15 days ago
My custom domain amlaakek.me is stuck on 'Waiting for DNS update' — DNS is correctly pointing to my service but it won't verify."
3 Replies
15 days ago
This thread has been opened as a bounty so the community can help solve it.
Status changed to Open Railway • 15 days ago
15 days ago
I’d treat this as a DNS verification edge case before assuming Railway is broken.
I’d quickly check these records together:
- TXT at _railway-verify.amlaakek.me
- A + AAAA for amlaakek.me
- CNAME for amlaakek.me (if this is a subdomain setup)
If this is an apex/root domain, old A/AAAA records can still block verification even when the target points look right.
Usually the fix is: remove stale/conflicting records, re-add only the required ones exactly as Railway documents, and remove/re-add the custom domain in Railway to force a fresh verification token.
If all records are correct and it still won’t validate, I can send a tighter follow-up based on whether this is apex vs subdomain.
I’d treat this as a DNS verification edge case before assuming Railway is broken. I’d quickly check these records together: - TXT at _railway-verify.amlaakek.me - A + AAAA for amlaakek.me - CNAME for amlaakek.me (if this is a subdomain setup) If this is an apex/root domain, old A/AAAA records can still block verification even when the target points look right. Usually the fix is: remove stale/conflicting records, re-add only the required ones exactly as Railway documents, and remove/re-add the custom domain in Railway to force a fresh verification token. If all records are correct and it still won’t validate, I can send a tighter follow-up based on whether this is apex vs subdomain.
15 days ago
Quick hunch from these symptoms: this is usually stale/extra DNS on the apex, not Railway being down.
Try this in order:
- Keep only Railway-required records from docs for this zone
-
- Ensure _railway-verify.amlaakek.me TXT exists + correct
-
- Clear conflicting A/AAAA (or old CNAME/forwarding) entries
-
- If proxied/CDN is on, disable briefly while re-verifying
-
- Remove domain in Railway and re-add it to regenerate verify token, then wait 2-5 min
If dig TXT _railway-verify.amlaakek.me and Railway-required A/AAAA line up, it should move past Waiting.
15 days ago
Hey! The issue is almost certainly that amlaakek.me is a root/apex domain, and you can't put a regular CNAME on a root domain — that's why it's stuck waiting to verify even though it looks like it's pointing correctly.
A couple of quick things to check:
What record type did you add? For a root domain it needs to be an ALIAS / ANAME record, or CNAME flattening if your DNS provider supports it (Cloudflare does). A plain CNAME on the apex usually gets rejected or ignored.
Are you on Cloudflare? If so, make sure the record is set to DNS only (grey cloud), not proxied (orange cloud). Railway can't verify or issue the SSL cert while it's proxied.
Easiest fix: point a subdomain like www.amlaakek.me to the Railway CNAME target instead — subdomains take a plain CNAME with no issues — and then redirect the root to www.
Can you run this and paste the output? It'll tell us exactly what's going on:
dig amlaakek.me CNAME +short
dig amlaakek.me CAA +short
Also double-check the record value matches the exact xxxx.up.railway.app target shown in your Railway dashboard, no typos.