Recent changes to the server?

[eicca]

As of the last few days any one of my three devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac) will fail to connect to rockman-gearup.com and say the server cannot be found. If I try to access the site on a different of the three devices, it works.

I’ve tried resetting all my website caches and cookies and stuff but the problem randomly cycles through my devices. I tried changing WiFi networks and that doesn’t seem to help.

It’s odd though, one day the iPhone won’t connect to the site but the rest will. The next day it’s my Mac. And so on.

Has something been changed in the back end lately? Any web experts that might know what to look for?

[rbc]

The last updates were on 2020-09-05 just before 18:05 (UTC). I updated the operating system and the PHP stack that supports the web site. It might not be the updates however. I think it might be the DNSSEC configuration for the rockman-gearup zone that was the issue. I just refreshed that. It might be better now.

I think I remember you being a Mac user. If so, could you run this command in terminal and send me the output:

"dig rockman-gearup.com."

Run it including the trailing period, but without the quotes. Send me the output if possible. Thanks.

[eicca]

Results are as follows:

Code: Select all

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> rockman-gearup.com.
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37618
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;rockman-gearup.com.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
rockman-gearup.com.	599	IN	A	54.218.64.76

;; Query time: 125 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Tue Sep 08 10:42:43 MDT 2020
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 63

[rbc]

Hmm. That’s a good DNS query. Are you still having the issue?

[eicca]

Hmm. That’s a good DNS query. Are you still having the issue?

Seems to be ok today. But now that you mention DNS I wonder if my hackjob router setup has something to do with it. College apartments, you know. I’ll mess with the DNS settings and see if that does anything.

[eicca]

Fixed it! Manually changing all DNS settings to Google's servers seems to have resolved the issue.

[eicca]

Weird, the problem is back, even with my manual DNS configuration. I can still get to the site by disconnecting from WiFi and using LTE though.

Any other tests I can run?

[rbc]

Let's see how long the dig command runs, along with it's output:

"time dig rockman-gearup.com."

Try running it a few different times, during different parts of the day.

[eicca]

Now my phone can access the forum on WiFi, but my desktop computer can’t find the server. Same network as always. Ran the command:

Code: Select all

TIME DIG RESULT
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> rockman-gearup.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 24072
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;rockman-gearup.com.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
rockman-gearup.com.	599	IN	A	54.218.64.76

;; Query time: 122 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Tue Oct 13 09:31:00 MDT 2020
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 63


real	0m0.167s
user	0m0.006s
sys	0m0.027s

DIG RESULT
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> rockman-gearup.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 17318
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;rockman-gearup.com.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
rockman-gearup.com.	599	IN	A	54.218.64.76

;; Query time: 140 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Tue Oct 13 09:31:28 MDT 2020
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 63

[eicca]

More data: even when both iOS and macOS fail to load the server in Safari, it will load perfectly fine in Chrome on macOS. Good job Apple.