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Proposals are not loading/showing an error

What to do if your proposals are showing an error

Rob Lucas avatar
Written by Rob Lucas
Updated over a week ago

If you are unfortunate enough to see an error when trying to view your proposal, this is most likely to do with your custom domain. The quickest way to tell if this is the case is by removing your domain from the url and replacing it with betterproposals.io. If your proposal loads then there is no issue with the system and your custom domain needs fixing.

While there is only one primary method for setting up your custom domain now, we used fo offer other options. So it's important to know which option you're using so you can troubleshoot accordingly:

  1. Setting up a CNAME record

  2. Uploading the custom domain files to your domain and hosting the files yourself

  3. Creating an A-record and pointing it to our IP address and we'll host the files for you.

Option 1: If your custom domain was setup with a CNAME record, there's a nice quick check you can do inside your account to confirm if your CNAME record is no longer verified. Just go to Settings > Branding > Custom domain and click 'Re-verify record' button and if you get an error, you'll need to check your DNS records and most likely re-add the CNAME record and re-verify it again inside your account.

Option 2: If you are hosting the files yourself, the most likely cause is the files have either not been uploaded in the correct place, (or not at all) or have since been removed for some reason and need replacing. If that's the case, just follow these instructions:

In this case, just follow these steps:

  1. Create a new folder in the public folder of your domain (often called public_html). You can call this something like 'proposal'. If you are using Wordpress, make sure this new folder is created at the same level as wp-content, not inside it.

  2. Download the files, unzip them and upload the individual files, untouched and unedited into the new folder. Make sure the files are uploaded directly into that folder, not inside any other folder like 'CustomDomainFiles'.

  3. In the box on the page, type in the URL you will be using along with the folder name. Say your website is http://abccompany.com and your new folder is called ‘proposal’, enter http://abccompany.com/proposal into the textbox. You can also use a subdomain if you like, it works in exactly the same way.

  4. Click 'Save'

  5. This will display a red box. Click the 'Test My URL' button to make sure you've set everything up correctly. This should open a success page on your domain.Note: Loading the direct URL (http://abccompany.com/proposal/) will display a blank page. If you saw the success page on testing then it's working. When you create a proposal, you'll see it load on your URL when you click the Preview link.

  6. When the test is successful, click 'Confirm and Activate' and you're all good to go.

You can download the files here if you need them - Custom Domain Files

Option 3: If you setup an A-record before and we're hosting the files, the most likely scenario is that the A-record has been removed and needs replacing so we'd suggest checking your DNS records

If these troubleshooting steps do not work, we would advise you to contact your hosting company as they'll be far more equipped to help you in this instance.

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