All my Playstation 4 downloads were failing today with “DNS Error” and “NW-31250-1”.
I ran a tcpdump on my router and found this:
15:07:10.389761 00:ee:ff:aa:bb:cc (oui Unknown) > 11:22:33:44:55:66 (oui Unknown), ethertype IPv4 (0x0800), length 109: (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto UDP (17), length 95) red-death-router.porkrind.org.domain > 10.0.0.113.49218: [bad udp cksum 0x15cb -> 0xfee5!] 21068 ServFail q: A? ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net. 0/0/0 (67)
That looks promising, a DNS SERVFAIL response to a query for “ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net” (whatever that is).
My router is set up to use Google’s DNS: 8.8.8.8. So a quick test from my computer showed:
$ dig @8.8.8.8 ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @8.8.8.8 ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 8788 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net. IN A ;; Query time: 58 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8) ;; WHEN: Wed Jun 4 15:09:39 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 67
“status: SERVFAIL”! But when using Level 3’s venerable 4.2.2.2:
$ dig @4.2.2.2 ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @4.2.2.2 ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 14680 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: ic.8e0b5f0d.0c2f0f.gs2.sonycoment.loris.llnwd.net. 300 IN A 208.111.144.58 ;; Query time: 26 msec ;; SERVER: 4.2.2.2#53(4.2.2.2) ;; WHEN: Wed Jun 4 15:09:26 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 83
Aha, it works! So Google’s DNS is broken!
To fix this I set up my PS4’s networking manually and added 4.2.2.2 as a secondary DNS server. Then all my downloads started working again. I didn’t have to delete them and start over, either—just clicked retry and they continued from wherever they were.