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DNS issues

paulbean
On our wavelength

Hi,

 

I am having issues with DNS (wired and wifi). Every hour or so I get an error "www.blahblah.com" server's IP address could not be found. After a few minutes it starts working again for a while. Some sites still work and others fail.

How can I get this resolved? I've rang and all that happens is a test is ran and I get the "everything is ok" when clearly it isn't.

 

Cheers,

Paul

17 REPLIES 17

You are not the only one, i just had it now as i was writing a detailed response,  when trying to post the response it failed.

not gonna bother writing it again, but yeah, wait for starlink, let me know if the modem + 3rd party router works, il then do the same.

tazisdylan
On our wavelength

I too am having this issue with VM Hub 3 on a wired connection.

Have made sure adapter drivers are up-tod-ate, flushed DNS several times, rebooted router (several times), tried different DNS settings on the adapter (as annoyingly these cannot be set within the router) and still I get persistent, but random DNS drop outs, resulting with me losing the LAN connection while the WAN continues ok.

Have checked connections, cables etc.  PC was fine on a different ISP until I moved recently and changed to VM.  

Can find no solution to this and setting the router to modem mode and then having to add a router is NOT a satisfactory solution for customers - the router should work out of the box.

Did anyone find or receive a solution to this issue from VM?

Help appreciated - thanks.
Jason

I investigated this extensively some while ago. The long and the short of it is that all DNS traffic is intercepted and logged (and arbitrarily re-routed) regardless of where you think you have directed it to. This isn't necessarily Virgin's fault because the Government actually mandates that sort of activity. Avoiding this is beyond the technical capability of the vast majority of users. Leaving your settings at the default is the digital equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "la, la, la" very loudly whilst you hope it goes away. Possible mitigations are (in rough order of difficulty):

Using a secure browser such as Tor or Epic (latest versions of Firefox have DNS over HTTPS as standard).

Using a VPN service such as Mullvad. You'll even get IPv6 through the tunnel!

Configuring your own DNS resolver, possibly based on DNSCrypt.

Using a Tor based operating system such as Tails.

All of these bring with them a suite of inconveniences and necessary workarounds and your mileage may vary. For most people, it's a lot more hassle than it is worth. Check results using DNSLeakTest.

tazisdylan
On our wavelength

Thanks for the info.

So from your reply, if I set up a VPN on my LAN connected PC then are you suggesting I will no longer have the intermittent issue with DNS?

I cannot believe that every VM user has this issue.  As you state, many standard users would not know where to start, so that would mean a lot of customers would be cancelling their contracts with VM.

With respect for your reply, I am not sure your offerings provide a me with a solution - unless I am missing your point.

If you go the VPN route, you can at least turn the solution on and off easily. As I say, it may resolve your concerns but you may also find that the solutions are an inconvenient nuisance. VPN is easy to set up and you can buy a month for EUR5 with no ongoing contract. It all depends what the difference is worth to you. Be aware though, that your DNS data is a valuable resource to some and there is real competition to collect and analyse it for various purposes by both state and private actors.

 

Same here. VM "upgraded" my account to M500, promising that if it dips below 350MB more than three days in a row I wouldn't have to stay in contract. To date it's never been above 350MB and is more often than not around the 120Mbps mark. On one occasion my download speed dipped to 30Mpbs. But when I queried this the support person claimed 500Mbps is "Not guaranteed" on Virgin Media. 

I've been having the same issues for well over 12 months now. As users all we see are dropped connections, or messages saying: "You are not connected to the internet", or "Internet Connection required". And then the latest, now that my account has been "upgraded", I'm getting a string of DNS error messages when using Chrome. Webpages not loading, falsely interpreted security certificates, etc. Gets worse mornings and evenings when there's more traffic. When you call support, they make out nothing is wrong and all services are running as normal. But here in my local neighbourhood there are many people with the same issue on VM, and many more have already gotten so fed up that they've left and gone with another provider. Watch out for the VM booster Pods. They cost a fiver a month and do nothing to resolve this issue. In fact they make it worse, because the Pod itself also gets booted off the network and then needs to reconnect before it can reconnect you. 

If you're getting "falsely interpreted security certificates", you've got big problems. That sounds like a "man in the middle" attack. If you install Firefox, it will by default, refuse to load sites with fake SSL Certs. At least that would confirm the problem.