Deployed heroku app not showing up on custom domain

Question

I set up a custom domain for my heroku app, which worked ("Theres nothing here, yet"). I then deployed my first version of the app to heroku and tried to access it via the custom domain, but still got the message "Theres nothing here, yet". The deployment was successful and the app can be reached via appname.herokuapp.com.

How do I get it to show up on my custom domain?

Answer 1

I had the same issue this morning but managed to resolve it.

I added my custom domain via the settings menu of the heroku dashboard (web page) and then added the heroku DNS target to a CNAME record with my DNS provider (GoDaddy). After just a few minutes the DNS target URL was pointing to the purple "There's nothing here, yet" page. 10 or 15 minutes later my custom domain name was also pointing there, but no sign of my app.

Researching the issue led me to your post and also to https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/heroku-error-nosuchapp/

Following the instructions at the bottom of the page I used the heroku command line to add a 'www' version of my custom domain.

heroku domains:add www.example.com

Immediately after this my app showed up at my custom domain. I didn't even need to add the 2nd DNS target to my DNS provider. It just worked.

Curiously, pointing my browser directly at the DNS target URLs does not work.