DNS Lookup Error - pervasive & persistent

[motobojo]

The problems began mid-day Thursday, 23 February 2017.
HN7000S (in the queue for a Gen 5 upgrade).

I get pervasive & persistent DNS Lookup Errors when attempting to visit web pages.
A small set of pages load without difficulty.  Many do not.
Repeated attempts to refresh failing sites sometimes results in the page partially loading. Continued persistent refreshes sometimes result in the page fully loading.  Many sites won't load at all despite persitent attempts to reload.

The System Control center top-level system status looks fine.
My usage limit has NOT been exceeded.
The weather is pristine. There are no obstructions to satellite dish's view of the sky. 

Errors occur on both my desktop computer (Win 10) and tablet (Win10).
Errors occur on multiple browsers: Firefox, Chrome, IE, Edge.

I generally use a Belkin router. For diagnostic purposes the router has been removed from the configuration. The problem remains unchanged.

Some actions taken (per support staff direction) without any change to the problem:
  cycled power on modem and computer MANY times
  ipconfig /flushdns
  reset network connection (disable/reenabled)
  cables have been removed and reseated multiple times
  cleared all browsing history, etc. on browser
  Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) unchecked (dsabled) in Ethernet Connection properties
  Set TCP/IPv4 DNS server to: 8.8.8.8 (primary) & 8.8.4.4 (secondary) in Ethernet Connection properties

System Control Center
Advanced Configuration and Statistics > Diagnostics > Hourly History
intermittant problems found with:
 Web Acceleration
 Web Acceleration
 DNS Acceleration
Diagnostic code
   0307-2005-1200-5125(Hourly)
   0256-0005-1200-0005(Recent)

Pinging cnn.com (a url consistently failing in browser) results in 100% success.
It is curious that ping gets a dns map just fine to 151.101.64.73 (though attempting to use that in Firefox doesn't work).

I wonder if a gateway change may be the root of this problem.  See a related problem:
https://community.hughesnet.com/hughesnet/topics/ongoing-dns-lookup-error-hn9000s
I was unsuccessful at getting any of the phone support personal to consider this possibility and solutions that might result.

I have spent many hours on the phone with various levels of support.  Two case numbers were generated: 102869217 & 102869426.  I believe the latter one is the most complete and up-to-date.  I made it up to tier-4 technical support. Their conclusion was that nothing could be done and that I should upgrade my system.  I am currently in the queue for a Gen 5 upgrade, but that won't happen for a while.  Is there anything that can be done while I await my upgrade?  Specifically, can any of the technical support staff here look into switching my gateway until I'm upgraded?

One additional consideration.  I noticed that when my Web Acceleration Status was Inactive or Not Operational I did not experience the problem.  Is there a way I can force the Web Acceleration Status into one of these states --  shutting off web acceleration?  I know that sounds inadvisable or counter-intuitive, but when web acceleration is operational the quality seems to go to crap, so I seem to have a choice of accelerated crap or slower quality.  I'll chose slower quality.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

[Amanda]

Hello motobojo

Thank you for the very detailed post - this eliminates the need to ask a lot of questions. I've located your account and I do see that you are on the HN7000S, which means I cannot change your gateway. However, I think your idea on turbopage might be a good one. We have a teardown option which might work. I will try it here remotely - by the time you see this it will have been processed. Go ahead and test it out. If it works, I can provide you the teardown IP to do yourself when needed. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks
Amanda

[motobojo]

Thank you for your attention to the matter.  So far so good on the 'teardown option' you performed.  Yes, please do provide me with the details of controlling this myself.  Thank you.

Update: The action you took did not 'stick'.  The Web Accelerator Status has reverted to "Operational; Upstream Addr: 69.19.14.30" and with it the DNS Lookup Errors have returned.  What can be done to make the 'teardown option' sticky?

[Gwalk900]

Unlike present systems where you can toggle web acceleration on or off, the best you can do with a 7000 is a turbo page teardown.

This will disconnect from the web acceleration server and then reconnect. At times doing so will cause it to increment to a different and hopefully less saturated server.

To begin you will need to enter 192.168.0.1 into your browser to open the Modems SCC main display page. (System Control Center)

To access the turbo page control you need to open the Modems "advanced" pages. Do this by clicking on the little man icon as indicated above.

From the menu on the left:

On the left find TURBOPAGE, expand it by clicking the +

Scroll down to ADVANCED CONFIG, click that

Click the button "Teardown Turbopage Connection"

From my experience it took doing this three or four time in succession to increment to another W/A server.

[motobojo · Accepted solution]

Some replies appear to have been lost in the transition to the new forum software.  Specifically, Amanda had suggested using the IP address 10.10.10.10 when checking the "Use TurboPage Server configuration below".  That seems to do the trick for the most part.  This setting seems to be reset when the modem is restarted or the power is cycled on the modem. 

[Gwalk900]

Yup, some replies didn't make it over.

Here is a copy of Amanda's reply to you on the subject:

Hi motobojo

I suppose that is..good news? I use the same method Gwalk posted above - except on the last image, click the button next to "Use TurboPage server configured below" and use the following information:

IP Address: 10.10.10.10
Port Number: 86

Many more transponders are closed or due to close for this system, so there is less and less support for it coming through. I hope this can keep your system functional until upgrade time - let me know if it gets to be bothersome again and I'll ask an engineer for their input.

Thanks
Amanda                      

[motobojo]

Gwalk900, thank you for your very helpful and thorough reply.   It seems a bit misleading that it says "Turbo Page Advanced Configuration is disabled.", yet pressing the "Teardown TurboPage Connection" does seem to work (thankfully for me).  As you suggested it took a number of attempts at this spinning of the W/A server roulette wheel to get a server that is behaving for me (so far) -- 69.19.14.35.  Hopefully the solution will stick.  Thanks.

[motobojo]

update: better, but not fixed.  Still getting DNS Lookup Errors, just less frequently.  sigh.  Thankful for improvement, but ...

[Gwalk900]

I have been off the 7000 platform since late 2013 so it has been a while ... but as I recall the 7000's would periodically have these "storms".
Not much you can do but try different W/A servers, change to Google DNS and powering off modem and router to dump cached DNS data and don't forget a command line IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS to empty cached OS data.
(i remember steam rolling out of my ears when I had to do yet another turbopage teardown)