GoDaddy’s previewDNS – A Thorn in my side

This is for anyone who has had issue with the Mootools (popups) not working in Joomla and using GoDaddy’s previewDNS option which basically lets you preview a site in development if the domain is pointed to another host. It would be like yourdomain.previewdns.com.

So I’m working on getting Joomla set up for a client. I have it on my server and I get it to a point where I really need to get it on their end for additional development. I install on their site. I copy over my database and all files using a backup extension for Joomla. It looks fine. Then I notice the popups for preview and the menu select article not working. I think perhaps it’s because of my loading the backup. So I delete it and do a fresh install. Still not working. So I delete it and download Joomla again thinking one of my files got corrupt. Still not working. So I call GoDaddy. Apparently they’ve never had anyone call about Joomla that had been using previewDNS. They suppose that is the root of the problem. The guy does tell me they don’t really offer support for any of their applications. So I have to get the client to buy another domain to test with (something they can use in addition to their current domains for additional SEO).

It works.

2 days later! In 2 days the site could have been DONE. You know the great thing about my host, 1and1? It comes with a testing domain already so you don’t have to use some complicated mask.