Most – if not all of – Sony Online Entertainment games, web sites and forums have been have become inaccessible for a while yesterday after the company "forgot" to renew the domain name registration of some of its main servers.
After failing to connect to games such as Everquest and Planetside 2, players who tried to get help through the company's forums were surprised to find that the forums themselves were inaccessible as well.
Apparently, Sony forgot to renew its domain name registration for SonyOnline.net and after 7 weeks of non-payment, Network Solutions reclaimed the domain. While this domain is not used publicly, it contains all of the name servers (ns2.sonyonline.net, ns4.sonyonline.net, ns6.sonyonline.net) that route users to the company's websites, forums and games.
The company's president, John Smedley acknowledged the problem and admitted that they have received several expiration notice emails but they were all directed to an "unread address."
Sony discovered the problem and reclaimed its domain name shortly after its services went offline. It might take up to 48 hours for the connection problem to be fixed for some users.