When Your Custom Domain Stops Working

If you've connected a custom domain (see Custom Domains), JourneyFuse keeps checking in the background that it's still set up correctly. This article explains what happens if it isn't, and how to fix it.

What You'll See

A red warning banner on Settings → Domain & Landing Page. It names exactly what's wrong with your DNS and what to do about it — for example, it'll tell you if your domain now points at Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy's website builder, or Cloudflare, because that's usually the actual cause.

An email, sent to the workspace owner, letting you know your domain has a problem. You'll get one email per incident — not a repeat every few hours while it's unresolved.

The check runs regularly and only flags a domain after it fails twice in a row, so a brief DNS hiccup won't trigger a false alarm. If you see the warning, something real changed.

What It Means

Your domain's DNS record no longer points at JourneyFuse. Practically, that means any link on your custom domain — portal, proposal, itinerary, invoice — won't reach your clients' pages anymore.

Why It Happens

The three most common causes:

1. The domain got repointed to a website builder. Someone (you, a web designer, an IT contact) updated the domain's DNS to point at Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy's site builder, or a similar service — usually while making changes to your main website, without realizing the same domain was also serving your JourneyFuse portal.
2. The DNS record was deleted. During other DNS cleanup or a provider migration, the CNAME record pointing to JourneyFuse got removed.
3. Cloudflare's proxy got switched back on. If your DNS is on Cloudflare, the record needs to be in "DNS only" mode (grey cloud). If the orange-cloud proxy gets turned on — often during unrelated Cloudflare configuration — it blocks the connection to JourneyFuse.

What We Do Automatically

New client links keep working. As soon as a domain is flagged, any new portal, proposal, itinerary, or invoice link we generate uses journeyfuse.com instead of your broken custom domain, so your clients can still reach their pages.

Links you've already sent do not get fixed automatically. Any link that already went out on your custom domain — in an email, a text, a printed itinerary — stays broken until the DNS is fixed. We can't reach back and change a link that's already in a client's inbox. If you know a client has a link like that, resend it (once your domain is fixed, or using a link generated after that point) or point them to journeyfuse.com in the meantime.

How to Fix It

1. Go to your domain provider (the warning names the culprit, so you'll know whether that's Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, or somewhere else).
2. Follow the exact remedy the warning describes — usually restoring the CNAME record to point back at JourneyFuse, or switching a Cloudflare record back to "DNS only" mode.
3. Come back to Settings → Domain & Landing Page and click Re-check DNS.

If the check succeeds, the warning clears immediately and new links go back to using your custom domain.

Avoiding It

If you already have a website at your root domain (youragency.com), connect JourneyFuse to a subdomain instead — book.youragency.com or trips.youragency.com — rather than the root domain itself. A subdomain has its own DNS record, so changes to your main website's hosting or website builder never touch it. Put JourneyFuse on the root domain and the two setups compete for the same DNS record, so the next time someone updates your main site's hosting, your portal links go down with it.

If you try to add a root domain that already has a live website on it, JourneyFuse will warn you about this before you finish setup — take the subdomain instead.