How To Fix Domain Error In Shopify, Needs Attention, DNS Server Error in Custom Website Easily 2026

From Shopify admin, go to Settings then Domains, and click into the domain showing a problem. You'll land on a page named after the domain, with a status tag next to it (Needs setup or Needs Attention), plus who the domain is managed by and when it was added. This detail page tells you precisely what's wrong instead of leaving you to guess.

The red banner spells out the exact issue rather than a vague error code. Two messages appear together most often: "Your domain has too many A records," meaning more than one A record exists and they conflict, and "Your domain's A record doesn't point to Shopify," meaning the current A record points somewhere else.

Both come with the IP address Shopify wants the A record set to. Shopify's own documentation notes 23.227.38.65 is the default value here, but your banner can legitimately show a different address with a different host ID — use whatever your own error message displays, not a number copied from elsewhere.

The fix happens outside Shopify, at whichever company you registered or manage the domain through: GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, or another provider. Find the DNS management section for that domain, usually labeled DNS Records, DNS Management, or Zone Editor. If you've edited DNS before, the layout will look familiar; it's the same place you'd set up email records or point the domain anywhere else.

Look through the existing A records for the domain. More than one is the "too many A records" issue, so delete every A record except the one you're about to correct.

Set the remaining record's value to the exact IP address shown on your Shopify error banner, using @ or the root domain as the host field depending on your registrar's convention. Stray A records left in place cause intermittent failures where the store loads sometimes and not others, since browsers can pick either address.

If your registrar is one Shopify integrates with directly, such as GoDaddy, Cloudflare, or IONOS, the domain page offers a Connect automatically option that updates the DNS records for you without touching the registrar's own dashboard. Check for this before doing the manual edit; it removes the risk of a typo in the IP address entirely. For registrars outside that list, the manual A record fix above is the normal path, not a fallback for something gone wrong.

Save the DNS changes at the registrar, then be patient. Shopify's own note on the domain page states DNS updates can take up to 48 hours to fully take effect, though many changes propagate faster in practice. Check back on the same Domains page periodically; once the records are picked up, the Needs Attention badge and the red banner clear on their own, with nothing further to click inside Shopify.