DNS Issues..

[[AK]Hylander]

This is just a continuation / additional info for those I was discussing my recent ISP DNS Issues with last night on Ventrilo.

OpenDNS - That's the service I was referring to when I asked if anyone had used it. I've had several people tell me it's been great for them.

Anyways, the 'issue' is that over the last few weeks, sometimes I have to "refresh" 3 or 4 times to get a page to come up. It's sporadic, and not a huge thing. But I read on Broadbandreports.com COVAD forum that alot of people were experiencing the same thing. This was happening to all 4 of my PC hooked up to my home network. I have the DNS settings on each PC set, although my router has them set as well. Anyways, over the last 2 or 3 days I've been unable to reach my e-commerce shop at all. (Big problem since it's Christmas season and I process all my orders in the evening at home). I asked a bunch of people on IM and they could get there no problem. If I used a proxy server, it came up no problem. So it wasn't a site issue with the site.

So I went to COVAD.net and got their DNS server listings. I changed my DNS from the 2 Philly ones to the Washington DC ones. That solved the problem.. for about 24 hours and then it returned. Then last night, I switch the primary to the Atlanta primary and the Boston primary to my secondary and that solved the problem. As of this morning, it was still working. Again, this problem was affecting each device in my house. 2 XP Pro boxes, an XP Pro laptop, and my Ubuntu Box. All had the DNS settings set locally on the PC except Ubuntu, which was using the Router DNS settings which I had changed accordingly, rebooted, etc. I've been with COVAD for probably 8 or 9 years now and their service has been fantastic - so this is a rare problem I've encountered just recently.

Doing some research is how I came across OpenDNS which I'm going to try if the issues continue. I'm sorry, but I just can't handle one more Indian Tech Support person reading off the script or I'll lose it. No, I'm NOT having line connection issues - I'm have YOUR DNS ISSUES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!