The domain already exists in the userdata

When you add an account to WHM, WHM will check to ensure that the domain does not already exist on the server. If WHM finds the domain name on the server or in the servers DNS settings you will get “the domain already exists in the userdata” error. This will prevent you from adding the domain name to the server until you resolve the problem. The problem can occur on cPanel VPS Servers and cPanel Dedicated servers.

Things to check

Addon Domain Names

The first obvious place to check is addon domain names. It’s possible the domain has already been added to the server in a users account under an addon domain name. The easiest way to check is by using the “Convert addon domain to full account” section. Here this will list all addon domain names on your server. You can also use this section to convert the addon domain name to a full account.

Parked Domain Names

Parked domain names will also product the domain already exists error. You can use the “List Parked Domains” section in WHM to list all the parked domain names. If you find the domain in this list remove it then add it as a new account.

Remove DNS Entries

If you have checked for both addon domain names and parked domain names but still see this error then it’s likely the domain has previously been added to the server then deleted. When it was deleted cPanel didn’t remove all the DNS entries, therefore, producing this error when the domain is created again.

You can use the /scripts/killdns script to remove any old DNS entries which would then allow you to create the domain name in WHM. It’s important that you do not run this script on a live domain name. It will result in an outage on the website until you recreate the DNS zone file. To kill the DNS just issue the command in an SSH console.