Shopify domain not working or SSL unavailable: how to fix it
Connected your own domain and the store won’t load, loads only sometimes, or shows “SSL unavailable”? Shopify’s troubleshooting guide traces almost all of it back to a handful of DNS settings at your domain provider.
The records Shopify needs
At your domain provider (not in Shopify), check:
| Record | Host | Value |
|---|---|---|
| A | @ (root) | 23.227.38.65 |
| AAAA | @ (root) | 2620:0127:f00f:5:: |
| CNAME | www | shops.myshopify.com. (with the final dot) |
Shopify notes it may show a slightly different A record value for your region, which is still valid.
And:
- Only one A record and only one AAAA record. With several, browsers pick one at random — so some visitors reach your store and others don’t.
- No wildcard record pointing at Shopify.
- Check for typos.
Using Cloudflare?
Shopify doesn’t support proxies like Cloudflare’s. You can keep Cloudflare for DNS, but every record that points to Shopify must be set to DNS only.
“SSL unavailable”
After you connect a domain, the security certificate can take up to 48 hours to be issued. If it still says SSL unavailable after that, the usual causes are:
- Wrong DNS records — check the table above.
- CAA records blocking certificates. Your CAA settings must allow Let’s Encrypt, Google and SSL.com. A CAA record whose value is just a semicolon blocks every certificate authority — remove it.
- DNSSEC. A broken DNSSEC setup can stop your domain resolving; turn it off at your provider or have them fix it. On Shopify-managed domains, DNSSEC isn’t supported — contact Shopify Support to remove it.
Very old browsers or Android versions can also fail on SSL; update them before testing.
Be patient after changes
Any DNS change can take up to 48 hours to spread. Don’t keep changing records while you wait — that can make it take longer. If you see “Error fetching domain … record”, check the record with your provider, wait up to 48 hours, then contact Shopify Support.
Some country domains — .de, .it, .eu, .be, .nl — may need verification with their registry, which can cause nameserver problems.
Once the domain works, make sure Google can find it — see Shopify store not on Google.