Coms/adsl24 dns errors

Been struggling to get to many sites yesterday evening and this morning. Unable to complete the dns lookup. Eventually spoke to CS (Paul, if you want to hear a totally disinterested member of support staff listen to the call 09.14 this morning).

Apparently there is a "global issue". No details and no idea when it will be fixed.
On pressing him he confirmed it is a "global issue inside Coms and they'd had a couple of callas about it, but no update aas to when it would be fixed.

Taken my all morning to get on here. Not very impressed Coms.... no twitter update, no warning emails, no posting of problems anywhere. No good really is it. Paul your name is COMS so start COMmunicating!

Woody

Im on coms dns and been fine all morning

Just use opendns, i did that when adsl24 dns servers used to die

Edited by bobble_bob (Thu 20-Feb-14 11:04:36)

problem was bob, at times couldnt even get google to come up

Change them in your router next time to these


208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Right them down tho incase you cant get on here to check

Edited by bobble_bob (Thu 20-Feb-14 12:39:48)

Woody, good to hear I'm not alone (again), but it's not good it's happened.

I also couldn't access sites using coms dns, so switched to google dns as a temporary workaround (I even rebooted the router first to be sure it wasn't a glitch at my end - I don't think I've rebooted my router so much in such a short space of time!)

Anyway, I raised a ticket at about 07:50, and 50 minutes later got this response:
"Please be advised that i have check your account and run line test that come with no fault on line. Also i have reset the Data Port, could you please remove google public, test the line and advise with results?"

No admittance of any dns issues, or any investigation into possibility of dns issues at their end. I won't be able to retest until tonight when I get back home.

Also, because the port got reset my connection died again, but not knowing what was going on I ended up rebooting the router again to see if that resolved it - and because it worked after that I was beginning to think my kit was faulty...

And to be fair to coms, if they had sent you an email you probably wouldn't have received it - so they were just optimising the process by not sending one in the first place

I use Open DNS since ADSL24 server problems years ago too. And Google , Google DNS + 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Tony, my router got rebooted 3 times this mornig n just to be sure.

I didn't/don't know anything about open dns etc, so not sure how it works? Also to be fair, i shouldn't have to really should I???

Woody

In your router there will be a setting to get dns servers automatically from ISP, or manually configure them. Just put those dns servers in that i posted.

No you shouldnt, but nothing is perfect and its a simple fix while they sort them out. Mine have been fine all day though

Edited by bobble_bob (Thu 20-Feb-14 15:25:37)

It's an awful long time since I've been on this forum but I've not had any need until now. I realised there were DNS problems at about 7:30 this morning and, after trying OpenDNS, put a ticket in at 7:55. To be fair, I had 3 phone calls from Coms within the hour, 4 if you count the first one which my wife dismissed because she thought someone was selling something (!). That included one that said it should be OK now so could I try it. I changed DNS back, flushed DNS, and it seemed to work. That said there I've been some sites that I've been unable to access during the day and I just lost Google. So I think all is still not well. I've switched to Google DNS for the time being.

grrrrr gone again. Peeede off now! have managed to get on here and will try the above suggestions ta.

Well that didnt seem to work , sigh

Edited by ukwoody (Thu 20-Feb-14 18:33:38)

In reply to a post by ebuygum:

I realised there were DNS problems at about 7:30 this morning...

Ahhh, so *that's* why my internet radio wasn't working this morning.

I wasn't on my computer at that time so didn't realise at the time there was a DNS problem but now I know.

Dont get if its a dns issue why mine is still ok. Seems odd

Well mine had been hit and miss, but website dependant, all day since it was "fixed". But, until a little while ago, websites that worked always worked and those that didn't always didn't.

Well I've been having the same issues since the swap over from adsl24 to coms.

Just seems that at random times of the day sites like, google, ebay, ebuyer amazon and my own www.computerjohn.net cease to work but then magically come back to life hours later.

Its becoming a real pain in the backside. This move to coms has been a total downgrade overall. I was on the ADSL office 90 tariff and was connected at 19.8 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps up. I've now been cut down to 16mbps down and 0.4mbps up.

I'm going to switch over to Xilo as they offer the 30day contracts and good service like adsl24 used to.

Not a good idea to post your web address on the public forum unless you want it public. It can lead to crawlers/spammers getting hold of it.

Weirdly im now seeing sites working on my PC (wired) but not on my phone (wireless). Same site too

DNS gone again? Can't get to any sites at the moment but connection still up.

Some are some arent, ive switched to opendns and everything fine now, suggest do the same for abit

Well switched to opendns and everything ok again.

Im sure i read opendns is actually more secure as they can block know malware sites. Is this true?

I to have had this problem over the last few hours not able to access google,bbc news sites. Not happy at all with the changes since the move to coms, loss of speed, frequent drop outs, time to move on but to where? Any recommendations people?

Cheers
Lee

Thank god I found this topic. I have been experiencing this since the switch over on the 17th. At first I thought it was coms mucking about. However when I turned my router off and back on again things worked again so naturally I assumed it was my router.

Anyway to cut a long story short I was just about to fork out £100 on a new router mistakenly thinking my router was bad and it was just a coincidence it went bad as I was shoved on coms. I am now trying those DNS thingies that Bobble_bob posted and will see how I get on with them.

Not a great start with coms. I feel like I am fumbling in the dark here. I get a letter telling me I am getting 500gbs bandwidth a month yet my account still says I am on Fibre 30. I no longer know if there is a peak/off peak time. I was with ADSL24 for years and it just "worked" I didn't have to concern myself with anything. But with coms it is just one mess of confusion and now this DNS rubbish.

Thank you bobble_bob,as well put them in my router i also had to go into Network and Sharing and then into the LAN properties to put them in there before i could get back online,thanks again bob cause i'm back online again!

No worries, just stay on them i always found them ok. I only changed back to adsl24 dns servers after Windows kept giving me a dns error on bootup (even though they were fine). Seems its a Windows bug, but so far not got it this time around

Will do bob,lets hope Coms get there's sorted out.

How are they today then? Still on opendns so not checked

Still failing on some domains, then working, then failing...

Reliable DNS is a core function for an ISP. We should not be forced to use a third party.

My connection seems to have settled for now, still looking to move away though.

Yep, looks like we're back...let's hope it lasts!

I'm more than willing to cut a supplier some slack re problems (even major ones) during a transition phase as long as they keep us informed. Up until now, Paul(Coms) had been making the right noises when the various glitches cropped up and I suspect that, on that basis, the vast majority of users were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

However, the total silence from any Coms rep over the last 24-48hrs re this [apparent] DNS server problem severely dents their credibility, so, just to remind them:

Guys, you're taking over from a supplier who had a very high reputation re support and the provision of information. Trying to convince a community of tech-literate users that you're a 'safe pair of hands' and then keeping stchum whilst a seemingly-major problem is affecting your user base is not the way to retain your users and build your business!

BTW, does anyone know if there is a network status page? The old ADSL24 network status URL simply redirects to the new Coms MyAccount control panel (which doesn't include any network status details) and the Coms website doesn't appear to have any status info,.either.

I'm still not able to get to some websites which are OK using public DNS.

I'm still having problems as I search for a new ISP lol [censored]

Seems if you PM them they are more likely to reply, even if they dont post in the forum

Fair comment....but there wouldn't be any need to PM them if there was a live Network Status page!

I've had dns issues since changeover so I changed over to open dns.

One thing I have noticed too recently is that some sites can take a long long time to open, quite why this is happening I can't say but I didn't get it while on ADSL24 R.I.P

Has anyone noticed traffic shaping in the evenings?

In respect of not knowing what's happening (problems) I did suggest ages ago that a proper update (status) page be maintained on COMS so that we poor paying subscribers actually know what's going on rather than having to second guess everything. Very little effort by them would mean major improvement to us.

Lastly, does anyone know when the MyAccount features will finally be finished?

I've noticed that at Peak sites take longer to start loading, videos take longer to start but speed tests and the latency on the speed tests seem fine. Before 7pm ish and after about midnight things go back to normal. Even with OpenDNS there is no change so i am assuming it's the load or balancing of the load that Coms/Enta are doing which causes it.

Edited by Binary_Digit (Fri 21-Feb-14 18:39:54)

Well there isn't meant to be much traffic shaping or so we were told, but I must admit, that especially the last few evenings some pages are really crawling along to open.

I have been very supportive of the changeover to Coms, but I must admit at the moment I'm getting a fed up myself now. Certainly some communication about this would go a long way. I do not like it when ISPs seem to ignore problems.

woody

Had the same problem. Took me hours to realise it was a DNS issue and not something local within our home network.
We found any sites that ended in .co.uk were blocked.


Moving to google dns as mentioned in this thread sorted the problem, but I have to agree very poor show from COMS, no communication from them at all.

And it's happened again this morning around 11-11:15 am,it happens even if you have you've connected into the back socket on your service box.I have returned to the google dns.

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Feb-14 12:02:09)

As stated above the best thing that you can do is to change your DNS server to one other than Coms unless you enjoy being cut off from the Net.

Go into your router details (usually by typing 192.168.1.1 into your browser address space) and change the DNS server settings from 'auto' to 'user' or whatever the option is and enter the details for your new DNS servers from your selected alternative provider. OpenDNS, a free service, uses the below addresses for their primary and secondary DNS servers.


208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

i had the same errors when my line was switched, blocked mails/site, timeouts etc. on running a trace and bottleneck test i found i,am back on entra and using entra dns and routing thought a couple of bt nodes. after running a dns benchmark i switched to a murphx dns and everythings working. again entra and bt blocking and throttling even thought they say they dont.

I was just giving them a try brian to see if coms had got em sorted and they haven't,thanks brian for putting the dns on in your post.