---
schema_version: "1"
id: 3d378df8da0e1517eeccaf6e409593833babfd89fdc323e914e8295a7aa3eca6
title: Troubleshoot Common Custom Domain Issues
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/domain_mgmt_troubleshoot.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_troubleshoot.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 01b917500744e8bf87c8d11938a9249af4ea90090ce810575466d00ca2aa20e8
description: Review the potential causes and troubleshooting steps for common issues that you can encounter when you set up a custom domain.
products:
  - Salesforce Platform
  - Security
release: "264"
---
# Troubleshoot Common Custom Domain Issues

Review the potential causes and troubleshooting steps for common issues that you can encounter when you set up a custom domain.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, and <strong>Unlimited</strong> Editions.</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Applies to: Salesforce Sites and <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.exp_cloud_basics_glossary.htm&amp;language=en_US" target="_blank">LWR, Aura, and Visualforce sites</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Unfamiliar with terms like DNS, CDN, certificate, and CNAME? See [Custom Domain Terminology](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_terms.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Review the terms related to setting up a custom domain in Salesforce.")

![Tip](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-extend_click-264-0-0-production-enus/5f7d9219-b7b1-4552-8891-f1aba9b289fc/images/icon_tip.png)

Tip You can browse or search for information on custom domain set up, maintenance tasks, and common configuration issues without leaving Setup. On the Domain Detail page of a custom domain, click **Get Help with Custom Domain Issues**.

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small ">
        <colgroup>
          <col style="width:25%">
          <col style="width:75%">
        </colgroup>
        <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
          <tr class="">
            <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d58018e93">Behavior</th>
            <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d58018e96">Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">When adding a domain and entering the domain name,
              an admin gets the error, Unable to verify the CNAME target.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">The canonical name (CNAME) record is missing or incorrect in the
              domain’s DNS record. Verify that the CNAME record is present and
              correct for your fully qualified domain name (FQDN). See <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_update_dns.htm&amp;release=264.0.0&amp;type=5" title="Before you add a domain in Salesforce, point your domain to your Salesforce org in Domain Name Service (DNS). If your custom domain uses your HTTPS Certificate or the Salesforce content delivery network (CDN) partner, add a canonical domain name (CNAME) record for your fully qualified domain (FQDN) to DNS. The CNAME record references your Salesforce org ID and your FQDN. Then, if you plan to use the Salesforce CDN to serve your Experience Cloud site on your custom domain, add a second CNAME record that our CDN partner requires.">Point Your Custom Domain to Your Salesforce Org</a>.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">The change to your domain’s DNS record is still being propagated.
              It can take up to 72 hours for that change to take effect worldwide.
              Wait for propagation to finish, then try again.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">A custom domain is stuck in provisioning.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p>Provisioning a domain can take 4–14 hours for the Salesforce
                content delivery network (CDN) and 4–8 hours for other
                options.</p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">If that time has elapsed, check your domain’s DNS record for any
                DNS changes. Then contact Salesforce Customer Support. </p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">A custom domain has a status of Awaiting Custom URL. Provisioning
              didn’t start.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">For custom domains that use your HTTPS certification on
              Salesforce servers, provisioning starts when you add the first
              custom URL. In this case, the status on the Domains Setup page is
              Awaiting Custom URL. To start provisioning, <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.custom_url_add.htm&amp;release=264.0.0&amp;type=5" title="To specify the site to load when users access your custom domain, add a custom URL. Optionally, you can define additional relationships between your domains and sites by mapping paths for your domain to your sites.">add a custom URL</a> for the
              domain.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">When attempting to visit the custom domain, users
              get the ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED error in Chrome.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">The CNAME record is missing or incorrect in the domain’s DNS record. Verify that
                the CNAME record is present and correct for your fully qualified domain name
                (FQDN). See <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_update_dns.htm&amp;release=264.0.0&amp;type=5" title="Before you add a domain in Salesforce, point your domain to your Salesforce org in Domain Name Service (DNS). If your custom domain uses your HTTPS Certificate or the Salesforce content delivery network (CDN) partner, add a canonical domain name (CNAME) record for your fully qualified domain (FQDN) to DNS. The CNAME record references your Salesforce org ID and your FQDN. Then, if you plan to use the Salesforce CDN to serve your Experience Cloud site on your custom domain, add a second CNAME record that our CDN partner requires.">Point Your Custom Domain to Your Salesforce Org</a>.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">The domain isn’t activated in Salesforce. Check the domain status
              on the Domains Setup page. </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">When users attempt to access a custom domain that
              uses your HTTPS certificate, they see an error that indicates a
              security issue.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">The common name (CN) on the certificate is incorrect. A certificate is valid
              only if the request host name matches the certificate CN. </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p>A mismatch between the certificate and the provisioned domain
                name. For example, the certificate is for
                <samp class="filepath">www.example.com</samp> and the domain name in
                Salesforce is <samp class="filepath">example.com</samp>.
              </p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">Make sure that your custom domain points to its own
                <samp class="filepath">*.live.siteforce.com</samp> CNAME target. For example, CNAME
                record for <samp class="filepath">www.example.com</samp> points at
                <code>www.example.com.<var>18CharOrgId</var>.live.siteforce.com</code>,
                and the CNAME record for <samp class="filepath">products.example.com</samp> points at
                <code>products.example.com.<var>18CharOrgId</var>.live.siteforce.com</code>.
              </p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">When users attempt to access a custom domain that’s
              hosted by a third-party service or CDN, they see an SSL connection
              error.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p>Verify that your proxy or CDN forwards requests to your My Domain login URL.
                For more information, see <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_enable_https.htm&amp;release=264.0.0&amp;type=5" title="If a non-Salesforce service or content delivery network (CDN) serves your domain, complete these steps before you add your domain in Salesforce. To confirm your domain ownership, update your domain’s Domain Name Service (DNS) configuration. Then work with the third-party provider to ensure access to the required HTTP protocols, configure caching and request handling, and review reverse proxy restrictions. If you’re using a third-party CDN, update the header in your CDN to track IP addresses.">Prerequisites for a Custom Domain That Uses a Third-Party Service or CDN</a>.</p>
              <p>The most common cause is the use of a site host name, such as
                <code><var>MyDomainName</var>.my.site.com</code>, as a target host
                name. That configuration fails.
              </p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">Also, before Spring ’26, some target host
                names included your Salesforce instance or Hyperforce cell. Those host names can
                change during maintenance, such as during an org migration. With those host names,
                when your instance or cell changes, your custom domain stops working. To fix this
                issue, work with your third party to update the target host name to your org’s My
                Domain login URL.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">Make sure that the SSL certificate is installed properly on the third party’s
              origin server.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">In Setup, the custom domain isn’t reflected as the
              Site URL on the All Sites Setup page.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">The custom domain configuration prevents the association. This
              issue can happen if you use a proxy or point indirectly to the
              <samp class="filepath">*.live.sitesforce.com</samp> CNAME target.
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">Two custom domains serve the same site. Only one is shown on the All Sites
              Setup page.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">Users can’t authenticate via the custom domain with
              methods such as single-sign-on (SSO), connected apps, and auth
              providers.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p>If you have two custom domains that serve the same site, verify
                that the authentication method is configured for both custom
                domains.</p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">Often when the authentication method isn’t configured for one
                domain, authentication methods that use the default site URL
                ending in <samp class="filepath">*.force.com</samp> or
                <samp class="filepath">*.my.site.com</samp> work.
              </p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">If you deployed enhanced domains, see <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000394409&amp;type=1&amp;language=en_US" target="_blank">Restore Access to Sites After
                Enhanced Domains Auto-Deployment</a>. </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">Some users can’t connect to the site via a custom domain that
              uses the Salesforce CDN.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">Check the common issues in the knowledge article <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000394409&amp;type=1&amp;language=en_US" target="_blank">Restore
                Access to Sites After Enhanced Domains
                Auto-Deployment</a>.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">Users see unexpected content when they visit a custom
              URL.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p>If you host multiple sites on the same domain, review your site URLs for
                conflicts. It’s possible to configure the same URL for pages on two different
                sites.</p>
              <p>Let’s say that you host Site A and Site B on the same domain,
                <samp class="filepath">https://www.example.com</samp>. Site A’s URL
                uses the custom URL path prefix <samp class="filepath">/products</samp>.
                Site B serves pages from the root path and has a page with the
                page path <samp class="filepath">/products</samp>. As a result, both Site
                A’s URL and Site B’s page URL are
                <samp class="filepath">https://www.example.com/products</samp>.
              </p>
              <p>In this scenario, a site visitor can access the Site B page only
                through a navigation menu on Site B. If a site visitor navigates
                to<samp class="filepath"> https://example.com/products</samp> any
                other way, they’re directed to Site A.</p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">If you identify a potential conflict, either rename the site path or select a
                different path for serving the content on your custom domain.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">When users visit my temporary non-HTTPS domain, the browser
              address bar shows a version of my internal site URL.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">
              <p>This behavior is expected. Because Salesforce requires HTTPS,
                HTTP-only requests to your site are redirected to a working
                HTTPS URL. </p>
              <p>For example, an admin adds <samp class="filepath">www.example.com</samp> in Salesforce as
                a Domain with the “Use a temporary non-HTTPS domain” domain configuration option.
                The admin activates the domain and adds a Custom URL to load their Experience
                Cloud site with the CNAME 00d000000000000013.live.siteforce.com. When users visit
                <samp class="filepath">www.example.com</samp>, the browser’s address bar shows
                <samp class="filepath">https://00d000000000000013.my.site.com</samp> instead of
                <samp class="filepath">http://www.example.com</samp>.&nbsp;
              </p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">To get your custom domain name to persist in the browser’s
                address bar, update the temporary non-HTTPS domain to <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_change_service.htm&amp;release=264.0.0&amp;type=5" title="Change the method for serving your domain. For example, switch from a third-party service or content delivery network (CDN) to the Salesforce CDN. Update your domain in Salesforce to use a different third-party service or CDN to serve your site. Or update a temporary non-HTTPS domain to use HTTPS as required by Salesforce.">use another
                  domain configuration option</a>.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Behavior" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e93 ">Users can’t access my custom domain via a link in a different
              Salesforce org.</td>

            <td data-label="Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Steps" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d58018e96 ">You restrict external redirections and the custom domain isn’t on
              the allowlist. See <a href="https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=xcloud.security_external_redirects.htm&amp;type=5&amp;language=en_US" target="_blank">Manage Redirections to External
                URLs</a>.</td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>

#### See Also

- [Custom Domains](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Provide a branded experience for users who access your external-facing Salesforce content by serving your Digital Experiences or Salesforce Sites on a domain that you own, such as https://www.example.com.")
- [Custom Domain Management](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.domain_mgmt_dom_detail.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Keep your custom domain up to date with your business needs. Learn how to manage your domain during org migrations and certificate changes. Edit your domain’s configuration option, move to a different domain name, or enable HSTS preloading. And when you no longer need a custom domain, delete the domain and its custom URLs in Salesforce.")