The pain of transferring a domain from Gandi.net
• 2 min read
I transferred most of my domains to Cloudflare in 2022. But one domain, the .be domain this blog is on, stayed with Gandi.net as Cloudflare don’t support the .be top-level domain (TLD).
Since Gandi.net was sold in 2023, the renewal prices have been ever-increasing. My .be domain was coming up for renewal, and the latest quote was €38.38 (including UK VAT) for a year. (Back in 2022, it was €14.96.)
Perhaps not surprisingly, I set about finding a new registrar for my domain. Many registrars don’t support .be domains, so the choices are limited. I settled on one that was ICANN-registered and had reasonable prices, and set about trying to transfer my domain to them.
To transfer the domain, you need an authorisation, or transfer, code. You also need to disable transfer lock on the domain, if it’s enabled. With Gandi.net, the two operations are linked: you disable transfer lock, and then get the transfer code.
Unlocking locking the domain with Gandi.net takes 72 hours. They stated:
The process of unlocking your domain is currently being validated. It will be completed by August 24, 2025 11:14 AM (within 72 hours). At the end of this period, you will be able to access the authorization code. Until then, the domain remains secure. This additional validation step has been implemented by Gandi to prevent domains theft. We strongly encourage you to set up two-factor authentication (TOTP) to secure access to your account.
Given the stated intention of imposing a delay to prevent ‘domains [sic] theft’, it’s surprising that I didn’t receive any emails from Gandi.net in relation to disabling transfer lock.
Once the 72 hours had passed, the authorisation code appeared in the Gandi.net admin portal. I placed an order with the new registrar to transfer the domain. The transfer was rejected due to an invalid authorisation code. I queried it with the new registrar, and they stated the code was rejected by the registry, and to request a new one.
The Gandi.net admin site had a button for generating a new code, but it was disabled (presumably it would be enabled after the stated expiry date of the code, which was in two months’ time). So, I thought I’d create a support ticket with Gandi.net to ask them to confirm that the code was valid, and to generate a new one if possible. Alas, the authentication on their support site was broken on all my devices. It got stuck in a failed authentication loop1:
Luckily for me, the registry, DNS Belgium, let you request transfer codes right on their home page. I did that, and a new code appeared in my email inbox seconds later. This code was in a completely different format to the one Gandi.net gave me – it was five sets of three digits, separated by hyphens, while the Gandi.net code was sixteen characters long, consisting of letters, numbers and a random semicolon. I sent the new code across to the new registrar, and the transfer completed successfully this time.
Footnotes
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This does seem to be fixed now, at least. ↩