A MeFi by any other URL...

March 24, 2011 4:01 PM

Is something wrong with Metafilter's DNS, or is it my ISP? I'm able to access the subdomains of MeFi at the moment, but going to www.metafilter.com gives me a DNS error.
posted by sonic meat machine to Uptime at 4:01 PM (55 comments total)

Probably an ISP problem, works fine for me.
posted by indubitable at 4:09 PM on March 24, 2011

Okay, thanks.
posted by sonic meat machine at 4:13 PM on March 24, 2011

I've been getting it from different DNS providers too. My work's DNS lost Mefi in the early afternoon (I think we're using TW Telecom upstream). Just now Opera Mini is doing it too (using whatever DNS the Opera proxy servers use).

AT&T at home is working fine though.
posted by kmz at 4:21 PM on March 24, 2011

If you're looking for anecdotes, I can't get onto Ask. Everything else is fine, though, and Down for Everyone doesn't think anything's wrong.
posted by librarylis at 4:21 PM on March 24, 2011

Maybe it's the new servers.
posted by gingerbeer at 4:31 PM on March 24, 2011

If you are experiencing DNS errors you can try either OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220) or Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4).
posted by ChrisHartley at 4:34 PM on March 24, 2011

Time Warner's Roadrunner service in Raleigh, NC is currently giving a DNS error for metafilter.com, fwiw.
posted by mediareport at 4:35 PM on March 24, 2011

Oh, I should add it was fine about 15 minutes ago; I've got the front page loaded from a previous tab.
posted by mediareport at 4:36 PM on March 24, 2011

And, now it's back.
posted by mediareport at 4:39 PM on March 24, 2011

Yeah, it looks like some DNS servers aren't caching the dns settings for folks, *.metafilter.com all point to 174.132.172.58, the subsites are just CNAMES, so maybe something related to the replication of CNAME changes is having problems leaving easydns?
posted by mrzarquon at 4:41 PM on March 24, 2011

I've been having problems on and off since about noon EDT. I've tried several different computers (I work in a library) and both IE and Firefox. couldn't get in here for hours, now, obviously, I can, have been able to get into Ask Mefi on and off.
posted by mareli at 4:50 PM on March 24, 2011

Around 45 minutes ago MeFi lost DNS for me, on some sort of Sprint Business network here.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 4:52 PM on March 24, 2011

Maybe it's the new servers.

I told Matt not to buy from Honest Al's Server and Ceramic Tile Outlet, but he never listens.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:01 PM on March 24, 2011

And... there it went again.
posted by sonic meat machine at 5:05 PM on March 24, 2011

Yeah, it's been going in and out on me all day. I'm also on Roadrunner out of Raleigh, but that doesn't seem to be only network having problems.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:22 PM on March 24, 2011

I'm also having problems, on Roadrunner in Greensboro.
posted by jeoc at 5:30 PM on March 24, 2011

My problems don't have anything to do with MetaFilter, but I just thought I would share.
posted by jeoc at 5:31 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually my problem is the same as above: intermittent DNS errors.
posted by jeoc at 5:31 PM on March 24, 2011

I'm on Roadrunner in Dallas - I can get onto the grey, the green won't show up at all, and the blue redirects to roadrunner's search page.
posted by SNWidget at 5:38 PM on March 24, 2011

Yeah, I've been having weird issues all day. This is the first time I've been able to connect for a few hours. It was AskMe giving me problems this morning.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:46 PM on March 24, 2011

Subdomains are fine for me but www.metafilter.com can't be found. Up here on a local ISP in Canada, probably mooching off the Bell backbone.
posted by unSane at 5:48 PM on March 24, 2011

There is something screwy with DNS. There's a DNS checker tool at http://www.squish.net/dnscheck/ which checks all the DNS servers that are potentially involved in answering queries. For ask.metafilter.com, the end of the report shows this key bit of info:

48.9% of queries will end in failure at too many nested queries

Looks like name server loop going on somewhere.
posted by FishBike at 5:55 PM on March 24, 2011

Still having problems here, I'm on a large state-wide university system. Can't get to askme, couldn't even get here until a couple of minutes ago.
posted by mareli at 6:06 PM on March 24, 2011

I'm having this issue intermittently, for the past couple hours, using both my ISP's DNS server, 4.2.2.1, and 8.8.8.8.

Very annoying. I did a bunch of work on my router before thinking to check here!
posted by gilrain at 6:17 PM on March 24, 2011

Yep, squish is giving the same result for me

48.9% of queries will end in failure at too many nested queries

posted by unSane at 6:20 PM on March 24, 2011

Just adding on: TWC in Nebraska failing for ask.metafilter.com
posted by thewalledcity at 6:22 PM on March 24, 2011

Yep, squish is giving the same result for me.

Yeah, just to clarify, that tool at sqush.net isn't checking anybody's personal computer or ISP's DNS servers. It's checking the servers involved in publishing the DNS record you query it for (all of them), so it should give the same results no matter who runs it or from where. And the type of problem it's reporting would theoretically affect all of us, but randomly/intermittently.
posted by FishBike at 6:28 PM on March 24, 2011

Yeah, it looks like easydns's NS servers each list each other for their NS servers.

easydns.org lists *.easydns.com for it's NS servers, easydns.com has easydns.org listed for it's NS servers.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:36 PM on March 24, 2011

Someone earlier today showed us that our third and fourth listed name servers were both reporting errors, so it could be related to that.

I've contacted the DNS company.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:37 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, right now it appears dns3.easydns.org isn't returning queries properly for metafilter.com lookups, while the other 3 are returning queries properly.

I guess in theory you could remove that from your list of authoritative NS servers until it is fixed, it looks like your NS ttl record is pretty short.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:45 PM on March 24, 2011

We're on it.

More as it comes in.
posted by StuntPope at 6:46 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Actually, it is dns4.easydns.info as well.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:47 PM on March 24, 2011

What are you getting back when you try dns4? I get answers from here:

Macintosh-280:~ markjeftovic$ host -t soa metafilter.com dns4.easydns.info
Using domain server:
Name: dns4.easydns.info
Address: 194.0.2.19#53
Aliases:

metafilter.com has SOA record dns0.easydns.com. zone.easydns.com. 1300835979 43200 10800 604800 900

What do you see?
posted by StuntPope at 6:52 PM on March 24, 2011

misread my last dig output (i queried for ask.metafilter.com, and didn't see an IP, forgetting it was a cname), double checking 3 and 4 appear to be returning queries now.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:58 PM on March 24, 2011

Actually, its been a long day.

Here is my query for dns3:

$ dig ask.metafilter.com @64.68.193.10

; <>> DiG 9.6.0-APPLE-P2 <>> ask.metafilter.com @64.68.193.10
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<>> DiG 9.6.0-APPLE-P2 <>> ask.metafilter.com @194.0.2.19
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 45798
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ask.metafilter.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
ask.metafilter.com. 900 IN CNAME metafilter.com.

posted by mrzarquon at 7:02 PM on March 24, 2011

Found an out-of-sync node in France (dns3)

Investigating.
posted by StuntPope at 7:04 PM on March 24, 2011

mefi really doesn't like raw dig output.


$dig ask.metafilter.com @dns4.easydns.info +short
metafilter.com.

$dig ask.metafilter.com @dns3.easydns.org +short
metafilter.com.
174.132.172.58
posted by mrzarquon at 7:04 PM on March 24, 2011

I was having some odd issues as well. I could load metafilter.com, but not metatalk, ask or any of the subdomains. Switching DNS from google DNS to MCI fixed it momentarily, then it was back. Flushing DNS helped, but once again only momentarily. Switching back to ISP/local DNS fixed it again, and I haven't noticed anything since.
posted by loquacious at 7:12 PM on March 24, 2011

It is looking like a node in the dns3 cluster which was out for some work was prematurely added back into the dns3 group. It contained out-of-date zonedata for the domain.

Sorry guys. We're really trying hard not to improve mefi out of existence.
posted by StuntPope at 7:16 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns1.easydns.info +short
dig: couldn't get address for 'dns1.easydns.info': not found
$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns2.easydns.info +short
dig: couldn't get address for 'dns2.easydns.info': not found
$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns3.easydns.info +short
dig: couldn't get address for 'dns3.easydns.info': not found
$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns4.easydns.info +short
metafilter.com.

posted by unSane at 7:18 PM on March 24, 2011

It's

dns1.easydns.COM
dns2.easydns.NET
dns3.easydns.ORG
dns4.easydns.info
posted by StuntPope at 7:26 PM on March 24, 2011

Sorry, I'm a novice

$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns1.easydns.com +short
metafilter.com.
174.132.172.58
$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns2.easydns.net +short
metafilter.com.
174.132.172.58
$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns3.easydns.org +short
metafilter.com.
174.132.172.58
$ dig ask.metafilter.com @dns4.easydns.info +short
metafilter.com.

posted by unSane at 7:49 PM on March 24, 2011

Yeah, at this point I think its pretty much in StuntPope's hands. querying dns4 and not getting back the full lookup (it's returning cname pointing to metafilter.com, a lookup for metafilter.com returns the same IP address as everyone else) doesn't appear to be a problem.

Also, unless your ISP hijacks your DNS lookups, those commands run for anyone will return the same result, as it is a query direct against easydns's servers. Most people don't actually query easydns, your ISP's DNS server looks up metafilter.com once and caches that information for a specific amount of time.

Right now it's just waiting for those servers to consistently return the right information (so far it looks like it is), and then for those bad caches to expire on folks ISP's DNS's, and it should clear up for folks.
posted by mrzarquon at 7:56 PM on March 24, 2011

FWIW, right now trying to access anyone's profile returns a DNS error for me.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 8:04 PM on March 24, 2011

dns4 just doesn't return the extra glue records in a direct lookup is all.

It turned out to be that France node in dns3 which was put back into production before it should have been.

..and we are profusely sorry about this (again).
posted by StuntPope at 8:06 PM on March 24, 2011

Subdomains are fine for me but www.metafilter.com can't be found. Up here on a local ISP in Canada, probably mooching off the Bell backbone.
posted by unSane at 5:48 PM on March 24 [+] [!]

I've got the identical situation. Canadian ISP piggybacking off Bell. I can access Ask and MetaTalk but not metafilter.com.
posted by sardonyx at 8:07 PM on March 24, 2011

@spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints

can you give me a bit more data on that?

Could you run a dig +trace www.metafilter.com for me?
posted by StuntPope at 8:08 PM on March 24, 2011

I wonder if these later reports are DNS cacheing issues with the resolvers.
posted by StuntPope at 8:11 PM on March 24, 2011

I just tried getting onto the blue and it bounced me to my internet carrier's website.

When I was at work today, at different times I would try to get onto meta, I would get server not found.
posted by zombiehoohaa at 8:23 PM on March 24, 2011

Your ISP must be hijacking dns queries that fail

We've run some more checks internally and it looks good across the board. This has to be caching now
posted by StuntPope at 8:33 PM on March 24, 2011

Thanks for the updates StuntPope, its pretty rapid support compared to other vendors I've dealt with.

You guys don't happen to also provide support for badly written managed backup software based out of hong kong do you (what is keeping me up late tonight).
posted by mrzarquon at 8:46 PM on March 24, 2011

Dear Matt: I now can access MetaFilter. (San Diego, Roadrunner.) Bless your heart.
posted by SPrintF at 8:50 PM on March 24, 2011

Just dropping in another data point. Charter cable in Glendale, CA also has been having intermittent DNS errors for www.
posted by chimaera at 9:44 PM on March 24, 2011

Same here, intermittent DNS issues on Time-Warner Cable, Los Angeles CA.
posted by VikingSword at 10:06 PM on March 24, 2011

I noticed this yesterday too. I thought for a minute my coworkers were messing with me.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:42 AM on March 25, 2011