Users with more than 20 sites cannot use the new domain registrar service

Website, Application, Performance Registrar
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UPDATE - 30th Nov '18 - The limitation is now 250 domains. If you have more that 250 sites on Cloudflare, the transfer interface will list only 250 domains in alphabetical order but, strangely, not starting at the letter A - in my case they start at the letter D. You cannot transfer domains that do not appear on the list.

The thread goes on to discuss a number of related issues, with useful contributions by Cloudflare employees.

========= Original Post =========

It appears that Cloudflare accounts with more than 20 sites will be unable to use the new Cloudflare domain registrar service, even to transfer in a single domain.

As currently designed, you have to select the sites whose domains you want to transfer to Cloudflare from a list that the system creates by using the API to get the names of all the eligible domains already using your Cloudflare account for DNS etc. This makes sense, as you can only use Cloudflare as registrar for domains that are already using the Cloudflare service. I presume the list also excludes any sites whose TLD Cloudflare cannot yet handle.

Unfortunately, the Cloudflare API cannot fetch more than 20 sites. You might have noticed the same limitation when submitting a support ticket to Cloudflare: they ask you to select the domain your problem is associated with, but it can only list your first 20 sites (alphabetically).

In the case of the support tickets, it fails gracefully - you can go ahead and submit your ticket without selecting a site. In the case of the registrar service, however, the system throws an error and does not even create a selection list based on the first 20 sites in your account. All you get is a big red error, mentioning the first 20 sites in your account. There is no way to proceed.

I presume that most casual Cloudflare users have less than 20 sites, but I guess that the new registrar service will be of most interest to more serious users with a larger number of sites. To avoid a support nightmare, it might make more sense to at least give users the option to type in the domains they want to transfer in, and then have the system run checks to see which domains in the submitted list are eligible, then display the list of eligible domains and allow the user to go ahead and confirm the ones he wants to transfer.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that users be allowed to transfer hundreds of domains at a time, I am simply pointing out that, as currently designed, users with more than 20 sites are unable to transfer even a single domain.

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I suppose you’re in wave 0 or the Austin beta test? :open_mouth:

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Just a slightly early tester. I know nothing definitive but wave 1 is due this month and we are already halfway through November, perhaps it will be rolling out soon :wink:

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As an update to my original post, I have now received confirmation that, yes, the system does not YET work for people with more than 20 sites in their account, even if they are just trying to transfer one domain, because of this whole nonsense of using the API to fetch a list of the sites in your account before you can order a transfer.

This is a pretty good example of how it is not always a good idea to use new technology just for the sake of it - in this case, having the whole process hinge upon an API call when you really don’t need one. The existing registrars are a mess in many ways, but they know better than to overcomplicate the process of getting transfers-in. APIs are sexy, but simple forms work.

Cloudflare have told me that they will, at some point, work on a bulk transfer feature, which can be used to type in as many or as few domains as you want, and bypass the API list fetching. That is not, however, an immediate priority, so, if you are a heavy Cloudflare user, it probably doesn’t matter what wave you are in, you will have to wait a little longer anyway.

It is a shame. This launch has a lot of attention from folks in the domaining forums, this surprising limitation to users with less than 20 sites will make a bad first impression within that particular niche. I am also genuinely curious about how many serious Cloudflare users have less than 20 sites in their account, it really doesn’t seem like a lot to me.

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i am wave 1 . still nothing about registration

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I’m sure that you and all the other wave 1 folks will be getting their welcome emails soon.

From what I saw, even though it did not ultimately work out for me, it is a lovely system. I am actually tempted to move most of my sites away from Cloudflare, just so that I can get down to 20 sites and use the registrar service :smile:

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Thanks for posting this. It’s not a hard-limit that’s being enforced. We’re loading a lot of data about each site in that page so that we can make it easy for users to understand what can and cannot be transferred. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing issues with lists of 20+ sites. We’re working on it though!

It won’t be a limitation for much longer, should be addressed within the next two weeks. We’re relying on the API, rather than a form, so that you can navigate quickly to the domains available for transfer.

Thanks for testing it out!

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Would love to see Cloudflare support category folders for grouping domains in such category folders for better organising domain for folks with many domains. Then the API maybe could list the categories and only pull a subset of domains instead when the category is selected/clicked on ?

So for all domains intended to be transferred you could lump them into a category folder called - pending transfers and have that category folder as selected on domain registrar transfer page. Thus reducing amount of data being pulled.

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I agree, that would be a helpful approach. We’re looking at a few options for making that API more performant, a similar implementation included.

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domain registration is live for anybody? i see i have 22 domains and in wave 1 it says November
only 5 days left for November to end. did i miss the flight?

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You almost certainly haven’t missed anything, my understanding is that they are slowly but steadily rolling out wave 1. If I had to guess, I would say there is a good chance you will get your welcome email by the end of this month.

If you have 22 domains, and you are particularly anxious to try the domain registration, it might be worth removing 2 sites from your Cloudflare account.

If you need to have more than 20 domains in your account, be prepared to wait a little longer, end-of-year would probably be realistic.

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No, you didn’t miss your flight. As soon as Wave 1 hits, that “Sign Up” button will turn into “Start Transferring” or something like that. Those wave figures seem to be a “ballpark guess” as to when it’ll happen. They should change Wave 1 to “Any day now!”

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Some in wave 1 have already been brought onboard, some are still waiting but they will all get in before those in wave 2, wave 3 etc.

The technical problem described in this thread means that your wave does not matter if you have more than 20 sites in your Cloudflare account. I am in wave 1 and was given access more than a week ago, but I have more than 20, so, I cannot transfer even one domain over.

If, like @Step, I had only 22 sites, or anything close to 20, I would remove the extra sites from Cloudflare but, unfortunately, I have far too many for that to be a realistic option. That is fine, it will happen eventually, and I am glad that Cloudflare are doing this, it is good for customers and smart business.

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I have like 50 domains. So I have to remove 30, and can then transfer the remaining 20.
Can I then re-assign the remaining 30 back just the way they are, only without being registered with CF?

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Yes, that should work - it is not that they wanted to stop heavy Cloudflare users from using this service, they simply did not consider us when they decided to make the API an unavoidable part of the transfer process. Reduce your account to 20 sites and it should work fine.

Removing a lot of domains from your account, and then re-adding them later, will be quite time-consuming. You might consider using the API to automate the process - there is a bit of a learning curve involved in getting to grips with the API, but it is fun and you will undoubtedly find your new skills useful in the future.

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As someone who has more than 60 domains on the site, I was very sad to hear I won’t be able to move them in even though I’m in Wave 1. I hope the Dev’s at Cloudflare can get this functionality working! Hopefully soon!

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At present, I have more than 20 domain names, but now only the first 20 have been transferred. The latter domain names can not be transferred for the time being.

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I have more than 20 domain names, but now only the first 20 have been transferred. The latter domain names can not be transferred for the time being.When will this problem be solved?

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You can transfer the first 20, delete the 20 after the transfer is completed, and then transfer the remaining domain names. After the transfer is completed, you can add all the domain names. The original registration information will be retained.

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@hainei Have you confirmed that this actually works?

It sounds like a good idea, but a lot of work for those of us with hundreds of sites on Cloudflare.

If there are any bash wizards following this, it would be useful for a lot of users to have a script that uses the Cloudflare API to move sites between two Cloudflare accounts.

12 days ago in this thread, @SamRhea, the Product Manager for Cloudflare Registrar, said that the limitation would be addressed within two weeks. I don’t know if that is still the plan.