DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN issue with new firmware update

[ladyspica]

Hi all, Last week I updated to Firmware 1.2.4.84 and now almost constantly receive error message  DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN - I have to reload the sites several times before they appear. Maybe the error does not appear once sites are cached? But it's hard to tell. 

Have restarted modem and router three times. 

Is there an easy fix for this? Should I just wait for an update on the firmware to fix the issue? If reverting is the solution, I have no idea how "revert to a previous version" of the firmware. I can download the previous version files but have no idea how to translate that into downgrading the firmware on the router. 

Need help please, it's wreaking havoc on authentications and my ability to study for my finals. Thanks to all for any help. 

[ladyspica · Accepted solution]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. Quick update — tried the DNS setting change and thought that was a fix, but then it wasn’t.

So, in conclusion, the only real solution is to downgrade your firmware and wait for the issue to be fixed.

Thanks again to all and hope this helps others with the same issue.

[FURRYe38]

What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?

If you do a search in this forum for "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN" you'll find there is a fair amount of posts regarding this.

You may need to downgrade FW back to what was working. 

Some mentioned the use of IPv6 enabled on the router may help. 

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last update? 

[plemans]

Have you tried enabling IPv6 first? 
Try that. 

If that doesn't help, then try downgrading firmware. 

You simply downgrade it from the support site, extract it, and then follow the manual update process but use the older firmware you downloaded. 

There's a support site with access to manuals, firmware, install guides, etc.
Go to https://www.netgear.com/support/
Type in your model number and from there it'll take you to the above.
Its a great resource to start with.

[ladyspica]

What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?

Charter Spectrum Model ET2251 -- is the problem maybe because the modem is old? 

I have read through previous posts but there is no clear concise answer. 

Are you suggesting a factory reset on the router? Or the modem? 

Thank you for your help and quick response.

[FURRYe38]

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@ladyspica wrote:

What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?

Charter Spectrum Model ET2251 -- is the problem maybe because the modem is old? 

No. Just checking to see if there is a router here or not. Your fine here. 

I have read through previous posts but there is no clear concise answer. 

Ya, mostly this is a FW issue and needs to be addressed by NG. They are aware of it. No idea when it will be fixed. 

Are you suggesting a factory reset on the router? Or the modem? 

Router. 

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[ladyspica]

 @FURRYe38 Thank you for such a clear response - really appreciate you! 

[FURRYe38]

👍

[Epyon1201]

Same issue after firmware update.

Reseting the router hasnt worked

Old firmware attempts:

R8000-V1.0.4.74_10.1.80 -Same issue

R8000-V1.0.4.68_10.1.75 -Same issue

R8000-V1.0.3.54_1.1.37  -Router wouldn't accept firmware

[Gipper4u]

Welcome to the club. It's a probblem with the latest firmware release. No fix from NG yet that I'm aware of.  If you want to put a bandaid on the problem, click on the little wifi icon at bottom right, select Network & Internet settings, click on the adapter you are using (likely Wi-Fi), click on change adapter options, right click on Wi-Fi adapter and choose properties, double click Internet Protocol Version 4, change DNS to use the following DNS server and enter 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1.  This will fix the issue until NG release an update.  To reverse this change do the same, but select Obtain DNS server address automatically..

[ladyspica · Accepted solution]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. Quick update — tried the DNS setting change and thought that was a fix, but then it wasn’t.

So, in conclusion, the only real solution is to downgrade your firmware and wait for the issue to be fixed.

Thanks again to all and hope this helps others with the same issue.

[Gipper4u]

Manually setting DNS on your client definitely works. Here's the catch though and what may be happening to you.  If you use multiple wireless SSID's, you have to make the change for each one because each SSID has its own DNS setttings.  So if you connect to "yourwirelessSSID" and make the DNS change to that adapter, that fixes the issue, but then if you connect to "yourwirelessSSID-2", the problem will re-appear until you make the DNS change on that adapter too.  It's a PITA, but it works once you change all your adapters to use manual DNS.  

[FURRYe38]

What FW version did you downgrade too? 

---

@ladyspica wrote:
Thanks to all for the suggestions. Quick update — tried the DNS setting change and thought that was a fix, but then it wasn’t.

So, in conclusion, the only real solution is to downgrade your firmware and wait for the issue to be fixed.

Thanks again to all and hope this helps others with the same issue.

---

[ladyspica]

Went to 

V1.4.1.68_1.3.28

and all was again well. 

[FURRYe38]

Glad you got it working. Be sure to save off a back up configuration to file for safe keeping. Saves time if a reset is needed.
https://kb.netgear.com/24231/How-do-I-back-up-the-router-configuration-settings-on-my-Nighthawk-rout...

Hopefully NG will fix in this in a future update.

Enjoy. 📡

[Ren1]

I started seeing DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN after upgrading to V1.4.2.84_1.3.42. ISP is XFinity.

If you care about security, downgrading should never been viewed as a reasonable fix.

Ideally, NetGear would be interested in swiftly helping to diagnose, address the issue, and firmly recommending against downgrading as a fix given their most recent firmware fixes security holes found in previous versions.

Curious... has anyone forwarded the issue details to NetGear? I may call if they do not monitor the forum. 

Thanks everyone for the above discussion on this.

[plemans]

@Ren1 some were fixed by simply enabling IPv6. Have you tried this? If so and it still doesn't work, I'd recommend starting your own thread were we can help you specifically. Plus the more than post about it, the more likely netgear mod's are to see it. 

[Ren1]

@plemans I have not seen the issue since enabling ipv6... thank you for clarifying that! I'll start a new thread if issue reoccurs.

[Ren1]

Interesting nuance... as mentioned earlier, with R7900P IPv6 enabled I no longer observed DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN... however, with IPv6 enabled, I now see intermittent communication failures with certain apps on my Samsung S21 smartphone. For example, when I refresh the Weather app widget on the S21 phone, it will "spin" refreshing and fail, the weather and time remain out of date. If I switch to mobile Internet, app works great, confirming there's an issue with R7900P home wifi. If I disable R7900P IPv6 and switch the S21 back to home R7900P WiFi, the phone apps work normally. Of course when I do this, I then see the desktop Chrome experience with the DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN error on first time browse to sites.

On my phone, with R7900P IPv6 enabled, I've seen YouTube and other apps affected as well, not just the Weather widget.

I do not currently have time to examine the lower level details of what's actually going on... but I may look if/when I have a chance... right now, refreshing on desktop to get past the annoying DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN is better than the phone apps failing as I cannot refresh those on demand to work around the issue..

Because of this, I'm also currently considering purchasing a Linksys WRT3200ACM OpenWRT router because things were fine w/R7900P before the last R7900P firmware update, and went south afterwards as happened to others. This, coupled with all of the other reports of this issue, seems to strongly indicate a Netgear firmware bug/design issue. I cannot know for certain until further testing. I will update if I discover anything new.

@plemans the negative outcome with my setup is unrelated to your awesome attempts to get people going. Thanks again for your time, effort/help.

[Ren1]

Quick update...

• Generally speaking, since the first day of seeing the issue, it did not seem to occur as much after enabling IPv6. 
• Once seeing it again, I updated my desktop to use Google DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (ignoring DHCP DNS assignments) and observed an even more significant reduction of the issue but nevertheless saw it crop up again (very rarely though).
• I installed a router with additional features I had been needing anyway (unrelated to this issue), and moved the R7900P to "AP mode" off the home network. Since that change, I have not seen any DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN errors but...
  • I cannot say the R7900P was the issue.
  • After the second bullet above (changing to Google DNS servers), the errors were far/few between so, in theory, the issue could have been caused by transient ISP modem/DNS issues affecting recurrence frequency, and perhaps exacerbated by otherwise good (but nevertheless upgraded) R7900P firmware, where those transient issues were resolved by the time I tried the new router. Without the issue occurring any longer, I cannot capture any diag data to look further... so cause is inclusive.

I spoke with Netgear... they were interested in helping to diagnose/address the issue further but since I had been planning to eventually move to the router anyway... this was a good time to upgrade the network... I'm just going to stick with the new config for now... but if anyone is still seeing this issue, you may consider reaching out to NetGear support.

[Robwuk]

Apparently Netgear believes this to be a Windows only issue with the latest rev of firmware (
V1.4.2.84_1.3.42). Their only solution is to go back a rev. This problem seems to be reasonably longstanding(At least several weeks) with neither an acknowledgment or a fix.
Someone in senior management ought to realize the reputational damage this is doing to Netgear and the harm it is doing to their customer's confidence.