All my domains gone

[carlos]

I had a few domains that I registered using the Namecoin-qt such as:

saopaulo.bit
brasilia.bit
compras.bit

I had registered them around October 14th 2013.

But today as I opened Namecoin-qt and let it synchronize with the network all my domains just disappeared from the "Manage Names" tab.

I was disconcerted and even desperate worrying that my domains might have been stolen, so I installed Namecoin-qt on another PC and loaded it with my wallet.dat.

This morning I ran to the PC and the blockchain was fully downloaded in my new installation and again all my domains were gone again.

So I checked some of the domains on https://dotbit.me/ and they seem to have different information on them, at this point I'm pretty sure they are gone.

What happened? Is this supposed to happen?

[carlos]

Checking the domain compras.bit for instance returns this:

https://dotbit.me/block_explorer/name/compras

Registered on Oct 14th 2013
Registered on May 8th 2014

How could somebody register again a domain that was already registered 7 months ago?

God I still can't believe my domains were all stolen from me, is there at least a technical explanation?

[carlos]

Do .bit domains expire within 6 months of being registered? Did I loose all my domains simply because I assumed they would expire within 1 year?

[carlos]

Lots of my domains have been grabbed and filled with the same info:

{"ns":[],"translate":"BM-2cUGUhs5CjisRiuQGVWDG3JQJGqzYgq145."}

It seems a bot mass grabbing every .bit of value, the blockchain seems filled with this string and more being registered as we speak.

I feel sad and my trust on .bit has been shaken by this.

[snailbrain]

Lots of my domains have been grabbed and filled with the same info:

{"ns":[],"translate":"BM-2cUGUhs5CjisRiuQGVWDG3JQJGqzYgq145."}

It seems a bot mass grabbing every .bit of value, the blockchain seems filled with this string and more being registered as we speak.

I feel sad and my trust on .bit has been shaken by this.

because you didn't renew your domain?

[carlos]

Lots of my domains have been grabbed and filled with the same info:

{"ns":[],"translate":"BM-2cUGUhs5CjisRiuQGVWDG3JQJGqzYgq145."}

It seems a bot mass grabbing every .bit of value, the blockchain seems filled with this string and more being registered as we speak.

I feel sad and my trust on .bit has been shaken by this.

because you didn't renew your domain?

I showed up to renew them on the 7th month but they were all gone by then. Wasn't the registration period 1 year?

[domob]

Lots of my domains have been grabbed and filled with the same info:

{"ns":[],"translate":"BM-2cUGUhs5CjisRiuQGVWDG3JQJGqzYgq145."}

It seems a bot mass grabbing every .bit of value, the blockchain seems filled with this string and more being registered as we speak.

I feel sad and my trust on .bit has been shaken by this.

because you didn't renew your domain?

I showed up to renew them on the 7th month but they were all gone by then. Wasn't the registration period 1 year?

I'm sorry for your loss - the registration period is 36,000 blocks to be precise. This is 250 days (so less than a year!) at the target rate of 1 block every 10 minutes, but also note that blocks are coming faster when the hash rate is continuously rising exponentially (as it is the case right now). So be careful to look at the names from time to time to see when they expire (you can use name_show for this).

[Bitcoin]

To add, domains expire after 36,000 blocks BUT you dont have to wait till it gets close to update for free. So far I was able to update all my domains (for free ) when they still had 18,500 or so blocks left in them. Dont risk forgetting be on top of it and youll be fine. 18,500 blocks is a big buffer period for people to update their domains in qt.

[carlos]

Thanks for the info guys, I definitely learned this one the hard way.

Also there's no redemption period? You're domain goes straight back to the market?

I tried renewing them sooner on Namecoin-qt but I couldn't find out how. There's no reason why not to renew since it's still cheap now. Except that I couldn't find how to do it or perhaps it was too soon so the option wasn't there.

So basically I'm allowed to renew them once I'm half way through the 36,000 blocks right?

I think this is a major rough edge with Namecoin, first because most people don't have time to keep checking on the block count.

Second as I couldn't find much information about it at that time (perhaps this is my fault but I tried), so I just assumed .bit would be similar to any other TLD with the 1 year period and perhaps even a redemption period.

Anyway I think Namecoin is a great innovation and hope to see more infrastructure built around it. I had some plans myself but with all my incentives removed instantaneously (my domains) I will probably be rethinking those.

[biolizard89]

Thanks for the info guys, I definitely learned this one the hard way.

Also there's no redemption period? You're domain goes straight back to the market?

I tried renewing them sooner on Namecoin-qt but I couldn't find out how. There's no reason why not to renew since it's still cheap now. Except that I couldn't find how to do it or perhaps it was too soon so the option wasn't there.

So basically I'm allowed to renew them once I'm half way through the 36,000 blocks right?

I think this is a major rough edge with Namecoin, first because most people don't have time to keep checking on the block count.

Second as I couldn't find much information about it at that time (perhaps this is my fault but I tried), so I just assumed .bit would be similar to any other TLD with the 1 year period and perhaps even a redemption period.

Anyway I think Namecoin is a great innovation and hope to see more infrastructure built around it. I had some plans myself but with all my incentives removed instantaneously (my domains) I will probably be rethinking those.

To renew in Namecoin-Qt you just update the name but don't change the value. Some work is being done to make automatic renewal easier/safer.