Internet Connection Slow - Leopard DNS/Airport issue

Hi!

I have a Macbook 2.2 with Leopard and a ISP conection wih 2MB speed. I´m having some internet problems, the pages take minutes to open and it is very slow sometimes.
recently I instaled VM Fusion and Ubuntu in a virtual desktop. I tried to open some sites in ubuntu using the same conection that mac does, and it is very diferent. Much more fast...

I use a D-link Router trough my Airport.

Can you help me??

Thanks

Leopard DNS / Slow Internet Issue

For those people finding that safari takes a long time to respond to a new address, and the internet is generally quite slow to respond to anything (even though you may be getting normal download speeds), I've done a bit of research and discovered some ways to fix it.

It seems to occur when you are connecting through a router (airport or otherwise) to the internet. The problem appears to be some new technology in leopard that handles DNS resolution differently. DNS (domain name servers) are the addresses of the servers that translate what you type into safari or other apps into IP addresses and thereby allow your computer to retrieve information from the server you want. For example, if you type in google.com, your dns servers are what translate that into the IP address 64.233.187.99. You will notice you get google if you type in that number into safari.

Now, for some reason, I'm not sure why, leopard doesn't play too nicely with wireless connections, routers and automatic dns servers. You can get around it by specifying non-router-assigned dns servers (for example, your ISP's ones, or opendns.org's ones). If you don't want to use opendns, find out your ISP's dns servers before going further - either by looking in your modem config pages, or phoning them.

Setup: Your computer -> wireless connection -> airport base station or wireless router -> modem -> internet

If you have airport, under your airport config, change the DNS servers to whatever the WAN IP of your airport is. You will notice that under system prefs -> network -> advanced -> dns, you cannot remove the first one or two there, which are the automatic router (and possibly your modem) dns servers. We want to make sure that these aren't used, so we're assigning the airport base station to look up itself, error immediately, and move onto the ones that you want to use.

If you don't use the airport base station (like me - I have a linksys router and a dlink adsl modem, both very substandard) it might be slightly different. My method was to go into both the modem and the router config pages (192.168.1.1 and 10.1.1.1) and turn off DNS services. Some routers and won't let you do this, so you might have to try the above method for airport and tell it that the servers are itself.

After this is done, head to system preferences -> network -> airport -> advanced -> dns. Click the plus sign and enter either your dns servers of choice. It shouldn't matter whether you put in opendns or your isp's, it's entirely up to you. If you want the opendns.org ones they are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.

With any luck, your internet problems should be fixed now. Post here if you are still having problems.

I am having similar problems. Would this include pages stalling half way for a minute then finishing?

I'm not sure how to access the modem, I believe it's a Scientific Atlantic cable modem.

How do you find out what your isp's dns server is?

Great post! I was about to throw away my router! I thought it was something with the router not being able to resolve dns addresses. Thanks for the post, everything is working really fast now!

I am not sure it is the router or not. I had blazing speed until about 2 days ago. Something has changed and I am not sure what it is. I have the latest OS 10.5.2 and Safari 3.0.4. I have had those for a while w/o problems, but the past 2 days I have experienced really slow connections to websites. I haven't changed my router settings. I have also experienced it at work using a different router. Prior to about 2 days ago I had zero problems.

Basically when you type in an address in the address bar area, the blue progress bar stalls for a few seconds (around 10-30 seconds) before loading the page.

When I typed in the IP address for google it did load right away. Your suggestion about going into the router doesn't work if you don't have access to it, like the router at my work.

I have also noticed that Airport is constantly scanning or at least seems to scan more than it should.

Here is a link talking about that.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6773006

I am still so confused how to fix this problem!!!

I did the following and it seemed to fix my problem.

Adding the OpenDNS DNS server addresses (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220) to Network Preferences > Advanced > DNS.

Not sure what the heck this does, but I am able to load web pages about as fast as I was before the problem occurred.

Here is how I did it.

1. Click on or your System Preferences icon from your Dock to open up System Preferences
2. Click on the Network icon to open up the Network window
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Click on the DNS Tab
5. Add the DNS Server addresses 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 to the DNS list by clicking the + button.

I am now able to browse at normal speed and the browser doesn't hang like it was doing before I did this.

thank you so much. anyone know exactly what OpenDNS is??

many thanks to this forum

I am a new mac user. Bought my first mac last november. Until a couple of weeks ago, all was well. Then, all of a sudden, my browsers and email slowed down, in the extreme.

I have been cursing myself for jumping to the mac world, after many years of putting up with one windows issue after another. I had just about given up on this mac (already had switched back to windows email and browsing via bootcamp) when I came upon this thread.

The only reason I joined this forum is to give thanks to muso and others for there suggestions about using the opendns dns addresses in the network preferences dialog. This fixed my problem. I had already spent many hours with applecare...to no avail. They had me go through many hoops, but none fixed this problem.

One more time...many thanks.

Slow Connection

I am using OS X 10.4.11 had the same problem but downloaded a patch from the apple support site which seemed to fix my problem. The patch was for a intel based computer which I am using. Is 1.3 MEG and said it would fix most airport extreme problems. It seems to have done that for me.

Slow Internet

Ok I have battled this for a little while and have found what appears to be the answer. The connection problem with my linksys router and leopard 10.5.2 is a simple fix. I had to update the router firmware from liksys. This seems to have solved the problem with leopard and had no impact on any of the other wireless items I use. This may be a problem you run into if you take your Macbook to another location (hot spot) where they have not updated their firmware. Or you could buy a new router with more up to date firmware. A lot like getting a new windows system and having to update the drivers for things like cameras printers etc.. I think this is the right fix and not a work around. Apple Care suggested this fix.

TomKatt said:

I am using OS X 10.4.11 had the same problem but downloaded a patch from the apple support site which seemed to fix my problem. The patch was for a intel based computer which I am using. Is 1.3 MEG and said it would fix most airport extreme problems. It seems to have done that for me.

Click to expand...

This worked for a day or so then quit working again I am hopeful that the firmware update will be much better.

I suffered the same sort of problems and spent half of a day with support...

It seems that Apple finally issued a correction for this problem. Version 7.3.1 of Airport Utility solves the problem of DNS handling by AirPort Base Statation. The update itself I did in 2 steps:
1) download software when MacBook was connected to internet via cable
2) update AirPort Base Station when connected to MacBook by ethernet cable (it simply didn't work through wireless connection)

Hopefully your problems will disappear as well...

Slow DNS with Airport Base Station

The most common problems, symptoms, reasons and fixes for slow Internet connections on Leopard lists routers as a common problem where they don't handle SRV or IPv6 DNS requests. I wouldn't doubt that Apple changed Leopard to use SRV based domain name lookups even when their AirPort Express base stations didn't support it until the latest firmware update.

I am still having problems. I added the opendns IP's all working good for about 5 minutes and now I am back to limited sites working. I have bresnan high speed with a belkin wireless router. Right now I am on a ethernet cable since wireless works as well as the ethernet cable is right now. Internet seems ok until I did the 10.5.3 update.

Any suggestions?

tcpdump

Eric,

Start a tcpdump session by opening a Terminal window and enter the following (if you're using wireless):
sudo tcpdump -i en1 -s 192 port 53

If you're using ethernet, change "en1" to "en0".

After that, open up a web browser and go to any site you would normally. After that, copy and paste here what you see in the Terminal window.

I tired the sudo command and tried to go to ebay and after about 3-5 minutes the site semi loaded.

tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on en0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 192 bytes
12:54:07.660762 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43193+ PTR? b._dns-sd._udp.0.242.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (59)
12:54:07.671151 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43194+ PTR? db._dns-sd._udp.0.242.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (60)
12:54:07.681504 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43195+ PTR? r._dns-sd._udp.0.242.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (59)
12:54:07.691779 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43196+ PTR? dr._dns-sd._udp.0.242.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (60)
12:54:07.702067 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43197+ PTR? lb._dns-sd._udp.0.242.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (60)
12:54:07.712412 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43198+ PTR? b._dns-sd._udp.0.60.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (58)
12:54:07.722846 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43199+ PTR? db._dns-sd._udp.0.60.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (59)
12:54:07.732194 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43200+ PTR? r._dns-sd._udp.0.60.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (58)
12:54:07.736696 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43193 NXDomain 0/0/0 (59)
12:54:07.742245 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43201+ PTR? dr._dns-sd._udp.0.60.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (59)
12:54:07.749193 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43194 NXDomain 0/0/0 (60)
12:54:07.752669 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43202+ PTR? lb._dns-sd._udp.0.60.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (59)
12:54:07.757255 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43195 NXDomain 0/0/0 (59)
12:54:07.762663 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43209+ PTR? b._dns-sd._udp.0.5.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (57)
12:54:07.766261 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43196 NXDomain 0/0/0 (60)
12:54:07.772679 IP 192.168.5.4.mdns > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 43210+ PTR? db._dns-sd._udp.0.5.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (58)

I can't get to the signin page though. it just sites there loading.

Here is the rest.


12:54:07.886888 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43214 NXDomain 0/0/0 (44)
12:54:07.896884 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43215 NXDomain 0/0/0 (45)
12:54:07.912414 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43216 NXDomain 0/0/0 (44)
12:54:07.918434 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43217 NXDomain 0/0/0 (45)
12:54:07.926431 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43218 NXDomain 0/0/0 (45)
12:54:07.938479 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.mdns: 43219 NXDomain 0/0/0 (42)
12:54:08.073185 IP 192.168.5.4.49442 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 8052+ PTR? 222.222.67.208.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:54:08.148822 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49442: 8052 1/0/0 PTR resolver1.opendns.com. (80)
12:54:08.151505 IP 192.168.5.4.49443 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 56812+ PTR? 4.5.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (42)
12:54:08.227063 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49443: 56812 NXDomain 0/0/0 (42)
12:54:15.097632 IP 192.168.5.4.49445 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 19411+ A? ebay.com. (26)
12:54:15.173623 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49445: 19411 6/0/0 A pages.ebay.com, A pages.ebay.com, A pages.ebay.com, A pages.ebay.com, A pages.ebay.com, A pages.ebay.com (122)
12:54:15.232383 IP 192.168.5.4.49446 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 44610+ PTR? 10.221.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:15.297537 IP 192.168.5.4.49447 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 10636+ A? www.ebay.com. (30)
12:54:15.376802 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49447: 10636 3/0/0 CNAME hp-core.ebay.com., A hp-core.ebay.com, A hp-core.ebay.com (84)
12:54:15.386838 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49446: 44610 1/0/0 PTR pages.ebay.com. (72)
12:54:15.389327 IP 192.168.5.4.49448 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 19769+ PTR? 11.221.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:15.531105 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49448: 19769 1/0/0 PTR pages.ebay.com. (72)
12:54:15.533756 IP 192.168.5.4.49449 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 45252+ PTR? 13.205.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:15.609141 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49449: 45252 1/0/0 PTR pages.ebay.com. (72)
12:54:15.611777 IP 192.168.5.4.49450 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 20644+ PTR? 14.205.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:15.759428 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49450: 20644 1/0/0 PTR pages.ebay.com. (72)
12:54:15.761979 IP 192.168.5.4.49451 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 15134+ PTR? 87.160.211.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:15.833022 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49451: 15134 1/0/0 PTR pages.ebay.com. (72)
12:54:15.835651 IP 192.168.5.4.49452 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 60150+ PTR? 88.160.211.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:15.975104 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49452: 60150 1/0/0 PTR pages.ebay.com. (72)
12:54:16.978341 IP 192.168.5.4.49453 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 14227+ PTR? 145.200.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:54:17.125892 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49453: 14227 1/0/0 PTR hp-core.ebay.com. (75)
12:54:17.128418 IP 192.168.5.4.49454 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 57834+ PTR? 176.214.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:54:17.271086 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49454: 57834 1/0/0 PTR hp-core.ebay.com. (75)
12:54:50.876417 IP 192.168.5.4.49455 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 1087+ A? ad.doubleclick.net. (36)
12:54:50.951658 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49455: 1087 2/0/0 CNAME ad.3ad.doubleclick.net., A annymegaadvip2.doubleclick.net (73)
12:54:51.278204 IP 192.168.5.4.49456 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 55298+ PTR? 152.86.73.216.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:54:51.353701 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49456: 55298 1/0/0 PTR annymegaadvip2.doubleclick.net. (88)
12:55:02.370895 IP 192.168.5.4.49457 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 16742+ A? ad.doubleclick.net. (36)
12:55:02.442307 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49457: 16742 2/0/0 CNAME ad.3ad.doubleclick.net., A eqnjmegaadvip2.doubleclick.net (73)
12:55:03.358248 IP 192.168.5.4.49458 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 48460+ PTR? 152.176.62.209.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:55:03.428232 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49458: 48460 1/0/0 PTR eqnjmegaadvip2.doubleclick.net. (89)
12:55:30.434815 IP 192.168.5.4.49459 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 6300+ A? srx.main.ebayrtm.com. (38)
12:55:30.513404 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49459: 6300 7/0/0 CNAME srv.main.ebayrtm.com., CNAME srv.ebayrtm.com., A hp-intl-other.ebay.com, A srv.main.ebayrtm.com, A srv.main.ebayrtm.com, A srv.main.ebayrtm.com, A[|domain]
12:55:30.832362 IP 192.168.5.4.49460 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 32229+ A? rtm.ebaystatic.com. (36)
12:55:30.902497 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49460: 32229 5/0/0 CNAME rtm.ebaystatic.georedirector.akadns.net., CNAME rtm.ebaystatic.com.edgesuite.net., CNAME[|domain]
12:55:31.436244 IP 192.168.5.4.49461 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 5992+ PTR? 101.213.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:55:31.511339 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49461: 5992 1/0/0 PTR hp-intl-other.ebay.com. (81)
12:55:31.513936 IP 192.168.5.4.49462 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 56885+ PTR? 62.215.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:31.690063 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49462: 56885 1/0/0 PTR srv.main.ebayrtm.com. (78)
12:55:31.692637 IP 192.168.5.4.49463 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 47757+ PTR? 231.217.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:55:31.901433 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49463: 47757 1/0/0 PTR srv.main.ebayrtm.com. (79)
12:55:31.904020 IP 192.168.5.4.49464 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 38956+ PTR? 21.218.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:32.382149 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49464: 38956 1/0/0 PTR srv.main.ebayrtm.com. (78)
12:55:37.831345 IP 192.168.5.4.49465 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 621+ A? www.whois.sc. (30)
12:55:37.907625 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49465: 621 2/0/0 CNAME cluster.nameintel.com., A www.domaintools.com (81)
12:55:38.078866 IP 192.168.5.4.49466 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 55156+ A? img.domaintools.com. (37)
12:55:38.158915 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49466: 55156 2/0/0 CNAME cluster.nameintel.com., A www.domaintools.com (85)
12:55:38.386269 IP 192.168.5.4.49467 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 15703+ PTR? 251.17.249.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:38.616039 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49467: 15703 1/0/0 PTR www.domaintools.com. (77)
12:55:49.356505 IP 192.168.5.4.49468 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 16543+ A? signin.ebay.com. (33)
12:55:49.432486 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49468: 16543 6/0/0 A signin.ebay.com, A signin.ebay.com, A 66.135.200.154, A signin.ebay.com, A signin.ebay.com, A signin.ebay.com (129)
12:55:49.621171 IP 192.168.5.4.49469 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 13141+ PTR? 140.202.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:55:49.765723 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49469: 13141 1/0/0 PTR signin.ebay.com. (74)
12:55:49.768354 IP 192.168.5.4.49470 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 47167+ PTR? 10.205.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:49.911076 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49470: 47167 1/0/0 PTR signin.ebay.com. (73)
12:55:49.913641 IP 192.168.5.4.49471 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 48871+ PTR? 154.200.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (45)
12:55:50.072294 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49471: 48871 NXDomain 0/0/0 (45)
12:55:50.074866 IP 192.168.5.4.49472 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 58575+ PTR? 22.221.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:50.217955 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49472: 58575 1/0/0 PTR signin.ebay.com. (73)
12:55:50.220748 IP 192.168.5.4.49473 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 61150+ PTR? 34.221.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:50.359639 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49473: 61150 1/0/0 PTR signin.ebay.com. (73)
12:55:50.362358 IP 192.168.5.4.49474 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 56667+ PTR? 50.221.135.66.in-addr.arpa. (44)
12:55:50.499401 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49474: 56667 1/0/0 PTR signin.ebay.com. (73)

Ok, your DNS queries are being answered OK here. They're coming back with proper replies and in a reasonable amount of time.

When you say "limited sites working", can you go into more detail of what that means?

What would be helpful is to keep the tcpdump running in a Terminal window at all times. When you encounter a site that is not working properly, look at the tcpdump window and find entries that are like the one for ebay.com you posted:

12:54:15.297537 IP 192.168.5.4.49447 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 10636+ A? www.ebay.com. (30)
12:54:15.376802 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.5.4.49447: 10636 3/0/0 CNAME hp-core.ebay.com., A hp-core.ebay.com, A hp-core.ebay.com (84)

You see that A? www.ebay.com

That is your computer asking OpenDNS for the IP address of "www.ebay.com". You get results in the next line, where 3 A records (3/0/0) were returned.

If the time between when you asked (line with A?) and when the response was received (3/0/0 CNAME) is short, less than a second, DNS is not the problem. Note that there can be a variable number in that 3/0/0 line. If you get 0/0/0, that means you got no records back. If you got a NXDOMAIN, that means the DNS server doesn't recognize that domain as being registered.

You can skip/ignore the the lines that are like this:
PRT? b._dns-sd._udp.0.242.168.192.in-addr.arpa.

as that is just the Bonjour multicast dns service looking for other computers, printers, cameras, etc. on your network, for sharing purposes. It's normal and not needed for debugging purposes.

Let me know what you see after you run into sites that "aren't working".