.eu sync issue - enom's 3 days rule redemption

[Strats]

I was wandering how do you deal with the enom's .eu policy where they set the .eu for deletion 3 days prior to the Expiration date? Which means that the domain enters redemption 3 days before the actual expiration date (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oVNszsvqhxh3hlT1LYMfcwq3lw_e6J7DeBePvN4t2aw/edit#gid=1203932299 the Enom TLD Reference Chart where you can see that delete date (Deleted x days before expiry) is 3 days before the expiration date).

The problem is that even if you manually change the Expiry Date to 3 days before the actual Expiry Date so you avoid payment in the last 3 days when enom charges for redemption, sync will change it back. And there is no way to disable domain sync based on a specific TLD.

[brian!]

4 hours ago, Strats said:

I was wandering how do you deal with the enom's .eu policy where they set the .eu for deletion 3 days prior to the Expiration date?

how strange, OpenSRS has an .eu policy on expiring on expiry... and seeing as OpenSRS bought eNom last year, I would have assumed their policies would match - perhaps they will converge in the future.

Quote

If a domain name is not renewed by its expiry date, it will then expire.  The previous quarantine process during which a domain was quarantined to the end of the expiry month no longer exists.

4 hours ago, Strats said:

The problem is that even if you manually change the Expiry Date to 3 days before the actual Expiry Date so you avoid payment in the last 3 days when enom charges for redemption, sync will change it back. And there is no way to disable domain sync based on a specific TLD.

I don't like using Domain Sync - it's a blunt instrument with little finesse... so making it 'Notify Only' would be one option.... invoicing domains three days earlier might be another (though that would apply to all domains not just .eu) but that really doesn't solve the expiry issue.

because the sync (AFAIK) only applies to active/pending transfer domains assigned to a registrar, one option would be a couple of hooks to remove the assigned registrar from the .eu domains before the cron and then replace it after the cron is complete (would be simpler if all your .eu domains were assigned to the same registrar)... but that's a ridiculous length to go to for something that should be simple to solve.

somewhere in a parallel universe, there must be a WHMCS that allows easy access to the source code - because i'm fairly sure with access to the sync SQL query used, it could be tweaked in minutes to exclude .eu (or any other TLD) domains. 🙄

I think there are a handful of feature requests for this, all with 1 or 2 votes... so I sadly can't see this being added any time soon.

[string]

6 hours ago, brian! said:

because the sync (AFAIK) only applies to active/pending transfer domains assigned to a registrar, one option would be a couple of hooks to remove the assigned registrar from the .eu domains before the cron and then replace it after the cron is complete (would be simpler if all your .eu domains were assigned to the same registrar)... but that's a ridiculous length to go to for something that should be simple to solve.

somewhere in a parallel universe, there must be a WHMCS that allows easy access to the source code - because i'm fairly sure with access to the sync SQL query used, it could be tweaked in minutes to exclude .eu (or any other TLD) domains. 🙄

Another way would be to run a hook (maybe AfterCronJob) or cronjob to adjust the expire date of eNom .EU domains to -3 days (e.g. calculated based on the next invoice date to prevent multiple minus 3 days calculations for the same domain).
But this could cause confusion, since the WHMCS invoice then shows a different expiration date than in the domain details. Another hook would be required to adjust the expire date on the invoice.
Though there will be still an inconsistency because during ordering because WHMCS clearly state "1 year". But I think that this would attract the least attention.

Seems like a lot of work and headache, maybe it's better to change the registrar.

Edited November 6, 2018 by string

[Strats]

9 hours ago, string said:

...Seems like a lot of work and headache, maybe it's better to change the registrar.

Or maybe it's easier to have the option to exclude tld from sync, on a future WHMCS version 🙂

Thank you both @string and @brian! for the replies and the propositions, seems that enom is not very popular for their eu, I'm I the only one using enom for the .eu who also like to use the sync? 🙂

[brian!]

12 hours ago, string said:

Seems like a lot of work and headache, maybe it's better to change the registrar.

that could be a lot of work and hassle too.

2 hours ago, Strats said:

Or maybe it's easier to have the option to exclude tld from sync, on a future WHMCS version

that's the *real* problem - yes, the eNom 3-day rule is stupid (and possibly unique to eNom as I don't think it's an .eu registry policy)... but it's the inflexibility of the domain sync feature that is the main issue... there's little point in submitting a feature request (at least one already exists and currently only has one vote)... I suppose if this isn't resolved in v7.7, then you're looking at v8 which is looking increasingly like it won't get a full release until the Summer 2019.

there would be many ways for WHMCS to do it - one option would be another column in the domain pricing page where a checkbox is enabled by default for each TLD to be used in the domain sync process, and then the user can simply untick each TLD that they wish to omit from the sync process... it would make things simpler if WHMCS added a TLD column to the tbldomains table as that would then remove the need to determine the TLD by splitting the domain into SLD/TLD which would make the SQL query much cleaner.... or I suppose they could do it the old-fashioned way and get the user to add a list of TLDs to configuration.php.

one other thought, which i'd be tempted to dismiss but there would be no harm in trying, might be to see if WHMCS Support will give (possibly sell) you a decrypted version of the sync file - that would at least give you a good starting point to fix this yourself.

[WHMCS Lawrence]

This does appear to be an eNom-specific rule (they have a similar rule for .au domains if I recall correctly as well). Your best option would likely be the AfterCronJob hook method suggested earlier as the domain sync now runs as part of the main cron job in WHMCS 7.6 and this hook would run shortly after that, so the dates would be able to be adjusted as desired as soon as possible.

Please note that we are unable to offer source code access for core files such as this, and the above method is what I would suggest using.

[Strats]

Thank you @WHMCS Lawrence for the reply. I'm afraid that the AfterCronJob hook method suggested will cause confusion, since the WHMCS invoice then shows a different expiration date than in the domain details, as @string mentioned above.