic?

 

[Lox]

Afternic homepage New Listings is not consistent and constantly showing up / in the loop CEDV.org (owned by BuyDomains OO). Bug, feature, in favor of or misuse? Monitored for 3 days already.

 

[main]

That I must say is hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

We still would like to have the option to have more than 50 listings appear on a page.

 

[Joe Styler]

Afternic homepage New Listings is not consistent and constantly showing up / in the loop CEDV.org (owned by BuyDomains OO). Bug, feature, in favor of or misuse? Monitored for 3 days already.Show attachment 81764

I said previously in this thread that the page is not updated regularly for those listings and gave a more full explanation around why.

 

[Joe Styler]

We still would like to have the option to have more than 50 listings appear on a page.

Yes I know and I am pushing for it to get done. I just wanted to be upfront and say I am not sure if it will get done as soon as we had hoped.

 

[Haris]

Yes I know and I am pushing for it to get done. I just wanted to be upfront and say I am not sure if it will get done as soon as we had hoped.

So @Arca is right, it is "one of the most difficult issues ever encountered in the area of website development"

 

[tonyk2000]

Here we go again:

- Afternic reported a domain with fast transfer enabled as "sold" on Monday

- Fast transfer never happened, domain is still @ my account (unlocked for transfer though). No communications from Afternic such as requesting manual push or anything similar.

- My message to "TA Agent" through dashboard was never answerd

- Email to "Afternic Transaction Assurance" was never answered

- Domain still not delivered to the buyer!

Am I the only one who cares? Yes, as a seller I do care and I do want to deliver what I sell in timely fashion. By not processing "fast" transfer in fast mode or in any mode, and by ignoring important messages and emails, afternic "transaction assurance" makes _me the seller_ looking bad in buyers eyes.



Cc @Joe Styler

 

[Joe Styler]

If it was a fast transfer it should have moved at the time of the sale. If it did sell as a fast transfer and got stuck you should email [email protected].

 

[tonyk2000]

Joe - on another similar occasion, service@ explicitly refused to process an inquiry and recommended me to email ta@ instead. Which I did this time in the very beginning.

What I am trying to figure out is why nobody cares, indeed, afternic system sent me the following (automated of course) notification:

"No action is needed from you at this time. You will receive an email update within 8-10 days regarding your payment. If you have any questions, please feel to message the TA Agent through the link at the bottom of the domain sales record."

I was simply curious who purchased the domain, so I checked whois and found that the domain is still mine. I have no obligation to be curious. So I might well miss this particular unfinished transfer/sale. Since afternic sold the domain - for a healthy 20% commission btw - somebody @ afternic might want to check, at least daily, are there any unfinished "fast" transfers and act accordingly. Not only it does not happen as we see, but even service@ and their Aftermarket product manager Joe are of different opinions as to what department should take care of such issues!
Why is this?

 

[Joe Styler]

Service@ cannot pay you but they can answer general questions such as this. If your question is not general you will have to work with the TA team otherwise service can help with most questions. It looks like they said don't do anything for 8-10 days. So they may already be working on it. Generally speaking the service@ team will give you a faster answer and the TA team will answer you but not as quickly. You also can ask you account rep if you have a question and they can help you as well. We have multiple channels for support. The fastest answer would be your account rep, followed by service, and then TA.

 

[tonyk2000]

I wish I had an account rep, but Afternic never assigned one to my account. 8-10 days the message was referring to is a normal payout delay period, it is always included into "domain sold" notifications. So I do not think that somebody is working on the issue at all. i will now re-send an email to service@, maybe they respond next week saying that they forwarded it to TA@ (exactly the same happened last year).

 

[Embrand]

Kudos to Afternic for now allowing us to use sales lander pages without ads! At least this is new to me.

Simply use name servers ns3.afternic.com and ns4.afternic.com.