Question:

I've signed up for hosting for my .CO.ZA domain with 3Essentials and am attempting to update my .ZA registrar with 3Essentials nameservers, but they have notified me of a problem/error:

Resolution:

During registration .ZA registrars connect to the nameservers provided (ns1.3essentials.com and ns2.3essentials.com in this case), and try to pull the NS records to see if the match.  You can experience one of two problems with this:

1. If you haven't signed up with a hosting plan yet, OR your plan was just set up in the last 3 hours, then our nameservers haven't updated with your DNS zone yet... so when the registrar tries to contact our servers, and pull the NS records, it will give an error stating the nameservers had no record of the domain, or served no NS records for your domain.  If this is the case, our nameservers should have your DNS records on it within 3-4 hours after you've received your WELCOME EMAIL.  If it hasn't been 3-4 hours, simply wait a few hours and resubmit the information.  If it has been more than 4 hours, submit a support request, and our team will research why our nameservers don't have your domain's DNS information on them yet.
2. You can also run into this error, which is most common...

ERROR: Form had 2 Nameservers - but there were 3!

This is because when you've informed them (per our instructions) there are 2  nameservers:
ns1.3essentials.com
ns2.3essentials.com

But when they connect to those nameservers and query the NS records for your domain, they get 3 records...
NS ns1.3essentials.com
NS ns2.3essentials.com
NS ns.customerdomain.com

We add the 3rd record (ns.customerdomain.com) in order to address requirements for registrars in OTHER countries... and it causes registrars for .ZA to generate this error.  The solution is simple and quick... simply log into our control panel for your domain, click on the domain, click on the DNS icon, and REMOVE the NS record for ns.customerdomain.com.  This will leave you with the 2 remaining NS records... now simply resubmit the information to your registrar, and they will not find a mismatch this time.