I searched high and low for an answer as to how to set up the custom dns and domain settings on Bluehost with no success. Every resource I found was either incomplete, unresolved or related to another web hosting company. After lots of frustration, I was able to find a solution, so I want to pay it forward for anyone who might have this issue moving forward.
For context, you must be on a paid bubble plan or trial for a paid bubble plan in order to use the custom domain so make sure that is activated before you try this.
What I was given by Bubble
Bubble provided me with 4 A records. Two of them had blank names and two of them had the www and each IP address on the blank option matched and IP address on the www option.
What I did with the info
I found a video in Bubble’s domain/dns setup manual telling me to
- delete ALL A and CNAME records and
- replace them with the records bubble gave me.
The problem is that these were for other web hosting solutions. None for Bluehost. And Bubble had only provided me with A records not CNAME Records.
So I deleted everything like the video said and then tried adding the A records and leaving the C records blank.
I ran into a problem when trying to put all 4 records into the A section in bluehost. The reason is because the blank ones require you to insert the @ symbol signifying they are blank and that returns an error message in bluehost because you are only allowed one blank one!
I had bluehost support help me but I wasn’t confident they had solved the problem because it looked the same way as I did with an error message still coming back and the website wasn’t working even though bubble said everything was working fine on their end. I couldn’t tell if it was the dns settings on just the standard time you have to wait for propagation, but I didn’t want to wait and find out. I had to get rid of that error message!
After reading through the support forums, no one could help me so I made up a solution based on some fragmented pieces of information that I found.
This is what worked for me in Bluehost when setting up my custom Bubble app domain
- First I reset all of the settings to the default. (Thank GOD for the reset button!!!)
- Second, I started working on the A records. I noticed that there are 3 columns in the A Records.
- Host Record
- Points To
- TTL
There are 5 rows with unique host record names. You might have to click show all in bottom right to see them all. 4 of those point to the same IP address. The other, which is the local host points to another number that’s shorter than the IP address. I don’t know what it is, but I left it alone. I chose ONE of the bubble IP addresses provided and replaced all 4 of the IP address in the A records with that single IP address. NOTE: I did not change the name of the host record in any of the records, only the IP addresses (e.g. I left all of the existing prefixes of @, www, etc. and I left the TTL at 4 hours which is the minimum). And then I hit save for each record.
- I went down to the CNAME records. I noticed that there are the same 3 columns as in the A Records.
- Host Record
- Points To
- TTL
There are a bunch of rows with unique host record names. Once again, you might have to click show all to see them all. Once again, I didn’t touch the host record field or the TTL field and I replaced all of the points to fields with app.bubble.io.
- There are a bunch of more records at the bottom below the CNAME records and also one above the A records. I didn’t touch any of them! The next morning when I woke up, my domain was pointing to my bubble app.
Hello Gina,
Thanks for this post.
I tried setting up the domain name - I am with justhost.com, a sub of bluehost.com I think.
One thing I noticed is that until I wait for DNS propagation, I am unable to preview my site, in either modes (Development or Live)?
Did you have this problem too?
Thanks,
Guy (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada).
That’s because you either have a rouge A record in your DNS settings (you can only have the 4 Bubble ones) or like you say you just need to wait for the changes to roll out via propagation.
Looks like your changes are propagating https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/prolo.biz but you are only using one of Bubble’s IP addresses - you should be using both (so set up all 4 of the A records they are telling you to).
Thanks.
On justhos.com, this is what I have in the A records section:
On justhost.com my DNS servers are set as follows:
Yep, looks right. Just give it time to finish propagating.
All right. Thanks.
Guy
Is it normal that the I cannot preview my Development side too?
Yep - it’s all on the same domain.
Are you able to view your site now?
Yes! Thank you for your help!
www.prolo.biz
Under Beta testing with early adopters.