Canot renew expired domain registered with Wordpress.com

Anyone know of a problem, or change at wordpress.com that might cause this

[graeme_p]

I am posting this here because the domain's form charter seems to ban discussions of specific providers. Not sure about my interpretation though....

The problem is this. The domain was originally registered through wordpress.com for a site hosted there. The site moved, but the domain remained there.

The owner ignored a renewal reminder and the domain expired in late August. No one noticed because the site kept working, until tday before yesterday when the DNS changed at it started pointing back at wordpress.com servers. At that point the domain whois looked fine. However it had stopped appearing in the owner's wordpress.com fomain page.

Yesterday, DNS resolution stopped, whois shows no name servers, and the status changed to redemptionPeriod.

My thoughts are either:
1) Wordpress.com no longer supports using other hosting with domain registered with them - or at least requires you pay for their hosting as well, or,
2) There is something wrong with their system that prevents you renewing a domain under these circumstances

Can anyone confirm or refute either of these?

[not2easy]

In the redemption period there is an additional fee of $80.00 to be paid, but it can still be renewed. I know a few people who have or had domains they registered there. Wordpress.com offers a support page about "How it works": [en.support.wordpress.com...] and one of their support pages is for renewing and redeeming expired domains: [en.support.wordpress.com...]

[graeme_p]

The problem is that a domain in the redemption period does not appear on the domains page, so where do you renew it? It may just be finding my way around Wordpress.com, but I cannot see where to do it.

[not2easy]

Maybe try to register it again at Wordpress and see what they show you there? Does the owner have any of the emails that were sent during the grace period or at the redemption period? They should have that information included. Apparently a domain goes into an auction process at some point after the redemption period starts, but I did not see how long either the grace period or redemption periods last. Even if the domain is hosted somewhere other than WP, the owner would need to keep up with the WP plan from what I saw on the Domains page. Maybe try to register it at another registrar if they are not using the Wordpress.com hosting. WP may hold it for auction, but not forever and that way the owner might find out where/how to get it back.

[graeme_p]

After a look through the wordpress forums, it seems that it needs manual action at their end to renew a domain in redemption.

[graeme_p]

Confirmed by Wordpress.com staff: they have to email you a special renew link to renew a domain in the redemption period.

Pretty bad system.