NetGear MR814v2 DNS Query REFUSED errors

Have the latest firmware (5.3_05) and have had it for a long time.
This problem just started happening to me.

Have started to see issues with DNS. NetGear is getting IP and DNS
servers from ISP (comcast). NetGear is serving as DHCP server for my
PCs and advertising itself as the DNS server and router.

I have been getting consistent DNS issues. Running nslookup or dig
shows NetGear replying a REFUSED status to 50-75% of application DNS
queries.

If I grab the ISP DNS servers from the router connection status and
query them directly I am not getting any DNS errors from them, so it
seems like the DNS proxy/relay or whatever the NetGear is doing is
failing badly for some reason.

Have reset router and cable modem and am seeing same problem from
multiple PCs and OS's (Linux. Win98. XP), so looks to me like a router
issue. Have even shut the router down for a long time and then see the
problem immediately on bring up, so shouldn't be a heat problem of the
like.

Here is an example of 4 DNS requests made against the router in a row
(all for same host, about a 2 second pause between requests). NOERROR,
REFUSED, REFUSED, NOERROR. If I bypass the router and query the ISP DNS
directly I am never seeing these REFUSED status. Doesn't make any sense
to me. All other connectivity through the router appears to function
properly.

Any ideas? Is there away to debug DNS from the router itself?

; <<>> DiG 9.3.1 <<>> www.ebay.com @192.168.0.1
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 42338
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.ebay.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.ebay.com. 2391 IN CNAME hp-core.ebay.com.
hp-core.ebay.com. 3183 IN A 66.135.208.90
hp-core.ebay.com. 3183 IN A 66.135.192.123
hp-core.ebay.com. 3183 IN A 66.135.192.124
hp-core.ebay.com. 3183 IN A 66.135.208.89

;; Query time: 254 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.1#53(192.168.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Apr 16 17:00:54 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 116

; <<>> DiG 9.3.1 <<>> www.ebay.com @192.168.0.1
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: REFUSED, id: 57183
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.ebay.com. IN A

;; Query time: 88 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.1#53(192.168.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Apr 16 17:00:56 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 30

; <<>> DiG 9.3.1 <<>> www.ebay.com @192.168.0.1
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: REFUSED, id: 46562
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.ebay.com. IN A

;; Query time: 88 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.1#53(192.168.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Apr 16 17:00:58 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 30

; <<>> DiG 9.3.1 <<>> www.ebay.com @192.168.0.1
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 51136
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.ebay.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.ebay.com. 564 IN CNAME hp-core.ebay.com.
hp-core.ebay.com. 1438 IN A 66.135.208.89
hp-core.ebay.com. 1438 IN A 66.135.208.90
hp-core.ebay.com. 1438 IN A 66.135.192.123
hp-core.ebay.com. 1438 IN A 66.135.192.124

;; Query time: 93 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.1#53(192.168.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Apr 16 17:01:07 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 116

I've been having the same problem:

I'm also using an MR814v2, and Comcast is my ISP. I've had no problems
until yesterday (4/19/06). I'm using the latest firmware, and I made
no changes in settings within at least a month before the problem
began. When it persisted for over 24 hours I began tinkering,
eventually resetting it to factory settings, which didn't help. The
problem occurs with a wired or a wireless connection, and on all
computers in the house.

Using a static DNS on my computer, the problem goes away. (But using a
static DNS is impractical on a laptop that I use on other networks.)
If I let the router assign the DNS through DHCP, queries take 3-8
seconds and often time out. A webpage with ads from several domains
can take over a minute to load.

The router assigns itself as the DNS router, rather than forwarding the
addresses from the ISP. Providing the router with static addresses for
DNS, as opposed to retrieving them from the ISP, has no effect.

It is suspicious that two of us, each using Comcast, had the same
problem occur suddenly in the same week. More so when Comcast just
sent out a letter in my area with instructions to insure that
customers' DNS's were set dynamically, in preparation for a server
upgrade. (That's why I waited 24 hours before giving it more than a
grumble -- I thought they were getting the bugs out. Comcast support
pleads ignorance, and naturally won't support a third party router.)

Both DNS addresses provided seem to work correctly and quickly when not
proxied by the router. Could the DNS upgrade conflict with this
particular router, or with DNS proxies in general?

I did as you did and set up my systems to statically assign comcast's
DNS servers, but like you say, this is just asking for heartache
further down the line (at least I have internet access for the near
term). Comcast support did the same to me, as soon as I had to admit
that when I bypassed the router my DNS queries resolved OK they had
their opportunity to drop out of the loop and grabbed it.

I was hoping somebody else with Comcast would respond. Otherwise I was
assuming my router just went flakey and was going to replace it.

I wonder if there is something different about the DNS responses coming
back from Comcast that has triggered some bug or incompatibility in the
router's DNS code. Maybe it could be fixed in a firmware update if we
could get somebody at NetGear to look at it. It would be an awfully
strange coincidence that our same model router fails in the same manner
at the same time using the same ISP that is making changes in the
problem area.

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <(E-Mail Removed). com> on 21 Apr 2006
08:02:05 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>I did as you did and set up my systems to statically assign comcast's
>DNS servers, but like you say, this is just asking for heartache
>further down the line (at least I have internet access for the near
>term). Comcast support did the same to me, as soon as I had to admit
>that when I bypassed the router my DNS queries resolved OK they had
>their opportunity to drop out of the loop and grabbed it.
>
>I was hoping somebody else with Comcast would respond. Otherwise I was
>assuming my router just went flakey and was going to replace it.
>
>I wonder if there is something different about the DNS responses coming
>back from Comcast that has triggered some bug or incompatibility in the
>router's DNS code. Maybe it could be fixed in a firmware update if we
>could get somebody at NetGear to look at it. It would be an awfully
>strange coincidence that our same model router fails in the same manner
>at the same time using the same ISP that is making changes in the
>problem area.

I just set up a cheap Hawking wireless router on Comcast, and DNS is working
perfectly. If there were some general Comcast problem, then I think you'd see
a *lot* more flaming here.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR ALT.INTERNET.WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FAQ_for_alt.internet.wireless>

I don't think it's a general Comcast issue since you're right, there
would be blood in the streets by now if it were. Also the fact that
bypassing the router allows DNS to work fine for other clients seems to
indicate that it is not a general DNS problem. I *do* suspect that
something about their DNS has changed and that most DNS clients handle
it just perfectly but that something specific to the MR814v2 is causing
hiccups. This is something that probably needs to be driven by
NetGear, and I'm thinking there is probably not alot of motivation to
do so given that this is an older product.

This worked for me:

According to the router documentation, specifying a primary and
secondary DNS in "Basic Settings" should cause the router to pass the
specified servers rather than its own address as the DNS via DHCP.
This does not appear to be the case. But, when I said that using a
static address on the router didn't help, I may have been too hasty. I
saw that the DNS provided to my laptop was still the router's address,
and, since I had assumed the problem to be associated with this
behavior, I moved on. (Actually, I thought I'd tried testing the
network, but I guess I not.) Later, when I came across this behavior
in the manual, I tried it again. Still, the router provides itself as
the DNS, but the problem reliably dissappears when I do this, and
reappears when I switch back to DHCP.

Static addresses on the router aren't ideal, but they're nowhere near
the inconvenience of setting statics on each computer. I'm using the
Comcast addresses that had been provided dynamically, found on the
"Router Status" page. DNS is responsive and reliable.

Does this work for you?

BTW, for anyone else who finds this thread, I've been using the
following two commands in succession to test DNS performance under XP:

ipconfig /flushdns
ping www.google.com

If it is purely a DNS problem, the ping times will be fine when they're
successful, but there'll be a lag after entering the command and before
a line that looks something like this:

Pinging www.l.google.com [66.102.7.99] with 32 bytes of data:

And, if the lag is severe enough, the ping will fail altogether.

In case someone has this problem and stumbles onto this page, but
doesn't know what DNS is or how to configure their router, here are the
overly explicit instructions for what fixed it for me.

I found that I didn't have to set static DNS addresses on my computer
itself, that setting them on the router does the trick. My solution was
this:

1) Confirm that it is a DNS problem. DNS is the system by which your
computer looks up an url (eg "www.google.com") finds its address (eg
"66.102.7.147").

To test DNS, open a command prompt, flush any cached DNS information,
and ping a server. Use the following two commands:

ipconfig /flushdns
ping www.google.com

Repeat this pair of commands a couple of times. If it is purely a DNS
problem, the ping times will be fine when they're
successful, but there'll be a lag after entering the command and before
a line that looks something like this:

Pinging www.l.google.com [66.102.7.147] with 32 bytes of data:

And, if the lag is severe enough, the ping will fail altogether. If a
line with the url's address pops up right away, you don't have a DNS
problem.

Assuming you have a DNS problem, the rest of these instructions tell
you how to set fixed addresses for your router to use for DNS, rather
than having them automatically assigned by your ISP when you connect.
You'll probably be using the same addresses that you'd normally be
assigned, but this gets past the DNS lag bug that seems to come from
using this particular router with Comcast. At least it did for me.

2) Browse to your router's configuration system. In your browser, go to
the address 192.168.0.1 You should be asked for a name and password. If
that doesn't work, type:

ipconfig

at your command prompt, and look for the address of the "Default
Gateway". Enter that address in your browser. Now you really should be
asked for a name and password. Unless you've changed them, the defaults
are "admin" and "password".

3) Get your DNS addresses. Here you can add whatever DNS addresses
you'd like, but you might as well use the ones Comcast gives you. Find
them on the "Router Status" page. Either use the link, or go to:

your-router's-address-from-step-2/s_status.htm

Under the "Internet Port" section they're the addresses labeled as
"Domain Name Server." These are the ones I got, and I'm sure they'd
work for you too:

68.87.69.146
68.87.85.98

4) Give your router static addresses. Click on the "Basic Settings"
link, or browse to:

your-router's-address-from-step-2/start.htm

In the DNS section, change from "Get Automatically..." to "Use
These...". Enter the addresses you got from step 3 as the primary and
secondary DNS.

Click on the "Apply Button"

5) Test it. Run that pair of commands from step one four or five times.
If you're still having problems, reload the "Basic Settings" screen and
check that it really is set on "Use These...", and that the addresses
entered are correct. If everything looks ok, try power cycling the
router (unplug it, wait a minute, plug it back in) and testing again.


That's it. This worked for me - please post back as to whether it did
for you.

[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <(E-Mail Removed) .com> on 25 Apr 2006
08:02:16 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>3) Get your DNS addresses. Here you can add whatever DNS addresses
>you'd like, but you might as well use the ones Comcast gives you. Find
>them on the "Router Status" page. Either use the link, or go to:
>
>your-router's-address-from-step-2/s_status.htm
>
>Under the "Internet Port" section they're the addresses labeled as
>"Domain Name Server." These are the ones I got, and I'm sure they'd
>work for you too:
>
>68.87.69.146
>68.87.85.98

Not necessarily, and a bad idea in general -- those are specific to your
particular area.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR ALT.INTERNET.WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FAQ_for_alt.internet.wireless>