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Written by 7:42 pm Software Development, Stupidity

Error Message FAIL

I was working on a server migration last night. In process, I set up the DNS for the mail servers. When I entered the value for the DNS server EXACTLY like Google said, I got the below error:

Alert: The domain was not added due to an error in the dns settings. Please check your dns template and verify. The message from the dns server was dns_rdata_fromtext: :26: near ‘ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM..’: empty labelzone thehealthchallenge.com/IN: loading master file : empty label

Since I don’t speak fluent Southern Klingon, my mistake was not immediately obvious. I, of course, tried to submit the form several more times. When I finally read the error message, I realized the Control Panel wants to be the one to add the trailing period (.). Removing my trailing period fixed it.

This is the most indirect, least helpful error message I’ve seen all month. I vow in 2009 to do better than these guys when alerting my users to issues.

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