Nest WiFi started occasionally losing DNS connection?

[drrmjones]

I am not 100% sure I am diagnosing the problem correctly, but it smells like I am losing my connection to DNS sporadically.  This only started happening recently (I've had my mesh for a few years), but it has happened a few times over the past week.  Here are the symptoms:
* My Windows computers and Android phones remain connected to the WiFi but report that they are unable to connect to the internet
* Any WiFi devices that are already connected to the internet (such as Roku devices streaming video) continue to operate just fine
* I can ping external IP numbers, but the lookup fails if I try to ping anything by name
* If I run the Speed Test from Google Home, it works just fine, reporting no connectivity issues.

* If I reset my Google Nest WiFi OR I reset my cable modem, everything returns to normal.

So does anybody have any idea what is happening and how I can't prevent it from continuing to happen?

Thanks in advance.

[olavrb]

Could you tell us more about your setup? What other boxes (routers, modems, switches) is used, and where/ in what order? Do you have double NAT for instance?

[drrmjones]

I have a cable modem from Spectrum.  Connected to that is a Nest WiFi hub.  Then I have two Nest WiFi points and one Google WiFi connected wirelessly to the hub. I do not have any additional routers or NAT.

The problem happened again today, and I was able to fix it (again) by restarting the Nest WiFi hub, but this time two of my points went offline when I did the restart, so I had to restart those, as well.

So I called Google support this time, and they had me hard-code the DNS settings to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.  So we'll try that and see whether the problem happens again.

[olavrb]

Good, a simple and correct setup.

Tell us if it happens again, if it does I'll escalate this thread.

[drrmjones]

Well, I'm afraid the DNS change did not solve the problem. It happened again yesterday evening and today. 

[Jhonleanmel]

Hey folks,

@olavrb, we appreciate your helpful responses.

@drrmjones, thanks for your patience and for trying the suggested troubleshooting provided above.

A few questions: are you using a modem/router combo from your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? Do you have any paused devices?

Give these steps a try:

1. Make sure that there is minimal to no interference (concrete, bulletproof glass, metal, mirror, etc.) and the points are no more than two rooms apart.
2. Remove any special characters in your network name and password.
3. Set a custom DNS to ISP. Hit the save/ floppy disk icon on the upper right.
4. Unplug the power from your Google Wifi devices for 2 minutes.
5. If the issue persists, try factory resetting your network.

Let us know how it goes.

Best,

Mel

[drrmjones]

I have already tried all of these steps except for the factory reset. Doing the factory reset is, of course, a huge hassle and everybody knows it is a last resort that is unlikely to work. But if the issue keeps happening, I will try it.

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi drrmjones,

Thanks for letting us know. Take your time, I'll be waiting for your update.

Regards,
Mel

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi drrmjones,

I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any concerns or questions from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.

Thanks,
Mel

[drrmjones]

After I manually set the DNS addresses, the problem happened once more the following day.  However, it has not happened again since then. So I'm hoping whatever the problem was has gone away.  If it does happen again, I will try doing a factory reset.

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi drrmjones, 

Awesome — glad to hear that and thanks for getting back to us. It looks like we can consider this one complete, so I will lock the thread shortly unless I can help out with anything else. 

Best, 
Mel

[Jhonleanmel]

Hi drrmjones,

As we got our resolution here, I'm going to mark this thread as resolved. I'll be locking this thread if we won't hear back from you in 24 hrs. Should that happen, feel free to create a new one if you have more questions or have other concerns in the future.

Cheers,
Mel