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Kylejarrett's profile

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5 Messages

Tuesday, May 29th, 2018 3:53 PM

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Fixed Wireless Internet DNS Error

Hello, I have had fixed wireless internet for 5+ months with little to no issues, until recently, I have been constantly getting the message from the router settings saying “DNS Communication- Unable to contact the domain name server” I have had several  technicians on site that were unable to fix the issue, they do not understand why or what this error is. All lights on the router are green. The DNS server will eventually connect, but only temporarily, then it will go back to the same error message as stated above. Curious to see if anyone has had this issue, and has a possible fix.

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11 Messages

6 years ago

@Kylejarrett

I am having the same issues with my fixed wireless internet.  It started March 30th (Good Friday) and since I have had 6 different technicians come to my residence.  Not only does the issue still occur but one of the technicians changed the outdoor ant. out to one that was not provisioned which caused my service light to go from green to red.  After 3 weeks of the next 2 techs telling me the tower was down I finally got a tech to replace the ant. again with one that was provisioned for my tower and the service light is now green again as well as the service going in and out.  Each time it is out the Pace 5268ac gateway shows it could not contact the DNS server. 

 

I have tried setting the DNS servers on each device manually but it did not help.  It has been 2 full months today and there is still no resolution to this issue.  From December 2017 till March 30th 2018 the service worked great.  I swapped from Exede to AT&T because I thought it would be a better option but I am seriously starting to regret that decision.  The customer support/technical support team do not know what they or doing or they just do not care about the customers at all.  Every time I call they want to send another technician to my house and most of the technicians are DirectTV installers so they are new to troubleshooting the internet issues.  Not only do they waste the techs time by sending them out again they was our time.  This is just another example of horrible support by AT&T.

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5 Messages

6 years ago

I may have fixed the issue, maybe it will work for you.. I saw you tried to change the DNS with no luck, try this.. so far it’s been working for nearly 24 hours now.. I’m still not getting my hopes up, but what I did was dis connect every device that you have from the router, once you do that, turn them off, such as phones, tables, & PCs. I then turned my PC back on & got back to the desktop, re plugged my Ethernet cord, and clicked on “Network and internet setting” from there, you’ll find “change adapter settings” click that, then right click the connection you are trying to use, click “Properties” from there, you should be on the “Networking” Tab, locate and right click the setting that says “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) once it’s highlighted, go to “Properties” at the bottom you will see “Obtain DNS server address automatically” click on the one under it, “Use the following DNS server address” and enter this Prefered DNS server 8.8.8.8 Alternate DNS server 8.8.4.4 once you do that, click “OK” and wait a few minutes and see if you are able to use the internet. Hope it works... iv been so aggravated with this mess, fingers crossed this fix will help you and continue to work.

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11 Messages

6 years ago

I tried this as well and was able to use my internet Sunday and Monday, but yesterday it was down all day and has been down since.  I have tried using google's dns server (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) as well as OpenDNS's server and had no luck with either.   What area do you live in?  I am from Mississippi (a small town about 15 miles from Hattiesburg).  I am just wondering if this is an issue with an area or just an issue with AT&T's DNS servers in general.

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5 Messages

6 years ago

Yeah I figuerd you tried it, mine will prolly go down here any moment, and I’m located in Louisiana, this all started to happen after a pretty bad storm, we had a power outage and then bam, DNS error. The techs we get don’t know anything either, all they do is basic troubleshooting that anyone could do, unplug, replug.. they need a tech to go to the cell tower and check on it there, if that’s even possible. 

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11 Messages

6 years ago

That is the same thing the tech tried at my house.  AT&T reached out today to say that my issue has been escalated to the ISS team so hopefully they can find a resolutions soon.  

Tutor

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5 Messages

6 years ago

Hope they get it working again, if they do, it would be awesome if you could get back with me and try to explain what they did or how to fix it for future problems! 

Tutor

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11 Messages

6 years ago

I sure will.  

Tutor

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5 Messages

6 years ago

Unfortunately, it isn't as easy as using a different nameserver, such as Google DNS. AT&T fixed and uverse routers are hard coded to use only AT&T nameservers. So if the router is unable to connect to the nameserver, then it doesn't matter what you have set on your device in regards to DNS.

Another issue is that both fixed wireless and Uverse have very small nat tables set on their routers.

I work from home. Having said this, it was driving me insane being dropped all the time from a remote session I had open. It appears that during the day and in the very early morning hours if I closed my browser or had no activity for 10 seconds the nameserver to my router connection would drop. Causing my connection to be lost. So I have opted to ping every 5 seconds to an environment that I own. I am never dropped when I do this. Thus saving me the ten minutes every time I was dropped! Whew!

Tutor

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11 Messages

6 years ago

Even when my connection is active i still get dropped.  The only relevant information I can find is that the gateway is unable to communicate with the dns server.  

 

I have reported this multiple times to att tech support but they seem unwilling to help with the issue at all 

Tutor

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5 Messages

6 years ago

If your connection at any point is not downloading or uploading data via any means from any one of your devices the possibility that the nameserver will timeout for the router is very high during the daylight hours and in the wee morning hours.


I personally use my own online environment to keep my connection alive. However, you can also do what I am doing via a browser plugin. Simply choose one of the plugins listed below if you use either FireFox, Chrome or Opera. Haven't explored other browsers. Once installed follow the instructions. Make sure you set the page to reload every 5 seconds. Crazy I know. But, this has been the magic number for me. When choosing a page to reload, it is best to choose a page that is small and holds very few graphics or none at all.

Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-reload-tab/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-auto-refresh/

Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/super-auto-refresh/kkhjakkgopekjlempoplnjclgedabddk?hl=en
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-refresh/ifooldnmmcmlbdennkpdnlnbgbmfalko?hl=en-US

Opera:
https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/tab-auto-refresh/

Hope this helps.

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