ISY DNS Errors with D-Link DIR-655 and DGL-4300

[dkaleita]

I have ready every thread I can find in this forum about how to get things working when you are experiencing DNS Errors when trying to syncronize ISY-99i time with the pool.ntp.org server or send a test e-mail alert. And I [think] I've carefully tried every applicable suggestion made in those threads. And yet I still cannot get these to work. All I get are DNS Error messages. So I thought I'd spell out my setup and everything I've tried in detail just in case someone can recognize what I'm mdoing wrong.

 

First of all I should mention that yesterday I switched my ISP from comcast.net to wowway.com, and the problem was not affected. I also tried using first a D-Link DGL-4300 router, and then changed to a D-Link DIR-655 with everything set exactly the same- and I have the same problem with both of them.

 

On the router's Status/Device Info page (regardless of which router I use) I show the following settings:

 

WAN (I believe these are set by the connection to my ISP):

Connection Type: DHCP Client

Cable Status: Connected

Network Status: Established

IP Address: 2X.192.XX.X00

Subnet Mask: 255.255.252.0

Primary DNS Server: 64.233.217.5

Secondary DNS Server: 64.233.217.2

 

LAN (as set by me):

[Router] IP Address: 192.168.0.1

Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

 

I have "Enable DNS Relay" selected (i.e., turned ON), but I have also tried it disabled with no difference in symptoms.

 

I have A DHCP reservation for my ISY-99 set for 192.168.0.4, and that part is working fine. I also have a Dynamic DNS server set up to effectively give me a fixed IP address so I can log in to the ISY-99 from anywhere outside of my house, and that is also working perfectly.

 

I also have a DHCP reservation set up for my Network Attached Storage NAS) unit at 192.168.0.2. In case anyone cares, this is a Netgear ReadyNAS NV, which is also capable of sending alerts- and it does so perfectly when I use the following settings to access a mail server:

 

SMTP server: SMTP.gmail.com

SMTP port: 587

User: myemail@gmail.com

Password: ********

From: myemail@gmail.com

Login Type: auto (other choices are "plain, login, cram.md5, digest.md5, gssapi)

Use TLS: Yes (checked)

Use STARTTLS: Yes (checked)

 

Sending a test message to from the ReadyNAS NV to my hotmail account via gmail works every time.

 

My ISY-99 is running firmware version 2.7.13. On the Configuration tab, I have entered the following settings:

 

Network Settings:

Automatic DHCP: YES (checked)

IP Address: already correctly appears as 192.168.0.4

Http Port: 80

Https Port: 443

 

NTP Server is enabled (checked) and is set for pool.ntp.org.

But THERE IS AN EXCLAIMATION POINT IN FRONT OF THE NTP SERVER, and when I click on Synchronize Now, I gat the following error messages:

"[-10103] Userid not found [n/a]"

"[-60001] NTP server DNS error [pool.ntp.org]"

 

SMTP Settings:

Use Default: NO (unchecked)

SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com

SMTP Port: 587

User ID: myemail@gmail.com

Password: ********

From: myemail@gmail.com

Timeout (ms): 1000

Use TLS: YES (checked)

 

When I click on Test (twice) to try to send a test alert to my hotmail account, I get the following error messages:

"[-10103] Userid not found [n/a]"

"[-50010] Mail server DNS error [null]"

 

I am assuming that e-mail alerts aren't working because of the same DNS error problem as with the NTP server access.

 

So what the heck am I doing wrong?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello dkaleita,

 

First of all I do not think you are doing anything wrong. The bottom line is that ISY cannot contact your DNS server to resolve names to IPs. This could be ISY related (hardware) or network related.

 

The first thing I would do is to use an IP address instead of pool.ntp.org (i.e. go to the command prompt, and type

nslookup pool.ntp.org

). If this works it means that ISY can access the Internet but not the DNS server.

 

Also, it would help a lot if you could look at your router's log and see if there is any traffic for your ISY, whether or not they are being blocked, and the reason code.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[dkaleita]

Using 72.14.177.132 in place of pool.ntp.org works for synchronizing time.

 

Here is 26 seconds of my router's log, during which time I did a NTP synchronize to 72.14.177.132 and attempted a test e-mail alert:

 

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:38 2010 Log viewed by IP address 192.168.0.3

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:38 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:38 2010 Blocked incoming UDP packet from 209.234.238.100:18546 to 24.192.23.100:33435

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:37 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:36 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:36 2010 Lease 192.168.0.18 renewed by client 0011D90A02F0

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:35 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:34 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:33 2010 Lease 192.168.0.16 renewed by client 0011D90B9EA9

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:33 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:33 2010 Blocked incoming UDP packet from 209.234.238.100:18546 to 24.192.23.100:33435

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:32 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:31 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:31 2010 Lease 192.168.0.18 renewed by client 0011D90A02F0

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:30 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:29 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:28 2010 Blocked incoming UDP packet from 209.234.238.100:18546 to 24.192.23.100:33435

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:28 2010 Lease 192.168.0.16 renewed by client 0011D90B9EA9

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:28 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:26 2010 Previous message repeated 2 times

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:26 2010 Lease 192.168.0.18 renewed by client 0011D90A02F0

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:25 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:24 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:23 2010 Lease 192.168.0.16 renewed by client 0011D90B9EA9

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:23 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:21 2010 Previous message repeated 2 times

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:21 2010 Lease 192.168.0.18 renewed by client 0011D90A02F0

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:20 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:19 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:18 2010 Lease 192.168.0.16 renewed by client 0011D90B9EA9

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:18 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:18 2010 Blocked incoming UDP packet from 209.234.238.100:18546 to 24.192.23.100:33436

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:17 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:16 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:16 2010 Lease 192.168.0.18 renewed by client 0011D90A02F0

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:16 2010 Blocked incoming TCP connection request from 58.242.63.122:28693 to 24.192.23.100:9415

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:15 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:14 2010 Previous message repeated 1 time

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:13 2010 Lease 192.168.0.16 renewed by client 0011D90B9EA9

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:13 2010 Log viewed by IP address 192.168.0.3

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:13 2010 Lease 192.168.0.4 renewed by client 0021B9003D2D

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:13 2010 Blocked incoming UDP packet from 209.234.238.100:18546 to 24.192.23.100:33436

[iNFO] Sun Mar 21 13:25:12 2010 Log cleared by IP address 192.168.0.3

 

Key:

192.168.0.3 is the computer I'm using

192.168.0.4 is the ISY-99

192.168.0.16 is a HD TiVo

192.168.0.18 is a HD TiVo

 

Is it normal for a client to requesting a DHCP lease renewal every 1-2 seconds?

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi dkaleita,

 

Thanks so very much. I was thinking about the same thing ... DHCP lease should not be renewed every few seconds UNLESS that's what you have set for the lease time in your router.

 

Since I do not see any more errors, I must suspect this to be at least one of the issues. Can you please check the DHCP lease time in your router?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[ergodic]

You really just want to get your ISY getting its public name service from your ISP directly instead of the router.

 

If you're able to set the router or the DHCP reservation in it to give out a hard-coded DNS, put in the 64.233.217.5 address and reboot the ISY to renew the lease. If not, connect to the ISY via telnet and hard-code all the IP settings there, including DNS.

 

The dynamic DNS setup is not relevant to this issue. If the IP, gateway and DNS server addresses are correct in the ISY, it will work.

[dkaleita]

The whole point of my post was to figure out why the DNS Relay feature that my router was advertised as having simply wouldn't work.

 

I decided to try completely resetting all router settings to factory default and starting over by reinstalling the router using the original "quick setup" cd that came with it. I tried this once before by saving the confing.bin file and then reloading it after the factory reset- but that didn't make the problem go away. So this time I saved screen shots of every settings page/tab that I had changed something on, and then manually re-entered everything exactly the same as I had it before. It worked! Apparently there was some hidden thing that was stopping the DNS Relay feature from working, and that got cleared when I reset the router to factory settings. Whatever it was gets saved in the config.bin file when you save your router settings to a file, so it appears that there is no easy way to fix this problem if you've got it.

 

In any case, I put the NTP server back to pool.ntp.org, didn't change a thing in my alert settings using my gmail smtp server, and everything is now working as it should.

 

Thanks for all of the advice.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi dkaleita,

 

Thanks so very much for the update. This is indeed strange ...

 

With kind regards,

Michel