Hey there! We've found the following might help you get unblocked faster:

• 🧵 DNS setup and domain

• 🧵 Domain setup / redirect

• 🧵 Custom domain

• 🧵 Custom domain returning DEPLOYMENTNOTFOUND (worked previously on Vercel, now migrated to Railway)

If you find the answer from one of these, please let us know by solving the thread!

I would suggest using Cloudflare's DNS. You can read CF's docs for that here: https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/full-setup/setup/

After replacing your nameservers with Cloudflare's NS, re-add your Railway's CNAME records into your CF DNS records list.

I want to stay with Whois as the registrar because I also have my email with them. This isn't the first website I've launched, and it always comes down to changing a setting someplace. I just don't know where it is.

I don't have much to say except ensuring that your CNAME records are added correctly in your DNS provider.

Also, some DNS providers do not allow/support adding CNAME records under your root/apex domain.

https://docs.railway.com/guides/public-networking#adding-a-custom-domain

I finally heard back from Whois, and they said "We can see that the name servers of your domain name colormetoo.com are currently pointing to ns1.up.railway.app and ns2.up.railway.app. So, it appears that the name server settings of your domain name are configured properly. We suggest contacting your web hosting provider to check if your web hosting package is properly set up on their end, since the name server records of your domain name are now pointing to their hosting server."

Are those the correct settings?

I'm pretty sure Railway does not have their own nameservers. As mentioned above, I recommend switching to using Cloudflare's nameservers/DNS provider to make things easier for you.

We do, but they are not something the user should be interacting with.

Cloudflare is the way to go here.

What Whois is saying is that they are forwarding requests to Railway. Railway should be serving the pages, but isn't. It's my fault -- I didn't type the right thing in somewhere. But I don't know what the right thing is and where I should type it. The easiest way to fix the issue is to type something in my code or in the Railway UI.

As brody stated above, Railway nameservers are not something users should be interacting with. You should be using Cloudflare DNS in this situation.

When a user enters colormetoo.com, the browser performs a DNS lookup using the nameservers at Whois.com.
The nameserver responds with the A record pointing to Railway’s IP.
The browser then sends an HTTP request to that IP address.

The issue I’m seeing is that even though DNS is returning Railway’s IP correctly, Railway is not serving the site. I’m trying to confirm whether the custom domain is correctly attached to the project, and whether Railway is recognizing the incoming request for this domain.

My ChatGPT bot sends its sincerest apologies for taking us all on a wild goose chase. He said, "I had previously switched my nameservers to ns1.up.railway.app based on older instructions. I now understand the correct setup is to use the registrar’s nameservers and point the domain via CNAME to the project-specific Railway domain.
I’ve restored the registrar’s names."

He reminds me of Pinocchio sometimes.

Yay! It's up and running. It was 0x5b62656e5d suggestion that pointed me in the right direction. My ChatGPT bot had given me the instructions from how Railway used to work. I challenged it with 0x5b62656e5d's idea, we argued a little bit, put things back the way they were, and it started propagating. Thank you all. It was a team effort.