domain name shown in the address bar as an IP because of WordPres

  • I applied for a domain called bigfortuneonline.net last weekend and was told the domain name would need sometime to be resolved. So in the email (the company is HostGator.com), it told me to use an IP for now.
    Today, out of curiosity I talked to the customer support to find out how much longer before the domain name will appear. To my surprise, the guy told me there’s a WordPress installation problem.

    Information:
    – IP: https://74.53.100.34/ (you’ll see the Gator dashboard instead of my homepage!)
    – I’ve been accessing my homepage with “https://74.53.100.34/~smsoo1”
    – I subscribe Gator’s most basic linux hosting package: (https://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml)
    -IE webbrowser on Vista
    -WordPress 2.6

    I copied the entire contents of the folder ‘wordpress’ into ‘public_html’ on the server. Then I renamed the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php and edited SQL variables (username, password etc) Finally point my browser to /wp-admin/install.php and followed the instructions.

    My question is what did I do wrong? The support guy said WordPress rewrite the domain name as an IP. Is that true? Here’s the transcript:

    Michael G: Welcome to HostGator Live Chat, how may I assist you?
    me: Hi, Last weekend, I bought a domain from your company. I received an email saying it would take a few days for the domain to be resolved. To this day, it is still an ip address
    me: Whenever I key in my domain https://www.bigfortuneonline.net what is get is https://74.53.100.34/
    Michael G: What is your primary domain name?
    Michael G: Please wait while I check. Thank you for your patience.
    me: And that’s not even my homepage. It’s what I think you call control panel or dashboard
    me: OK
    Michael G: This error seems to be due to your wordpress installation. Did you install this through fanatastico?
    me: no. I uploaded the wordpress folder and modified the wp-admin.php file and that’s what I get
    me: May I know how to correct it?
    Michael G: One moment please.
    me: OK
    Michael G: What is the username and password for
    Michael G: cpanel
    me: username XXX
    me: XXXX
    Michael G: This is for cpanel?
    me: hold on
    me: Your Username: XXX Your Password: XXX
    me: sorry
    Michael G: One moment please. I apologize for any delay.
    me: take your time
    Michael G: Ok. It seems the wordpress installation is misconfigured. You will need to reinstall it or change the address used in the database. I would not be able to tell you exactly how to do this sorry.
    me: Is there a way to verify that my domain is working?
    Michael G: If the domain was not working it would never reach the server.
    me: by working I mean having a domain name, not an IP address
    me: DNS
    Michael G: It is reaching it but wordpress is rewriting it as the IP.
    Michael G: You can do a whois search to see where the domain is going at https://nwtools.com/
    me: give me a second
    me: It gives me abunch of IPs when I key in my domain name. If I remove the wordpress folder from the server, will it get rid of the annoying IP address? What I want to see is my domain name after keying it in the address bar..not some numbers
    Michael G: Yes. If you remove the wordpress installation and the database it should start workin right away.

    Please help me. I don’t want to uninstall if possible. I don’t want to lose my posts and formating. <sweating>

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • WordPress will redirect to whatever you have set in the “WordPress address (URL)” field in the general settings. So if you have your IP in there, it will rewrite the domain name to your IP.

    Unless you have WordPress in a subdirectory, you can probably change the “Blog address (URL)” field to your domain as well.

    The documentation on moving WordPress should be helpful.

    Michael G: Ok. It seems the wordpress installation is misconfigured.

    Michael G: Yes. If you remove the wordpress installation and the database it should start workin right away.

    Never trust uneducated, ignorant tech support…

    You need to reset the “site_url” and “home” values in your database. Look for the in the wp_options table.
    More details: https://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/site-url/

    @jleuze,

    actually, it doesn’t really have anything to do with “moving”.

    Yeah, and don’t trust ignorant WordPress users like me either, moshu knows what he’s talking about ??

    I didn’t think he’d have to go as deep as editing his database. The “Moving WordPress Within Your Site” section would have been helpful, had he actually needed to edit those settings…

    Thread Starter curiousman8

    (@curiousman8)

    Wow…you guys are so professional…Thank you moshu!!! Good thing I came here! F** that support guy!

    Now my site doesnt have that darn IP… Yippie!

    To be fair on the support guy he did say this:

    Michael G: Ok. It seems the wordpress installation is misconfigured. You will need to reinstall it or change the address used in the database. I would not be able to tell you exactly how to do this sorry.

    Which is exactly what you ened up doing. Unless they are selling themselves as WP experts, then he has done as much as can be expected.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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