Continual Timeouts - DNS problem?

[Galen]

I have BT Infinity 1 and a Homehub 6 connected directly by ethernet cable. For some weeks now I have been getting continual timeouts with web pages, email connections from different hosts, and NNTP news connections (also from three different hosts). I get a consistently high connection speed (50+ Mbs) and have no problems with line noise that I can tell - there are no complete dropouts as such, just timeout after timeout. I have changed nothing on the system until the problem arose, at which point I have tried different email clients and browsers to no avail. Obviously, I've tried increasing the timeouts in the clients, but that does not help. I'm not hugely technical, but I am fairly sure it is the BT servers that are at fault. Is it possible to use different DNS servers and, if so, which ones would folk recommend? I can obviously supply more data if requested, but don't want to plaster the post with irrelevancies. 

Alternatively, are there any other things I could try - other than switching back to TalkTalk where I had no problems at all with the same setup? Are other people having similar problems with BT at this time?

[flamethrower]

Hi @Galen

Do you know the host name for one of the resolutions that is failing?

Can you open a cmd.exe or terminal window and post the output from:

nslookup <hostname>

nslookup <hostname> 8.8.8.8

where <hostname> is one of the names failing resolution for you.

Cheers

P.

PS If you have parental controls enabled, try turning those off and repeating the experiment above.

[Galen]

Here's a couple. Since it fails (or is very slow) most times when I launch these two I used google itself for one (my home page), and my main email server for the other. It appears that changing to google's DNS server at 8.8.8.8 solves the problem. Is that the correct interpretation? If so, I can easily change the router's DNS server entries to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Hmm, cancel that - I've just tried and it won't let me edit the router settings. Is the Homehub 6 locked to prevent it being changed, or how can I edit the settings?

nslookup www.google.co.uk
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Server: UnKnown
Address: fe80::1

Non-authoritative answer:
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Name: www.google.co.uk.home
Address: 129.129.129.129

nslookup www.google.co.uk 8.8.8.8
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.google.co.uk
Addresses: 2a00:1450:4009:800::2003
216.58.210.35

nslookup server9.pcs-net.com
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Server: UnKnown
Address: fe80::1

Non-authoritative answer:
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Name: server9.pcs-net.com.home
Address: 129.129.129.129

nslookup server9.pcs-net.com 8.8.8.8
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: server9.pcs-net.com
Address: 91.207.50.90

[DavidCo]

It's locked

[flamethrower]

Hi @Galen

Your interpretation is correct, we've manually tested against Google's public DNS service.

It looks like your HH6 is providing broken DNS, unfortunately there is no way to override this (unless you have a third party router). You might try a factory reset and see if that fixes the issue.

Failing this, it looks like you'll need a fix from BT or to explore the third party router path. In the past when I have flagged DNS issues on the telephone, I've been told to pay for an expert to help (no chance). Hopefully, you'll get a better experience.

Cheers

P.

[flamethrower]

The server address answering the query looks odd, it's IPv6 loopback address fe80:1. It looks like the address 129.129.129.129 is trying to signify something.

What OS are you running?

Thanks

P.

[Galen]

Windows 7. Since I last wrote, and following on from those tests, I read around a lot about public DNS servers. Since I couldn't alter the router settings, I went down the other route and added the Google DNS server addresses (IPv4 and IPv6) to Windows 7's networking configuration. I read that this would override the router's DNS addresses, but that it meant that I would have to separately configure each attached device. I can't say positively that all is well, but I have had no problems since. It would have happened many times by now (I have been deliberately trying to provoke the errors) and I haven't seen one. It would appear that the assumptions were correct. If anyone is interested this is the Google page that I found very useful in working out how to proceed.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using

The procedure for Windows 7 is not exactly the same here as on there - the GUI differed from version to version - but it's very close.

From this and what you have said, it is my guess that I have a duff router in some way. That would explain why there are not hundreds (if not thousands) of other people complaining of the same thing. I'd better ring up BT and see what they say - but the reason I asked in here in the first place is that the support lines are usually dreadfully slow and not a lot of use when you do finally get through. If things stay as they are I'm fairly happy anyway.

[Galen]

What's locked? The router? The server? Can it be unlocked?

[DavidCo · Accepted solution]

The HomeHub is locked to BT only

Go to third party and change to your own choice

[Galen]

OK, I see what you mean. If BT can't help, I'll get another and set it up from scratch. Luckily, at the moment, my workaround seems to be holding.