Pace V5542 router returns its IP for all DNS queries

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Pace V5542 router returns its IP for all DNS queries - Is this by design?

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surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#970393 21-Jan-2014 08:00

heathm: Hi Clint (et al),

I also have a Pace V5542 (running VDSL from Bigpipe / 64920 kbps down, 10336 kbps up :-)) but even with the latest firmware installed I also still have this same frustration: NetBIOS hostnames only resolve to LAN IP addresses (192.168.1.xyz) when you address then as hostname.local (ie. with ".local" appended)
Being a linux household this isn't a big deal for us, but it must be a major blowout for Windows users. Aside from the router's (apparently not changeable default FQDN of home.gateway.pace.net), it might also be a Firewall Rules default configuration issue.
(By default, it seems NetBIOS ports 137:139,445 are blocked to/from * Local * Remote)
To change it you need to select Custom rather than the Pace V5542's default "Security Level Low" setting. Seems they tried to make it too user friendly to be actually user friendly. Pity, as the hardware seems capable overall.

Cheers,
Heath

I'm really amazed that telecom have not fixed this yet.

Telecom have 7000 employees or so. Can they not spare 1 of these to look at this? For me this is another indication of the downhill slide of telecom.

Not that I care any longer since I switched to Snap.

Anyway, maybe your solution would work, why would they block local netbios ports?

jfrance

18 posts

Geek

#1073081 24-Jun-2014 08:47

Hi, I updated my Pace router yesterday with the latest firmware (B41005-TNZ8-92594), and can confirm it has resolved the "DNS lookups routing to external IP" issue described above.

For months our business has been suffering major 'hanging' and crashes with its core business management software. We could never pin point and spent hours with the software vendor, IT and Telecom to no avail. Unfortunately we couldn't narrow it down to the Pace router as the problem occurred at about the same time as we replaced a faulty switch, the router, re-organised the office layout, installed a new server, replaced our XP PCs and accepted an upgrade of the business software...

Telecom Tier 2/3 didn't offer a firmware upgrade and all their 'tests' came out fine.

Our software vendor and ourselves spent hundreds of hours trying to sort this out, and it's cost our business significant loss of productivity through downtime. Pretty sure Telecom won't respond to this...

Anyway, long story short... install the the new firmware and your DNS issue should disappear!

Thanks Geekzone
Cheers

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#1073105 24-Jun-2014 09:08

jfrance: Hi, I updated my Pace router yesterday with the latest firmware (B41005-TNZ8-92594), and can confirm it has resolved the "DNS lookups routing to external IP" issue described above.

For months our business has been suffering major 'hanging' and crashes with its core business management software. We could never pin point and spent hours with the software vendor, IT and Telecom to no avail. Unfortunately we couldn't narrow it down to the Pace router as the problem occurred at about the same time as we replaced a faulty switch, the router, re-organised the office layout, installed a new server, replaced our XP PCs and accepted an upgrade of the business software...

Telecom Tier 2/3 didn't offer a firmware upgrade and all their 'tests' came out fine.

Our software vendor and ourselves spent hundreds of hours trying to sort this out, and it's cost our business significant loss of productivity through downtime. Pretty sure Telecom won't respond to this...

Anyway, long story short... install the the new firmware and your DNS issue should disappear!

Thanks Geekzone
Cheers

moral of the story, read geekzone.

I gave up on mine. maybe i should sell it on trade me.

Ragnor

8219 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1073617 24-Jun-2014 18:05

Sadly Telecom have always been pretty borderline negligent with their CPE choice(s) and support. From back in the day Dlink, through Thomson/Technicolor, to Pace... friends don't let friends use ISP provided routers (especially from Telecom).

michaelmurfy

meow
13242 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1073621 24-Jun-2014 18:14

Ragnor: Sadly Telecom have always been borderline negligent with their CPE choice(s) and providing support with necessary firmware updates, from back in the day Dlink, through Thomson/Technicolor, to Pace today... crap.

You've also got to think they're "chuckaways" to most customers - they do firmware updates remotely.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

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heathm

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1073953 25-Jun-2014 09:28

@jfrance, Thanks for the heads up re the new firmware!

I'm now confirming that this TNZ8 firmware has resolved the LAN-side NetBIOS hostname resolution problem that we all suffered under the TNZ7 firmware too. Finally!
Yours sounds like a real horror story... glad you finally resolved it!

Cheers,
Heath

jfrance: Hi, I updated my Pace router yesterday with the latest firmware (B41005-TNZ8-92594), and can confirm it has resolved the "DNS lookups routing to external IP" issue described above.

For months our business has been suffering major 'hanging' and crashes with its core business management software. We could never pin point and spent hours with the software vendor, IT and Telecom to no avail. Unfortunately we couldn't narrow it down to the Pace router as the problem occurred at about the same time as we replaced a faulty switch, the router, re-organised the office layout, installed a new server, replaced our XP PCs and accepted an upgrade of the business software...

Telecom Tier 2/3 didn't offer a firmware upgrade and all their 'tests' came out fine.

Our software vendor and ourselves spent hundreds of hours trying to sort this out, and it's cost our business significant loss of productivity through downtime. Pretty sure Telecom won't respond to this...

Anyway, long story short... install the the new firmware and your DNS issue should disappear!

Thanks Geekzone
Cheers

jfrance

18 posts

Geek

#1083983 8-Jul-2014 11:07

UPDATE: I don't recommend updating the firmware on this router to TNZ8.
While it fixed our problem of external DNS lookup causing delays/hanging, and it worked well in all other aspects for a few days, it suddenly became extremely unstable. All PCs of the network began to hang with any internal/external network requests, printers went offline and wouldn't recover etc etc. While rebooting the network and router would recover the network, this was only for a short time and then it would keel over again. Full reset of router etc had no improvement.
We replaced the router and the problem has not reoccurred.

As others have already suggested, the best place for the Telecom Pace router is the rubbish bin.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

clinty

1182 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1121936 4-Sep-2014 15:41

jfrance: UPDATE: I don't recommend updating the firmware on this router to TNZ8.
While it fixed our problem of external DNS lookup causing delays/hanging, and it worked well in all other aspects for a few days, it suddenly became extremely unstable. All PCs of the network began to hang with any internal/external network requests, printers went offline and wouldn't recover etc etc. While rebooting the network and router would recover the network, this was only for a short time and then it would keel over again. Full reset of router etc had no improvement.
We replaced the router and the problem has not reoccurred.

As others have already suggested, the best place for the Telecom Pace router is the rubbish bin.

OK, have just upgraded the client with the original offending modem. I have a spare modem on stand by just in case this happens, but so far so good :)

Clint

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