Most of the time this is DNS propagation still working its way through the internet's resolvers, not a broken configuration. If you pointed your domain at the nameservers we gave you at signup in the last hour or two, wait it out and check again. If it's been longer than 24 hours and the site still won't load, work through the checks below in order.
First, confirm the nameservers actually saved
Registrars sometimes fail silently or revert a nameserver change if you edit DNS records at the same time. Log in to whatever registrar the domain is registered at (not the Flashcloud portal, unless you also registered the domain with us) and check the nameserver settings again against the pair we gave you at signup.
A typo in either name, or only one of the two saved, is a common cause of intermittent resolution: some resolvers get an answer, others don't.
If you're not sure whether you should be changing nameservers at all versus adding a record, see Pointing your domain to your hosting account for the two options and when each makes sense.
Give it time, then check propagation directly
Nameserver changes need to propagate before the rest of the internet sees them, and this isn't instant even though our side of the DNS updates immediately. For the full explanation of why this takes as long as it does, see How long does DNS propagation take? For a nameserver change specifically, the portal says a few hours, though some resolvers hold on to old answers longer.
Reloading the page in your browser isn't a reliable check. Your computer and your ISP's resolver are likely caching the old answer. Instead:
- Check a propagation checker site like dnschecker.org, which queries resolvers around the world and shows you where the new nameservers have and haven't landed yet.
- Try a public DNS resolver directly, like
1.1.1.1or8.8.8.8, to see if major resolvers have picked up the change.
If dnschecker shows the new nameservers live in most locations but your own browser still shows the old site, it's a local cache problem, not a DNS problem. Flush it:
- macOS:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder - Windows:
ipconfig /flushdns - Linux (systemd-resolved):
sudo resolvectl flush-caches - Chrome: visit
chrome://net-internals/#dnsand click "Clear host cache"
Check that a record actually exists at the destination
Pointing nameservers at us only fixes half the problem. Once our nameservers are authoritative for the domain, there still needs to be an A record pointing the domain at your hosting account's IP address, and it needs to exist before anything will resolve. If you ordered hosting and picked an existing domain during checkout, this is usually created automatically. But if you changed nameservers manually, outside the order flow, or moved a domain onto hosting after the fact, the zone may be empty.
To check and fix this: sign in to the portal, go to Services, open your hosting, and use DNS Zone Editor to confirm an A record exists for @ (and www, if you use it) pointing at your server's IP. This is a different screen from the nameserver settings on the domain itself: nameservers live under Domains and only control which servers are authoritative, while the actual records (A, CNAME, MX, TXT) are edited in DNS Zone Editor under your hosting service. If you've never used DNS Zone Editor before, What is DNS? walks through how nameservers and records relate to each other.
Rule out an old cached A record at the registrar's DNS
If you very recently changed nameservers, it's also worth checking whether your browser or a resolver near you is still resolving through the old DNS provider's cached answer rather than ours at all, especially if the domain was previously live somewhere else. This looks identical to slow propagation from the outside, and the fix is the same: wait, and check with a resolver checker rather than your own browser.
One thing that's not the problem: SSL. A new certificate is issued automatically once DNS actually points here, usually within about 5 minutes of that happening, so a security warning during this window is a symptom of DNS not resolving yet, not a separate issue to fix.
When to contact support
If nameservers show correctly at the registrar, dnschecker confirms they've propagated in most regions, and an A record exists in DNS Zone Editor, but the site still won't load, open a new ticket from Support in the portal. A real person will check the zone and server-side configuration directly rather than guessing from the outside. Have the domain name and roughly when you made the nameserver change ready, it saves a round trip.