Last week I wanted to log into my Verio control panel so I could transfer some domains to another registrar. I'm a domain registration only account with them. This means, that since I'm not hosted, I have to access my control panel from an IP address. There was my.verio.com, which let you put your domain name in, and it would send you to the right IP/box to log in. It was very useful. As you notice, I'm speaking of it in the past-tense. It is now anti-helpful.

It now redirects you to another page under the support site. This page tells you how to log in. It tells you to either, a) Go to domain.com/stats/, or b) use the IP address from your activation notice. But, it doesn't say to do this for domreg only account, just if you are a new activation. But, I know it would be the IP for a domreg account as well. So, I dug out a close to 4 year old activation email. I'm probably one of the few people who keeps these things for that long. No IP address given in it... it only tells me to go to my.verio.com. (You must understand recursion to understand recursion)

Ok, no problem! There are two handy boxes on the side of the page. One is labeled "Control Panel Access". Perfect! This should have the same functionality that my.verio.com did.. or take me somewhere which does.. right? Wrong. It opens a window going to domain.com/stats/ ... again not very useful. The other box is "Password Recovery". Maybe this will do something fancy schmancy. Nope, it just opens domain.com/cgi-bin/sendpass. Well, again, since domain.com isn't hosted there, it no workie workie.

I did some searching around, and really found nothing saying how a domreg only account can access their control panel. If it's there, it must be fairly well hidden, or I'm blind. Ultimately, I had to open up a support ticket for this. I explained all this, and suggested that they re-add the old my.verio.com functionality since it was actually useful. Lord knows not everyone who registers with Verio hosts with Verio.

After some hours (I don't think it was over 24) I got a reply back from support. It was a name I didn't recognize, so maybe he's new or didn't work in Boca, or I just never saw his name. He was responding "In regards to your phone call earlier today". Ok, so I didn't actually make a phone call, and he quoted much of my email above that statement.. but phone calls and emails are basically interchangeable so I'll let that slide. After he "researched" my issue, he found I needed to use a certain "Universal Resource Locator (URL)" to access my control panel, and gave me that "Universal Resource Locator (URL)".

Then, he gave me a URL to submit any suggestions I may have. I guess the original suggestion I had wasn't good enough, and I should do it twice. I knew tech support people who would actually take issues from one support case and *gasp* open another one! Nope, I have to do this one myself. So, I did send my suggestion using the suggestion form. Since I'm not an OEM or partner, it will probably not do anything unless there is a deluge of suggestions for this.

The tech support response then continues on telling me to go to a certain support URL (the main support site) to find info about problems I may encounter. So, I went there.. thinking maybe I missed something. Lo and behold, in a box labeled "Top FAQs" an entry is "How do I access my Control Panel?" This must have the info to my original problem I encountered!! Well, no.. it just took me back to the original page I started from. At least I went full circle!

It doesn't stop there. The tech support guy, gave me an article number to enter on that page (ves40001). Since this guy spent all that time "researching" my issue, he must have found some good information for me! After all, he's a tech support rep!! So, I enter it into the search box, and there was a single result entitled "How do I access my Control Panel?" I clicked on it, and yes... as you guessed.. I ended up RIGHT WHERE I STARTED! Now, I've done a full figure eight!

The rest of the email was pretty boiler plated. Now, the tech "support" guy did give me the right IP, so that was helpful. But, it seems like he didn't even read my email or try to do what I did (go to my.verio.com, and click the link) since he redirected me right back to the same page I said was useless.

I'm still not sure why the my.verio.com functionality was removed. They should really add it back somewhere.