DNS issue?

[rigby44]

Hi all,

i'm experiencing a problem, which has plagued my connectivity for 2-3 weeks now.

The main problem i'm having is when working from home. Connecting my work laptop to my sky router and then trying to connect to my work VPN I get a message 'No such host is known' and when connected to my sky router my work laptop will also fail to open certain websites, it will open some but not all - the error message for those that arnt open being 'ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE.

Some websites will only open in basic HTML frame too - all very strange.

Troubleshooting done so far:

1) my colleague suggested it sounds like a DNS issue. Flushed DNS on my machine many times, no joy. Also changed DNS address to Google's, no joy

2) Spoke to Sky who said all line tests are fine and sent me a new router. Problem seemed to improve for a few days with new router,  but back to normal this morning. Note they sent me the same old router model which was annoying.

3) Tethered my work laptop to my phone 4G signal and it all works straight away, but this is not a permanent solution as signal is poor and data limited.

This is absolutely driving my insane, I suspect it's a DNS issue with this router model but Sky support these days is terrible and outside of running a line test and sending me a new (same model) router, they dont seem to be able to help further. It's an SR203 if that helps.

I should say other devices behave inconsistently when connected to the router too, apps and websites on phones can be very slow to open and my PS5 can lag heavily.

Desperate for some help!

Thanks

[Sunflower01]

I work from home and have been having problems with both work and personal laptops. Outlook is extremely slow, websites don't load, error messages, 'hmm this site can't be reached' (including Sky's own website), things not uploading. My work IT company have said it is a problem with DNS at Sky. I have called Sky numerous times and get a different answer each time I call. Last night the chap I spoke to switched off the Sky broadband shield and said he was 70% sure that would fix it, it hasn't. Also, when I upgraded to Superfast the engineer moved the BT Openreach to a corner in a room despite me asking for it to go somewhere else, which now also means the coverage doesn't reach my office. Sky wanted me to subscirbe to a boost package, but I need it to work first. I'm not tech savvy, so don't understand what DNS is and no-one at Sky seems to be able to help. I'm really frustrated as it is impacting my work, I asked for the BT Openreach box and router to be moved, then I was asked to subscribe to boost package

[Chrisee]

@Sunflower01 the quickest solution to DNS. Issues is to programme your devices to use a manual setting. Go into the network settings for the connection to the Sky hub and change the DNS setting from sutomatic or 192.168.0.1 to manual using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 which will route DNS requests to Googles free public DNS service. 

We see occasional reports of DNS issues where one of Sky's servers which is managing your connection goes on the blink powering down your hub for an hour can sort this but the solution above is better.

[jamesn123]

Hi @Sunflower01 

If it is a DNS issue then doing what @Chrisee has suggested might resolve it.

However it could just be a fault with your connection so can you please post your router stats

[Sunflower01]

Hello,

Thanks for this. I've gone into the hub using the numbers, but I can't see where to change the numbers to the ones that you have given, which tab is it under. I did change the IPv6 as someone else commented that that would work, would that affect where I find the DNS numbers?

[Sunflower01]

Hello,

Is it these?

[jamesn123]

@Sunflower01 
Yes thats your stats, they look great so no issues there.

To change your DNS you will need to change it on your device directly, Sky does not allow changing of the DNS servers on the router itself.

A guide on how to change your DNS for Windows 10 devices can be found below

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-your-pcs-dns-settings-windows-10

[Chrisee]

@rigby44 if you have added the Google public DNS addresses of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 to the device your issue isnt with Sky's DNS as your device eon't be routing requests to them. You can try disconnecting the hub for at least an hour as that should get you connected to a different node which may bypass any routing issues but its a strange fault.

[rigby44]

Hi @Chrisee somemore potentially useful information is that the router is forcing the laptop to take an IPv6 address and that is causing the problem. The router refuses to give it an IPv4 address but it will give it to other devices?

[Chrisee]

@rigby44 it is quite possible an IP addressing issue.  However its the device that requests the address from the DHCP server on start up.

Check the network set up on the laptop. If your laptop has a fixed IP4 address in the wrong range it wont connect. Sky hubs use the 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254 so would not connect to a device say at 192.168.1.32. You can set a fixed IP address say 192.168.0.200 on the laptop but if you do that reserve that address on the LAN IP Set up tab in the  hub's interface to avoid thst address being served to another device.

[mae-3]

@rigby44 

The Sky router will offer a dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 when connecting to Sky. As far as using the IPv6 address as a preference that is up to the App or browser you are using and can be overridden in most cases to favour IPv4.

[Higgo]

Hello, this worked for me too. Some apps on my andoird phone won't load when using the routers DNS, but do when I change to Google's. I remember last year sky's dns server went down. 

Is there am issue with sky's DNS overall? 

[Chrisee]

@Higgo Sky's DNS system uses a large number of server units and occasionally one of these goes on the blink for a few days and we get a rash of posts. However for the vast majority of users the system is overall stable and fast. 

[nezza1969]

I'm having the same issue here too. Even on a wired connection I'm getting err_timed_out for loads of websites ☹️ I spoke to Sky and although the engineer was helpful nothing has changed at all.

[Chrisee]

@rigby44 powering  down your hub for an hour usually sorks as it will get you connected to a different server node which is routing DNS calls correctly. Alternstively try the work round described above and add a public DNS to your devices network set up.