Problem
What does the following transfer order status mean: "Transfer in Process - Acquiring Current Whois for Transfer Verification"? How do I proceed with the transfer?
Solution
This error message may take one of three forms:
- Transfer in Process - Acquiring Current Whois for Transfer Verification.
- Unable to retrieve current domain contacts from UWhois.
- Canceled - cannot obtain domain contacts from UWhois.
When an auto-verification transfer request is initiated, our system attempts to obtain the registrant and/or administrative contacts from the current registrar in order to generate the transfer verification email. Sometimes, due to the current registrar blocking our whois queries via port 43, we are unable to automatically retrieve the required whois information to proceed with the transfer request. When this occurs, the domain is placed into a verification queue where it is manually updated.
If we are unable to retrieve the whois for the domain after eight (8) hours, the transfer status will change from "Awaiting auto-verification of transfer request" to "Transfer in Process - Acquiring Current Whois for Transfer Verification." It is at this point in the process you need to notify us so that we can manually update the information.
If your transfer request goes into this status, please submit a ticket through our Support Center with the following attributes:
- Subject: "Unable to retrieve whois"
- Category: Transfer Questions
- Question: [Include the transfer order ID and/or domain name(s) to be manually verified.]
Upon receipt of this request, we will manually verify the whois information and update it within our system. Once this information has been updated, the verification email will be sent to the listed registrant and/or administrative contacts within four (4) hours.
NOTE: We cannot manually update the whois to send the verification email until it goes into our auto-verification queue. Please allow eight (8) hours for our system to attempt to retrieve the whois information for transfer verifications. If we cannot retrieve the whois within that time frame, the domain will go into our auto-verification queue. Until that time, we cannot update the information manually.
Please do not include whois in the support ticket. While we do appreciate the extra effort on your part, we must manually verify this information per ICANN requirements.
