I just had all our old cable and connectors replaced outside the house and a new router w/ voice installed inside by a Comcast technician. For about 12 hours all was glorious and I was no longer getting DNS errors, so I thought the issues I'd been dealing with for 2-1/2 years were finally behind.
Alas, I just went to my primary PC (not the Channels host) and no websites would resolve, saying I was offline. Meanwhile, Windows reports that I AM on line. So then I went to the PC hosting Channels and it was the same thing there. Windows saying I'm connected to the Internet and each of the browsers saying I am not.
Now here's the kicker. I have Cloudflare WARP installed on my non-Channels PCs but I keep it disabled except for such a situation. Whenever I turn WARP on, my browsers spring to life and say I'm online again. All I have to do is resolve one URL and then I can turn WARP back off and all my browsers say I'm online once again. I don't even have to turn WARP back on - sometimes for multiple days at a time - until the offline errors return.
I had cleaned Cloudflare WARP off of my Channels PC so I don't have the convenience of being able to get an internet connection short of resetting the router. Of course Channels troubleshooting fails almost everything when the browser thinks I'm not connected to the internet.
Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this behavior? Would it be a problem to install WARP on my Channels PC so I can at least use it to break through the "offline" barrier and then turn WARP off right after?
Most likely a DNS issue.
Try doing a ping to an external IP address ping 1.1.1.1 should work if you have Internet connectivity.
Then try pinging a domain name ping www.google.com which will fail if it's a DNS issue.
I have my router set to use Cloudflare DoH for DNS and via DHCP it tells everything on my network to use the LAN IP address of my router for DNS and the router is set to not forward known resolvers. That way everything on my network is using my router as a DNS server and my router uses Cloudflare DoH.
My router WAN port connects to an Xfinity Gateway cable modem, but I don't use the Xfinity DNS.
My Channels PC says I'm connected to the internet but in a browser 1.1.1.1 just reports that one.one.one.one's server IP address could not be found.
I've had the Netgear Nighthawk router set to use 1.1.1.1 as primary and 1.0.0.1 as secondary for at least the past year and each PC to use the router as its Gateway and DNS Server.
Interesting that when I remoted into the Channels PC to "View hardware and connection properties", one of the tabs in the Chrome browser was to YouTube and it resolved and began playing the video that was queued up there. None of the other tabs resolved, however.
I don't see anywhere in my Router's interface to set it to not forward known DNS resolvers.
Do a command line ping. A browser has to use DNS to resolve a host.
ping 1.1.1.1
ping www.google.com
Do you have an Xfinity xFi Gateway?
Did you put it into Bridge mode?
If not, what you can do is set your router to a static IP address for its WAN side and use DNS overrides for the WAN side so the xFi Gateway doesn't assign it Comcast DNS.
You can get to the admin UI on the xFi gateway at http://10.0.0.1/
pinging 1.1.1.1 and www.google.com results in Not Found - Try Again errors.
Yes, we have an Xfinity xFi Gateway w/ Voice. The Comcast technician set it up yesterday and put it into bridge mode. I just went into the admin UI to change the password and confirmed that status. Other than enabling bridge mode, I didn't see any admin tasks I'd want to change other than to change the password from the default. It doesn't perform any DNS routing in bridge mode, does it?
Edit: For a few minutes after being in the admin UI of the modem, I was able to go to some urls and Channels was able to log in and then by the time I ran the Channels troubleshooter I was offline again.
The xFi doesn't assign DNS server IP's to your router in bridge mode, but the Xfinity servers do when your router gets a DHCP IP address lease from them, so you can override the DNS servers on the WAN side of your router.
Your router also has a DHCP server where you can set the DNS server IP's assigned to the LAN clients. I set that to the LAN IP address of my router.
So my clients use my routers LAN IP as their DNS server IP and my router uses Cloudflare DoH on the WAN side.
Sounds like a connectivity issue then.
If it was a DNS issue, the ping to 1.1.1.1 would have worked and www.google.com would have failed with host not found (via DNS).
C:\>ping 1.1.1.1
Pinging 1.1.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=56
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=56
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=56
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=56
Ping statistics for 1.1.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 14ms
C:\>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [142.250.72.196] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.250.72.196: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=112
Reply from 142.250.72.196: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=112
Reply from 142.250.72.196: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=112
Reply from 142.250.72.196: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=112
Ping statistics for 142.250.72.196:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 19ms, Average = 17ms
C:\>ping www.domainisnotvalid.com
Ping request could not find host www.domainisnotvalid.com. Please check the name and try again.
I think that's the way I'm set up (prior post) and I must not be seeing DNS errors but errors that just LOOK like them.
I hate this, but I ended up installing Cloudflare WARP on my Channels host PC. I'll leave it disabled all the time and when I see a bunch of "no such host" errors in the log I'll have to remote into it to turn WARP on and off. Unfortunately, this strategy only works from within the LAN because turning WARP on from the WAN breaks the connection with me not knowing a way back in.
I'm beginning to wonder if the error could be originating from within the router itself. However, if I were to buy another to test it I might be stuck with that, and then I would wish I had just purchased a NetGate running pfsense. The backstory is that we were having no DNS errors when running pfsense on a retired PC, but I thought it would simplify everything when our son who set it up moved out to just have everything go through the Netgear Nighthawk router - which I was familiar with and already using for Wi-Fi anyway.
My understanding is that Cloudflare WARP is a device specific VPN.
I haven't had any issues with my Synology routers (currently RT2600ac that replaced a RT1900ac) and Xfinity Internet, once I disabled bridge mode on my xFi Gateway. It was continually losing the DHCP lease and resetting the network interfaces. Since I disabled bridge mode and set a static WAN IP address on my router, it's been working great.
I also remember hearing about some older gateways that had a bug and there is a class action lawsuit against the mfgr using the problem Intel chip. Mine, an Arris TG4482A (Xfinity XB7), is not affected.
What model Xfinity Gateway did you get?
This is a poor mans Internet down detector I'm still using that proved the issues with my gateway and bridge mode. I modified my shell script slightly since this post to auto-retry once on failures.
Been using it for over a year and am still happy with the results.
Interesting - so using the xFi Gateway in bridge mode was causing more problems than not using it? I would've guessed bridge mode would give the gateway less to do and hopefully cause fewer issues.
In any case, I wasn't aware that the xFi gateway's router could work in conjunction with my own router without having to switch my router to Access Point mode.
The modem they replaced was a wall-mount ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 w/ Voice - probably 10 years old. I'm not home so I'm not sure what the new one is other than it's about 5"x5" square by maybe 8" tall and doesn't wall mount so I had to install a little shelf for it.
I didn't realize a static WAN IP address could be used by a router behind the xFi gateway modem. How do you set that up?
Login to the xFi Gateway web UI.
Take the xFi out of bridge mode.
Go to Connection > Local IP Network
Mine is using 10.0.0.1
Then set your routers WAN interface to a Static IP address within the xFi Gateways DHCP pool
I set mine to 10.0.0.207 (could have been anything from 10.0.0.2 to 10.0.0.253)
Set the gateway address to what appears in the xFi Gateway Address field
I set mine to 10.0.0.1 (matching the xFi Gateway Address)
And set override (manually configured) DNS server IP addresses in your routers WAN setup
Okay, that makes sense to me for the router getting a static address. Can you then still set up your LAN on your own router at 192.168.x.x with that as the gateway for your other devices? That would create two gateways, which I guess I thought bridge mode was doing already.
Yes. Here's the LAN side setup on my router
Something to consider on the Xfi Gateway.
Mine, an XB7, has 4 LAN ports.
Ports 1-3 are Gigabit and Port 4 is 2.5 Gigabit.
Only Port 1 can be used for bridge mode.
The xFi appears at 10.0.0.1 on all ports.
The xFi has a DHCP server which will assign DHCP IP and DNS to anything connected to any of the 4 LAN ports.
If you have other devices connected to the xFi LAN ports, make sure to set a reserved DHCP IP for your router so the WAN side Static IP you use on your router isn't conflicting with the xFi DHCP pool.
I'm not planning on using any of the other LAN ports on the xFi modem, but it's good to understand their distinctions.
I noticed your router is using 1.0.0.1 for your primary DNS and 1.1.1.1 for the secondary. Do you think that works better than my settings that flip the primary and secondary?
I've been getting nothing but failing recordings on TVE channels today, so I turned on Cloudflare WARP and all the recordings began working again. The problem is that with WARP activated I'm getting the diagnostic error "xxxxxxxxxxxx.u.channelsdvr.net is pointed at xx.xx.xx.xxx but the current IP for this system is yyy.yy.yyy.yy". This means that even though the recordings will now work I can have no remote access to Channels. When I turn WARP off the recordings continue for a while (maybe 30 minutes) but ultimately fail as soon as the browser claims I'm offline, but then I have remote access.
In my current situation I can't get both an online recording experience and remote access at the same time. That must be a strong clue but I can't figure out what is preventing the browsers from seeing the online condition unless I'm going through a VPN. Is there any kind of VPN that would allow Channels full functionality?
Doesn't matter as they end up at the same place anyway.
As for your other comments, I would totally uninstall Cloudflare WARP from your Channels DVR device. It's a VPN.
Then setup your xFi Gateway and router as I described above and see what happens.
When you have issues, try doing the ping tests I mentioned earlier to see if you really do have Internet connectivity. The script I setup and use does a ping to different IP addresses to see where the point of failure is. I don't ping domains because that requires DNS lookups, just want to test connectivity.
ping localhost IP address (networking stack)
ping my network adapter IP address
ping my routers LAN port IP address
ping my xFi Gateway LAN port IP address
ping my Xfinity assigned Internet IP address
ping my Xfinity Internet gateway IP address
ping 1.1.1.1
ping 8.8.8.8
I'm not happy with WARP being on there, but it seemed to be the only way to get the browser to see anything online when otherwise its walls are up.
Something I wasn't clear on - I was pinging from inside the browser. I have a feeling I should be pinging inside of a command window, powershell, or terminal. Is your script just a batch file?
You can't ping from a browser.
You use the command line ping from your OS.
My script is a shell script that runs on my Synology NAS.
If you have Windows, open a command prompt and run ping from there.
I turned WARP off and one thing I didn't expect is that Channels had already begun pointing at the URL WARP had been using. Hopefully it's just a matter of time before it goes back to my actual external IP.
Using WARP was a way of getting the browser to drop the brick wall and let me access the internet again. Apparently turning WARP off was only keeping that door open for a limited period of time beyond that. That only lasted about 7 minutes this last time and I'm no longer able to browse. In the command window "ping 1.1.1.1" still replies, but "www.google.com" does not. Does that provide a clue?
It seems to come and go. I just now pinged www.google.com and it replied and ran the Channels troubleshooter and everything came back green. I did it a minute later and got 6 reds. Go figure...
When I get home I'll try to do the static WAN address for the router and turn off bridge mode on the modem and see it that changes anything.