domain kept in pending status but I cannot update the nameservers
What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?
I have been attempting to update the nameservers for my site to the newly assigned cloudflare nameservers. I have followed the guides and there is no place for me to update these values.
What feature, service or problem is this related to?
DNS records
What are the steps to reproduce the issue?
Domain overview shows invalid namespaces and instructs to update namespace for domain registered with cloudflare.
Propagation tool shows old nameservers not the ones reflected. I am struggling to understand how to alter as the domain was acquired by cloudflare and is managed only in cloudflare.
If you still encounter issues, log out and try this link and then check any and all email accounts that may be associated with the domain. If you don’t know the email: https://dash.cloudflare.com/forgot-email
So can the second account that is also an admin for that domain, not manage the domain?
Also, when I look at the second account, I am not asked to update the nameserver nor am I alerted to there being a dns nameserver issue, only on the secondary account. Do the nameservers actually need to be updated?
ok, that is helpful. how do I actually update the nameservers? when I click into the second account, I do not see an option to edit the namespaces there.
Okay so it seems there were competing site setup instead of simply joint management as intended. I removed the redundant site since there is no option to actually manage the nameservers in the free tier. Thank you
You can’t change a Cloudflare Registrar domain’s nameservers on any plan, and “free tier” has nothing to do with this. This is mentioned at the time of domain purchase/transfer.
You need to either use the account the domain was registered in, or have it properly and completely transferred to the new account.
i have the same issue like this…every day indonesia time 3 ..i get infor that the domain is moved..moved to who ? i naver moved it and my hosting company dont have any logs or they dont change any name servers also..this is keep happening in all example…is is hacker changed?so is that easy to hack Cloudflare? becuase if some one try to hack then the orginal admin dns records changes by Cloudflare is a stupid tech i ever saw in my life…you guys need to fix this issue to make the users more confortable …how come if alredy added to the Cloudflare then another hacker or someone can added the same domain? woow is a big security risk…
“Moved” in a Cloudflare email means you have changed the nameservers away from Cloudflare. To purge unused zones, Cloudflare deletes these 7 days after the nameservers move away from Cloudflare so you get a warning by email that you have done this.
You can add any domain to Cloudflare (apart from Enterprise zones where zone hold has been enabled), but it won’t be active unless the nameservers are configured at the registrar to the 2 Cloudflare ones allocated for the domain. The registry nameservers are what authenticates you control the domain. There is no security risk on Cloudflare here.
You seem to be mixing up different issues and coming to some wrong conclusions. If you give your domain then it’s easier to see what’s happening.
I’m bringing this up here because this is not the first time I’ve received this kind of error.
The problem is: I’m using Hostinger as my domain registrar, and we did not make any changes to the domain’s nameservers.
There’s also no log or record in the domain registrar account showing any update or modification.
Can you please help check what exactly happened?
Also, how can we prevent this type of issue in the future — where the domain is suddenly marked as “moved” from Cloudflare without us doing anything?
WHOIS shows a change was made to the domain registration today, but what that was I don’t know. There are also 3 sets of Cloudflare nameservers resolving for your domain, the current active set are the ones set 10 days ago. Either the domain is added to multiple accounts (changes would trigger a “moved” alert), or you deleted and re-added the zone to your account a few times. https://cf.sjr.dev/tools/check?d8e60ccfcbca4c5d9bb4d5b935ce0cfa#dns
As mentioned, the additional nameservers aren’t a problem as they don’t match the registry so can’t become active and will be deleted after 7/28 days.
The domain was added to Cloudflare 10 days ago – yes, that was me. I intentionally added the domain at that time, and everything was normal.
WHOIS shows a change made today – that was also me. After receiving the “moved” alert, I re-added the domain and updated the nameservers with the new values provided by Cloudflare. So both of those actions were legitimate and initiated from my side.
However, this is the part that concerns me:
You mentioned that 3 sets of Cloudflare nameservers are showing for my domain, and that this might be due to the domain being added to multiple Cloudflare accounts. But I only use one account, and I never shared domain access with anyone.
This is exactly the issue I’m trying to understand: How can someone else add my domain to their Cloudflare account without access to my registrar or DNS settings?
If no changes were made to the nameservers (confirmed in the registrar logs), how did Cloudflare remove my original zone and mark it as “moved”? That shouldn’t happen unless the nameservers were changed — but they weren’t, at least not by me during that time.
So my main questions are:
How can a third party trigger a “moved” status if they don’t control my registrar DNS settings?
Is it possible that someone exploited a vulnerability or there’s an internal sync issue between Cloudflare and my registrar (Hostinger)?
Can Cloudflare provide logs or insights on what account or event caused the zone to be marked as “moved”?
This is not the first time this has happened to me, and I’m worried about the possibility of a domain hijack attempt or misbehavior between systems.
Thank you — I really hope we can get clarity on this, as I want to ensure my domain is secure going forward.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you may be misunderstanding my concern.
I fully understand that Cloudflare doesn’t activate just because someone adds a domain to their account. Nameservers must be changed at the registrar — that’s the basic security model.
But here’s the issue:
I did not change my nameservers, yet my domain’s Cloudflare status was marked as “moved”, and my zone was deactivated.
There was no registrar log of nameserver changes during the time Cloudflare triggered the “moved” event.
I was forced to re-add the domain and accept new nameservers, even though I was still using the original pair from Cloudflare when it happened.
So I’m not claiming Cloudflare is broken — I’m saying something caused my original Cloudflare zone to be invalidated, without a matching DNS change, and I’m trying to find out how and why.
If it’s just an edge-case sync issue between Cloudflare and the registrar, that’s fine — I’d just like clarity so it doesn’t happen again. But calling this concern “stupid” is dismissive of a real experience.
The Cloudflare nameservers you have been using are unchanged (according to securitytrails.com) since the ones set 10 days ago. What did you change them to/from at your registrar today?
If you look at my test link above and click the nameserver pairs you can see the DNS records that are in those nameservers and if you recognise them as something you entered.
