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HubOne firmware issue with DNS

markhawkin
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Registered: ‎17-07-2016

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

I have some sympathy with Plusnet and these subtle device/router/network interactions.

In practice sharing router designs with BT (who have purchasing power and can amortise design effort over many devices) seems sensible.

That the base design has flaws is unfortunate but perhaps unavoidable, and a compromise that comes with the device choice.

Even the approach of documenting and sharing the known issues has a number of drawbacks.

Perhaps the best that could be done is making known flaws available to the support team and encouraging them to share this knowledge when appropriate.
I am the satisfied customer....
IanDL
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Registered: ‎22-02-2018

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

@nikkas Fully agree - @bobpullen has been making a great effort to engage with this issue even if we haven't managed to get to the bottom of it yet. It's great when the issue gets picked up by someone who is both competent and conscientious, although such people inevitably end up having a lot on their plate!

Agree with @markhawkin 's comments - this was always going to be a difficult one to resolve. I suspect the issue is fairly deep in the router firmware and seems to be triggered by some fairly subtle interaction of circumstances/protocols. At least if we make sure there are threads documenting the problem it might stay on Plusnet's radar and there will be a starting point for anyone encountering it in the future. It clearly isn't that widespread, although I wonder how many are adopting the "turn it off and on again" approach whenever browser pages stop loading without realising this is at the bottom of it.

I think the thread you started here was one of the first I came across when trying to diagnose this problem and it's interesting you mention "working from home over a VPN" in one post as my feeling (mentioned above) is that these are the circumstances most likely to trigger this issue - either using a VPN or Microsoft's VPN-like Direct Access.

 

ritz1
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Registered: ‎22-01-2018

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

Very well said, @IanDL, @markhawkin@nikkas. I have decided to stay with Plusnet in this occasion only because @bobpullen showed intention to investigate. And as it is a hard case to debug I will stand by and jump in if/when the issue re-appears here (it hasn't since my last post and router+broadband have been up!)

 

There were a handful of Plusnet people in these forums who made genuine efforts to resolve problems over the years. I have been an on/off customer since 2004 and I recall @adamwalker and a few others.

Having said this, it is very easy to p*** off a customer with the sort of 'help' I received through the ticketing system. Which reminded me of the notorious helpdesk in Durban, 8-10(?) years ago.

badgers31
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎17-05-2018

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

I'd just like to add to this thread that I'm suffering from very similar issues - occasional blips in internet connectivity across all wired and wireless devices.  When it affects web browsing on Chrome (and this is on Android or Windows) I will get NXDOMAIN error and DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_CONFIG errors (the irony is that when I tried to post this message just now at 21:04 I got a bad config error!  I also get dropouts in streaming services, which I can't see how this would be related to DNS but I also don't think they are unrelated.

Did any progress get made on this since last month?  I'm happy to be a guinea pig if @bobpullen wants to perform any experiments.

 

 

bobpullen
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Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

Not forgotten about this, and still on my backlog of things to sort. There's just a few more pressing issues I've to attend to at the moment. Appreciate folks' patience/willingness to help though. Will pick back up as soon as I'm able Smiley

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bobpullen
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Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

Hi all,

Firstly, apologies for the radio silence.

I'm hoping to pick this one up again, so if anybody is still able to reliably replicate the issue without too much trouble then can you please shout up?

Few things I think it would be useful for us to try:

  1. Local packet capture from your side that shows a handful of attempts to browse to some Internet resources from an affected machine. This can be achieved using something like Wireshark, but is probably not for the technically uninitiated.

  2. Similar packet capture from the WAN interface of the router. This is a bit trickier to do as I'll need to either access your device from here (which has proved difficult the last time I tried), or you'll need to be familiar with using a command line and able to follow some instruction I can provide. Would also help to have a USB flash drive handy somewhere.

  3. Log extraction. Same as above - I can grab the detail if I can access the device remotely, otherwise you'll need to help out by running some CLI commands locally.

  4. If anybody has a *nix device on their netowrk, I'd be curious what a DNS trace shows during a period of time the problem is evident, e.g:

    ~ $ dig +trace bbc.co.uk
  5. Have we tried an older firmware version yet? If not, we can give that a go to try and establish whether or not the bug was introduced with a more recent build?

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

IanDL
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Registered: ‎22-02-2018

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

@bobpullen

Impressed by your dedication on this one!

Certainly have the facilities to try the diagnostics you suggest at my end but not the time right now, I'm afraid. I'm currently running full time on the DrayTek router and would need to reinstate the Plusnet box as my gateway and DNS server. This isn't to say I can't give it a go at some point, but probably not for the next few weeks at least.

Will get back to you on this if and when I get a chance.

 

prothed
Dabbler
Posts: 15
Registered: ‎14-08-2018

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

Ah, someone else with DNS issues...

After a long-running problem with connection speeds (detailed below *), PN sent me a new Hub One router and almost immediately I found that it had stopped forwarding DNS requests - so I could ping a site using its IP address but not by name.  If reset it would work briefly then fail again.

I reported this via the fault ticket and after a week I had a reply from PN saying 'there are no known faults with this router'.

In my quest to get things working I bought (from a well known auction site) a PN Hub One which had been loaded with OpenWRT firmware - thereby allowing access to all the configuration settings.

I entered 1.1.1.1 as the router DNS server, connected, and lo and behold it all works.

I am still waiting for a reply from PN but not holding my breath.  Good luck.

 

*  https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Any-way-for-customer-to-check-sync-speed/m-p/1570931#M...

 

nikkas
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Registered: ‎21-05-2016

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

Bizarre isn't it? No known problems (that is, a part from the same one we've all been posting about for the last 2 years)
bobpullen
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Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

@IanDL, @ritz1, @nikkas and @prothed - Bumping a relatively stale thread in the hope that you can offer some further insight? (I still have this issue logged as an unresolved bug)

What devices do each of you have on your local network? I'm wondering if there's a commonality, because it would be really helpful if I could replicate ths issue somehow.

Also still prepared to delve into some more detailed analysis if we can find an appropriate guinea pig.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
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nikkas
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Registered: ‎21-05-2016

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

My PN box is gathering dust somewhere. I moved on to a Nighthawk after too much family aggro - it was always apparently - 'my fault'!

 

However to answer the question, at the time: Humax TV, Powerline, MAX! Heating Cube, SIP phone, desktop/some laptops/mobiles and 2nd router acting as wireless access point. Nothing too esoteric running.

prothed
Dabbler
Posts: 15
Registered: ‎14-08-2018

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

I 'solved' this issue in two ways -

1.  I did a full factory reset on the HubOne and the problem seemed to go away.  No idea why, since the DNS settings are fixed in the firmware AFAIK.  No problems during a few days use anyway.

2.  I bought another HubOne which had been flashed with OpenWRT/LEDE.  Not the easiest thing to configure, but gives control over every aspect of the router.  This has been running ok for several weeks now.

The other devices on my network are very standard (PCs, tablets, Asus router as second access point, Sony TV).

Andrew_Hardisty
Dabbler
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Registered: ‎04-03-2009

Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

My replacement HubOne which developed the same trouble with DNS lookups going AWOL and then somehow got better is still fine over a year later. Back when I was having trouble and the DNS lookups wouldn't remain working for more than about an hour after restarts, I think I remember turning off all wireless devices in the house then restarted the HubOne and went out for a couple of hours. I wondered it was something to with how much it was being used that brought on the DNS failure. I went out for a couple of hours and when I came back and turned my PC back on it appeared to have already gone into the failure mode whilst no devices were associated with it. Has anyone else changed the DHCP range to the 172.16.0.64 - 172.16.255.254 option? I don't know if that made any difference for me as I can't remember if it was already OK when I changed it but if you're clutching at straws it could be worth trying even if only to rule it out as having anything to do with it.
bobpullen
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Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

@nikkas & @prothed, interesting that you both had a second access point on the network. I assume DHCP was disabled on the second device, and it was assigned a suitable IP?

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
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dvorak
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Re: HubOne firmware issue with DNS

A hub one I had developed this issue too some time back.

I also had a second access point, an Airport Extreme, DHCP was disabled and was assigned an address by the Hub One.
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