• Howdy! Welcome to our community of more than 130.000 members devoted to web hosting. This is a great place to get special offers from web hosts and post your own requests or ads. To start posting sign up here. Cheers! /Peo, FreeWebSpace.net
managed wordpress hosting

Help needed with cPanel and expired domain

alley

Social Nutwork
NLC
Hey guys,
I have an account on a free host that I was using a top level domain on but my domain just expired. The free host uses cPanel.
Now I can't even see my file manager or my website and I don't know how to access my files in cPanel or even how to
assign my account a new sub domain from cPanel so it will be online again?

Any help appreciated.
 
You need to use the IP address instead of the domain name. You should have that somewhere in your login information or such, I would hope.

Can you...just renew the domain?
 
How can I find out what my domain's IP address is?
I don't remember them sending me that info because when I signed up I chose to use my own domain name.
 
I'd contact your host and see if they can do something about it. Most likely you just need to use their official address to access cpanel instead of running it through your own domain name. Cpanel itself has no way of knowing the status of your domain other than what it's internal DNS functions account for.
 
Yeah, I already did that and opened up a support ticket 2 days before the domain expired but they still haven't responded yet.

Oh well, I was hoping there was a way to fix it in cpanel but I guess not. Thanks for your help. :)
 
Unfortunately if your domain is expired, it probably isn't pointing to the server anymore, so you can't do a traceroute or such to get that information.

You can possibly ping a domain that was hosted on the server (other than yours) and it "should" still point back to the server. You can get the IP that way. Also, if you were on a reseller account, using your host's IP address might work. Just ping your host's domain to get their IP. Then go to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/whm or xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:2086 (or 2087 if they have it set up that way).
 
Yeah, I already did that and opened up a support ticket 2 days before the domain expired but they still haven't responded yet.

Oh well, I was hoping there was a way to fix it in cpanel but I guess not. Thanks for your help. :)

Well, there is a way to fix it in CPanel. But first you have to be able to access Cpanel, because it sounds like you don't have the host's official address to access it.

You could just renew your domain name, or even run a server history on your name- there are sites out there that keep track of what IPs a domain has used, such a thing would reveal the last known IP for your site that should lead to your host's server.

Once you get back into cpanel, all you need to do is tell CPanel to use a different name for your site. But that depends on the host if you have control over it or not.
 
Here is an online version of ping. Just enter your host's name and you will see the IP address: http://ping.eu/ping/

You can also open the command prompt in windows and type "ping yourhost.com" without the quotes, and substituting your host's domain, obviously.
 
I can get in to my cpanel, but I can't use filemanger of FTP because the dns isn't working anymore
 
How can I find out what my domain's IP address is?
I don't remember them sending me that info because when I signed up I chose to use my own domain name.

If you dont know IP address then Try accessing your cPanel by DNS servers you have had used to point your domain name to the server.

ns1.hostdomainxx.com/cpanel

This should work in most cases.
 
Same thing. Use the IP address in your FTP program instead of your domain. The domain name is not going to work for anything...cPanel, email, FTP, etc. You have to use the IP.
 
I found this in the welcome email they sent me:

New Account Information

Hosting Package: Default
Domain: crapvine.com
IP Address: 31.170.166.102

Control Panel Login Details

Email Address: ..........
Password: .............

Control Panel URL: http://cpanel.nazuka.net

Server Information

Server Name: server6.nazuka.net
Server IP: 31.170.166.6

If you are using an existing domain with your new hosting account, you will need to update the nameservers to point to the nameservers listed below.

Nameserver 1: ns1.nazuka.net 64.120.228.123
Nameserver 2: ns2.nazuka.net 64.191.115.234
Nameserver 3: ns3.nazuka.net 173.192.183.247
Nameserver 4: ns4.nazuka.net 83.170.93.81

But I don't know if this will help?
 
IP Address: 31.170.166.102

That's the info you need. Using that as the address instead of the domain you should be able to get FTP access, and depending on if that IP is shared or not may be able to view your site as-is.

But you really will need to either renew the domain, buy a replacement domain, or have the host assign you a subdomain. Using the IP alone to access the site is unreliable, as IPs can change if for instance your site gets moved to a different server.
 
Yep, the IP address is right there: Server IP: 31.170.166.6

Put that in your FTP software instead of the domain and you will be able to use it.
 
Ok, I got in to my FTP and all of my files are still there so that's a good thing, but how can I use that IP address to view my website online?
 
It probably won't let you. Sometimes if you put http://(ip) in your web browser, the server's configuration will display a particular site as the default site for that IP.

But in this case it looks like it doesn't, trying the IPs instead gives a 404 page.
 
If the server is set up to allow you to, you can try http://ipaddress/~username using whatever your account name is on the server. I didn't see it listed in the welcome email. Perhaps crapvine? If the server is not set up to allow access that way, you will not be able to view your website.
 
I just can't believe that cPanel wouldn't have some kind of an option to change your domain from a top level to a sub domain when domain names expire as I'm sure this kind of problem happens to people all of the time.
 
I just can't believe that cPanel wouldn't have some kind of an option to change your domain from a top level to a sub domain when domain names expire as I'm sure this kind of problem happens to people all of the time.

cPanel does have that option, it just isn't enabled on your account. Normally it's the reseller and above that would have that ability.
 
Back
Top