Frequently Asked Questions - Watch My Domains Pro

Here are some of the frequently asked questions. Please contact us if you have a question that is not answered here.

Proxy/Firewall Settings

Does Watch My Domains work from behind a proxy/firewall?

Watch My Domains uses port 43 to connect to various whois servers. As long as this port is enabled the software will work through a proxy or a firewall.

If you are using any security software, make sure that it is configured to allow Internet access for Watch My Domains Pro. refer to the documentation of the security software (Norton, McAfee, AVG, etc).

Migrating from Version 2 to Version 3

How do I open the data created by the older v2.

version 3 uses a completely different data format for storing the domain data. It will not open the old DMS files used by the earlier version. Instead you need to import the data from the older version.

In version 3, start a new project and then use the Import option to import the data from the older DMS files.

Missing or Wrong Expiry Dates

The expiry date/creation date is inaccurate or is missing for some of my domains!

We have tried to make the software support as many whois servers as possible. In some cases we may not have considered a particular whois server or the output format may have changed. Simply contact us with the domain names that do not work. In most cases we will be able to suggest a simple configuration change that will solve the problem. If this is not possible, we will fix it as soon as we can.

Exporting Email Addresses

When I export the results the email addresses are not exported!

Watch My Domains will not export email addresses unless it knows that the address belongs to you. This is to prevent email harvesting from domain records (please contact us if you need any clarifications regarding this).

To tag/mark your email addresses, use the "Edit > Tag Emails" menu option and add all email addresses you normally use in your domain records. Once this is done the email addresses will be exported. If an email address uses the same domain it will be automatically tagged (if the administrative contact for example.com is user@example.com, the address will be automatically tagged)

Note: Untagged email addresses will appear in red color. This provides you with a way to identify unsafe email addresses.

Support for Country Code Domains

I am unable to check country code domains!

By default WMD supports only some of the country code domains. Please see whois server configuration for details about adding support for more country codes. In case you have problems please contact us.

Lookup Problems

The software seems to get stuck on certain domains!

Unfortunately this is true because of certain factors that are beyond our control.

For each Com and Net domain, WMD first connects to central registry whois server and finds the actual whois server address for that domain. It then connects to the actual whois server and retrieves the information. This is the only proper way to obtain the records for com/net domains. The software will automatically use NSI whois server for domains registered through NSI, Dotster whois server for domains registered through Dotster and so on.

The problem is due to certain registrars and their whois servers. Each registrar is responsible for maintaining the whois records for their customers. Some whois servers simply refuse any connection attempts, some others allow connections at certain time and disable it at other times. The worst case is when they allow a connection but simply doesn't return any data when queried. This causes the software to wait for the data that never arrives. In such cases WMD pro will time out after a short interval (18 seconds). It will again retry the lookup up to 3 times.

A knowledge base article on the subject is available here.

If you notice the software getting stuck on certain domains please contact us with the domain name (note: we need the domain name, not the name of the registrar).

Watch My Domains Pro