Hideous slow DNS problem..plz hlp

[Event3horizon]

Hi everyone,

Ill try to be as simple and as detailed as possible here.

connection: Verizon FIOS 5Mbit/2Mbit , DHCP
router: Dlink Wireless, using DHCP to connect to it
Computer: Power Mac G4 /1.25GHz/1G ram/ OS X 10.4.11
Browser:Firefox

Problem: Web browsing is painfully delayed when a website is looked up. It doesnt matter if its a raw IP or a DNS name. I've tried both. Once it finally establishes a connection the download is lighting fast until the website has reached another address to contact (some websites access TONS of address to load their entire main page)

The problem here is that this issue is not consistent but recently it has become more and more persistent. Sometimes there is no problem at all and sometimes I pull my hair out. Once i have connected to a website the browsing becomes fairly fast (until i pull up another webpage that needs to access another address!!)

Things Ive tried:

-Ive tried pinging various website and the initial ping takes the longest, then it finally pings normally with quick ms. Ive tried raw IP addresses as well as DNS names.

-Ive tried bypassing the router entirely and directly connecting with DHCP.

-Ive tried the internet connection on a Dell Laptop running Win XP and the web browsing is lightining fast with no problems.

-Ive tried flusing the DNS cache

-Ive tried to run the curl prog in the terminal as ive referenced from this website. Here is an example of a lookup on www.apple.com:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 12475 100 12475 0 0 353 0 0:00:35 0:00:35 --:--:-- 177k

dns: 35.021 connect: 35.105
pretransfer: 35.105 starttransfer: 35.191 total:35.281
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
as you can see the numbers are pitiful.

-Ive tried inputting my DNS numbers directly in the network preferences

-Ive tried turning on and off IPv6

-Ive tried manually setting ethernet settings like the MTU/etc.

-Ive tried safari

-Ive tried accessing my local network and it is very fast with no problems

-Ive tried a macosxhints article to setup BIND server locally, the trick made things worse..

At this point I dont know what else I can do. Heeelp!

[hayne]

Maybe try getting debug output using 'lookupd' in interactive mode:
(what I typed is in green)

% lookupd -d
lookupd version 369.5 (root 2006.05.04 22:40:37 UTC)
Enter command name, "help", or "quit" to exit
> debug: on

> hostWithName: www.apple.com
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: LUServer 0x00303220 added agent 0x00302050 (CacheAgent)
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Search Cache: host name www.apple.com   time: 0 status: Failed
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Allocated Dynamic Agent 0x003036d0
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Allocated FF 0x00303ab0
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: LUServer 0x00303220 added agent 0x003036d0 (FFAgent)
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Search FF: host name www.apple.com   time: 12 status: Failed
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Allocated DNSAgent 0x003041a0
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: LUServer 0x00303220 added agent 0x003041a0 (DNSAgent)
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Search DNS: host name www.apple.com   time: 72 status: OK
Dec  5 23:06:42 lookupd-debug: Call: host name www.apple.com   time: 128 status: OK
Dictionary: "DNS: host www.apple.com.akadns.net"
_lookup_DNS_domain: apple.com.akadns.net
_lookup_DNS_server: 206.47.244.14
_lookup_DNS_time_to_live: 21
_lookup_DNS_timestamp: 1196914002
_lookup_agent: DNSAgent
_lookup_info_system: DNS
interface: 5
ip_address: 17.149.160.10
name: www.apple.com.akadns.net www.apple.com
+ Category: host
+ Time to live: 43200
+ Age: 0 (expires in 43200 seconds)
+ Negative: No
+ Cache hits: 0
+ Retain count: 4

[Event3horizon]

You know, i think i've hit the jackpot. I found an article in macosxhints that shows some openDNS server addresses to use to speed up DNS. BINGO.. EVERYTHING is LIGHTNING fast. I cant believe it. All this time the Verizon DNS servers blow. But yet it works great through a PC. Something with their DNS is incompatible with the Mac and I dont know what.

Also, I want to correct myself. Looking up IP addresses was much faster than DNS names. So it is clearly a DNS problem. Now if I knew what the problem is with those Verizon DNS servers it would be good. They are:

68.238.112.12
68.238.96.12

The ones that fixed the problem are the OpenDNS ones which are lightning:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

[gavinevone]

had the same issue and it fixed the hanging. Thanks for showing us OpenDNS

10.4.10
firefox 2.0.0.4
verizon fios MI424WR

Entering DNS settings in the Verizon MI424WR router to opt out of DNS Assistance @
http://netservices.verizon.net/porta...em&objId=18155

[huges84]

Leopard users may notice they have DNS issues and configuring their router to use OpenDNS may not solve the problem. This is due to their router not supporting SRV type DNS requests, which Leopard now uses by default.

If the router does not support the SRV request, it drops the request and it never gets sent to the DNS server! After two failed SRV attempts Leopard falls back to the A request, but by then you have wasted up to 14 seconds. This can happen multiple times per page load. Tiger by default used the older A type DNS requests, which all routers are compatible with.

The solution can be found here:
http://installingcats.com/2008/06/05...dns_better_dns

In a nutshell, you bypass the DNS inside your router and send DNS requests directly to the internet DNS server such as the OpenDNS servers.

Note that configuring your router to use OpenDNS servers will not solve the SRV request problem. Doing that would still result in your router receiving the SRV request and ignoring it instead of passing it along the the OpenDNS servers.

I recommend reading this entire web page if you are hacing problems with slow internet in Leopard. It solved my problems.
http://installingcats.com/2008/06/05...-with-leopard/