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AT&T Routing Issues

Rod

Rod

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 4, 2001
Messages
10,607
Location
Upland, CA
First Name
Todd
Those of you who have AT&T for your ISP have noticed the inability to connect to CP since Wed evening. I have received around 30 complaints so far, all from AT&T customers only. There is a bad route between AT&T and CigarPass.

I have had the data center where the CP server is housed fully evaluate everything, and even had the server moved to a different node. The issues still persist. I have done everything I can from a server standpoint, and it's in AT&T's court to resolve. Unfortuntely AT&T is unwilling to investigate, and claims it's an issue with something outside of their network.

A quick Google search for "AT&T routing issues" or "AT&T 502 bad gateway" sure pulls tons of results about the many issues AT&T has with their network.

Two solutions:

1. I move the server to an entirely new data center / host. I am very hesitant to doing this, as why should I sever ties with a company I've been doing business with for 7+ years, and they have outstanding customer service? I have a hard time doing something like that, only to get around the bad route in AT&T's network.

2. I setup a CDN and see if that resolves the issue. So, I'm going to reroute all DNS/traffic through CloudFlare for now and see if that helps. DNS should propogate over the next 4 hours.

I encourage you to call AT&T and file a complaint if that's your ISP and you can't connect. I can only control the server and DNS, I have zero control over the routers between AT&T and the server.
 
Maybe if someone can change their DNS to Open DNS ips...that may work.

That may cause a route elsewhere.
 
I just changed the DNS on cigarpass.com to cloudflare. This should force a route around AT&T, hopefully...
 
I have used this site quite a bit to voice my concerns with Verizon in the past. They are pretty fast to respond.

https://secure.dslreports.com/forums/all
 
If you know how to update your local DNS servers, then I would suggest using Googles:
https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/
 
I'll be harassing AT&T when I get home tonight. I'm on Comcast here at work so although I can get to the site it doesn't help me with AT&T support doing a tracert.
 
All these weird problems went away when I switched my home network to OpenDNS. Easy to recommend....very easy to implement if you have a router at home (like most everyone these days).
 
Ok, now I'm 100% convinced the issue is with AT&T's DNS. Think of DNS as a phone book. If you want to call someone, you look up their name in the phonebook to find their phone number. You then dial their phone number and make the connection.

DNS works in the same fashion. Every ISP has their own DNS servers - think of them as phonebooks. When you type in a domain, such as cigarpass.com, your internet queries your ISP's DNS (phonebook) and says "What is the IP to this domain, and show me how to get there). The DNS is supposed to then work to create the proper route from your browser to the site. Sometimes DNS databases are out of date, and contain old info, or perhaps don't know the best route to take, thus creating a bottleneck.

If you update your home network to use OpenDNS or Google DNS, then many of your problems will go away, and you'll be able to connect to CP once again. AT&T apparently is not routing correctly due to their DNS.
 
Now the question remains how to let the people who can not see this post know about changing the DNS. A few CP buddies on Facebook were asking about this, I will now let them know to change their local DNS.

David
 
Still couldn't access CP from home last night, I will be on the phone with AT&T "sharing" my thoughts on their DNS!
 
Thanks for the info, Tom. After reading more about OpenDNS, I will be updating my DNS to OpenDNS tonight at home.
 
Rod said:
Thanks for the info, Tom. After reading more about OpenDNS, I will be updating my DNS to OpenDNS tonight at home.
Click to expand...

I've been using it at home for years and recommend it everytime something like this happens.

All you have to do is change the DNS settings on your computer to theirs....DONE!
 
With a router, it's really easy. You change the DNS IP address in the router setup table, and reboot your computers. After that, any computer on your network that does a DNS lookup will use OpenDNS. Boom, that was easy....
 
That's how I setup Google DNS. Seems OpenDNS provides more features, so I'll be updating the router today. ISP DNS generally always sucks.
 
So I'm goona assume there's nothing I can do about no longer being able to access CP on my phone when I'm away from wifi using the ATT cell network?
 
Not until AT&T resolves their issues. I can't access it either on my iPhone.
 
BlindedByScience said:
With a router, it's really easy. You change the DNS IP address in the router setup table, and reboot your computers. After that, any computer on your network that does a DNS lookup will use OpenDNS. Boom, that was easy....
Click to expand...

Problem with those of us with Uverse is you can't change the DNS server on their router, and if you could it would interfere with IPtv streaming to tv's. I set it up on the local machines and it works fine though.
 
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