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NextDNS and Spectrum Internet fighting

Today my Internet stopped working and after some extensive debugging, I was able to track down the symptom. When I put the NextDNS servers into into my router configuration, it causes my cable modem to disconnect from the internet -- consistently.

This is a new problem starting today, so I suspect either NextDNS or Spectrum has done something with respect to encrypted DNS and this conflict causes my cable modem to essentially stop. External resets don't restore it. Only a hard power down.

 

Any reasons or fixes. I really like NextDNS but I cannot use it if it disables my cable modem.

6 replies

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    • Systems & Application Analyst / Developer
    • RJWaring
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi Jim,

    Can you provide more detail? 

    What Modem are you using (Brand, Model number , Hardware/Firmware version) 
    Who is your Internet Service Provider? 
    What setting's did you input? were they just the IP addresses? 
    Did the connection drop the very moment you updated the Primary & Secondary DNS? 

    Do you have any log's that you can share from your Modem or the tool's used? (Removing any Personal details, login credentials) 

    Kind Regards,
    Richard 

      • Jim_Snyder
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      RJWaring 

      I am using the spectrum provided E31 docsis 3.1 eMTA and an Apple AirPort Extreme router (my trusty and reliable router).   I have been using nextDNS with encryption for about 4 weeks just fine. Then all of the sudden my modem stopped being connected to the internet unless I switched back to OpenDNS. I am suspecting the encrypted DNS is the issue. When I use my Airport utility on my Mac, it shows the modem not connect to the internet. As soon as I put NextDNS into my Apple router again, it bricks the internet connectivity in the modem. This did work great for a month. The only thing that could have changed is the modem (since spectrum can change firmware at will). 
       

      I don’t have logs that I can share at this point but the only remedy I can think of is to swap out the cable modem. I talked with spectrum and they said encrypted dns should be supported but it isn’t happy. I am in process to get a new modem. 
       

      thoughts?

      • Jim_Snyder
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      RJWaring 

      A slight update. I added opendns to my router and put an encrypted profile on my iPad and my cable modem works fine as does my iPad. I am getting DNS blocking with encrypted dns and my cable modem is staying connected. 

    • Ruby_Balloon
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I use spectrum also but the modem they provided me doesn't have wifi capabilities, so I use a 3rd party mesh router. I haven't had any problems but if you're using their modem and it has wifi capabilities then they maybe be blocking NextDNS, if that turns out to be the case then you may have to get a 3rd party router and setup NextDNS on it instead and disable wifi on your ISP-provided modem/gateway.

    It's also possible spectrum may just be experiencing a service disruption, I would also check if there's a local spectrum outage, as it would explain your modem consistently disconnecting today (especially if you've previously haven't had this problem)

      • Systems & Application Analyst / Developer
      • RJWaring
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Greg B. Good point Greg, you beat me to the punch on where I was going with my questions. The vast majority of ISP (Free) modems & routers are fixed at a firmware layer and can cause issues where user's attempt to change DNS settings. I have even seen a router than kept crashing when a user tried to change the actual IP address of the device (that was fixed in a patch) but caused no end of frustration for that user. 

      my thought's are this is a limitation applied to the hardware by the ISP or a possible bug. 

      It's one of the reasons why I always purchase my own modem's, Router's etc 

      • Jim_Snyder
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Greg B. 

      Thanks for the suggestion. I am able to use the DNS servers from NextDNS and I believe I have found a part of the problem. As long as I don't use the Configuration Profile for MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, everything works as expected. Basically, I am not able to use Encrypted DNS configurations. So, what ever is happening is because of Encrypted DNS. 

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