Troubleshooting domain purchase and connection issues

Most domain issues fall into one of a handful of categories. Walking through them top-down usually resolves the problem within a few minutes.

Purchase stuck in "Pending payment":
The Stripe Checkout session completed but the registration hasn't fired yet. Causes:
• Stripe webhook delayed (rare, usually under a minute) — wait 2–3 minutes and refresh.
• Registry account balance ran out — Turtini funds registrations from our reseller account credit; if it's low, registrations fail. Contact us if a domain stays stuck past 10 minutes.
• Domain became unavailable in the seconds between search and checkout (someone else registered it). The Stripe charge is refunded automatically.

Site loads but shows "Not Secure" / certificate error:
SSL certificates are provisioned automatically on first request after a domain is attached to a site. The first request after attachment can take ~30 seconds while the cert is issued. After that, every request is HTTPS. If you're seeing this more than 5 minutes after attachment, force-refresh (Cmd+Shift+R) — your browser may have cached the pre-cert state.

Site doesn't load at all on the new domain:
Almost always DNS propagation — see "Why doesn't my new domain work yet?" article. Test from a different network (phone on cellular) to bypass your local cache.

Transfer-out failed at the new registrar:
• "Auth code rejected" — copy-paste the code exactly; it's case-sensitive and there are usually no spaces. Some registrars want the prefix stripped.
• "Domain locked" — that means our unlock call hasn't propagated yet on the registry's side. Wait 5 minutes and retry at the new registrar.
• "Within 60-day waiting period" — ICANN blocks transfers for the first 60 days after initial registration. Turtini's transfer-out button checks this and tells you the remaining days; the new registrar may give you a less clear error message about it.

Auto-renew didn't fire and domain expired:
For Turtini-managed domains, this should be impossible unless our renewal sweep failed for several days running. If your domain is showing as expired and auto-renew was on, contact support immediately — we can usually recover during the redemption grace period (within 30 days of expiry) for the redemption fee + standard renewal cost.

Email signing into the registrar dashboard stopped working:
Email accounts attached to domains aren't part of the domain registration itself — you'd be using a separate email host (Google Workspace, iCloud, Resend for outbound, etc.). If email broke, check the MX records on the domain's DNS in Builder → Domains. The domain registration is independent of email routing.

Still stuck? Contact support — every domain we register has an audit trail at `orgs/{orgId}/domains/{domain}` showing the exact state and any errors.