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Davidgear2's avatar
Davidgear2
Aspirant
Oct 11, 2026

RAXE300 DNS failover failure — secondary DNS unreachable when primary fails

Product: NETGEAR Nighthawk RAXE300 (AXE7800)

Firmware: V1.0.9.82_1

IPv6: Disabled

Date tested: 11 October 2026

 

Hi all,

 

I'm using a local dns as my primary and a remote (confirmed working) as my secondary. however when my first goes down (unplugged, updates etc) the second takes about 5seconds to give a reply with each new check. Is there a way to make this more snappy? 

 

thanks,

David

raxe300

4 Replies

  • Davidgear2's avatar
    Davidgear2
    Aspirant
    Oct 11, 2026

    I also got ai to have a look and it said:

     

    The firmware generates strict-order settings for dnsmasq 2.85. Its code waits for the client to retry before trying the secondary DNS server. Each fresh query starts with the Pi again, explaining the repeated delays when it’s unavailable.

  • FURRYe38's avatar
    FURRYe38
    Guru - Experienced User
    Oct 11, 2026

    Please reach out to NG support regarding any FW issues seen. Only they can help fix that. 

    Can't always trust what ai says. 

  • Davidgear2's avatar
    Davidgear2
    Aspirant
    Oct 11, 2026

    I'm outside the support window so was hoping someone here can help or let me know if this is a known issue.

    • FrumpyGrandpa's avatar
      FrumpyGrandpa
      Apprentice
      Oct 11, 2026

      It would help to know more about these DNS servers.

       

      Your conclusion does not match my experience (although my Netgear router is a different model).  Rather than use the ISP resources, I have three DNS servers defined:

      • Cloudflare (1.1.1.1)
      • Google (8.8.8.8)
      • Google (8.8.4.4)

      My router has an option to 

      When packet capture is enabled and I use a web browser to open some random web pages (ford.com, honda.com, toyota.com), the DNS queries are captured.  I then "save" the Debug Log and display the WAN port traffic using Wireshark.  It is really clear that every time a DNS query is done,

      • The router sends queries to all three DNS services at the same time.
      • All three DNS services respond immediately (within a second.  Google is a bit faster than Cloudflare)

      Does the RAXE300 have a similar ability to capture traffic on the WAN port?