Your domain goes down. So you open the registrar’s login page, discover you need a password reset, and click the link.
“Check your email.”
The reset went to admin@example.com, BUT the domain you’re trying to fix is example.com.
You need working email to regain access. You need access to restore the domain that makes the email work. Meanwhile, customers are waiting.
How You Can Get Stuck In a Loop
Using a company email address for the company’s domain account looks sensible. It belongs to the business. Plus, someone checks it every day.
The only thing is: Nobody asks what happens when that domain stops resolving.
A website outage alone won’t necessarily interrupt email, but an expired or suspended domain, failed authoritative DNS, or damaged mail records can prevent new messages from reaching the recovery mailbox. Your mail provider may be running perfectly. The caveat is that senders still need DNS to find it.
If you can still log in normally, you may be able to fix the problem. However, you enter the domain recovery loop when you also need an emailed reset or verification code. Your mail might queue for later delivery, but that does little for the person trying to restore service now.
And this is what you call circular dependency: the recovery process relies on the very thing it is supposed to recover.
Give Recovery Its Own Route
In Managing Mission-Critical Domains and DNS, Mark Jeftovic recommends using a different domain for the administrative contact address, under your organization’s control. For example, the recovery address for example.com could be hostmaster@example.net.
That separate domain needs proper protection too. Keep it renewed, secure its accounts with strong multi-factor authentication, and check that its DNS and mailbox won’t fail alongside your production setup. A different suffix alone doesn’t create independence.
Three Actions to Take:
- Watch for hidden dependencies. An alternate mailbox that merely forwards into the failed company inbox hasn’t solved anything. Neither has a recovery mailbox whose only login route uses the company’s unavailable single sign-on system.
- Give authorized staff access through individual accounts where supported. Keep recovery codes securely available outside the systems they unlock, and establish the registrar’s alternative verification procedure before an emergency. A hurried call asking support to bypass security should not be your recovery plan.
- Then test the arrangement without taking anything offline. Confirm where recovery messages go and whether authorized staff can retrieve them without using the production domain. Include the separate domain’s own recovery arrangements in that check.
Where DomainSure Fits
DomainSure’s services address several parts of this problem:
- Account recovery and lock-release security cover sensitive requests to restore access or remove protections.
- Multi-user role permissions let you assign access instead of depending on one employee’s login.
- DNS change notifications can flag changes that need investigation. Notifications through Slack, Mattermost, or custom webhooks give your team options beyond email.
Never Expire Protection addresses another possible trigger: domain expiry. These services support a recovery plan, but the recovery mailbox still needs to be reachable independently. So you can configure and test that route with your provider.
Start with one question: If our main domain stopped working tonight, could we receive the message needed to recover it?
If the answer is uncertain, request a free Domain Threat Assessment from DomainSure. Ask the team to review your recovery contacts and access arrangements alongside your domain and DNS protections. Better to find the circular dependency during a review than during an outage.
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