Actually there is no problem with updates when you change repo back to pfSense after installing desired packages ;) Also there is no problem to use forum search and find out how to do it on your own risk.

I upgraded to 2.3.3 with the new traffic graphs but the problem seem to remain. All Hope is gone now.

Realizing that I had a much more managable set of domains to enter into the default gui I decided to try these domains out one by one.  I was able to input all but the 2 at the top with the wildcard and the Google nameservers went unblocked.  The ones with the asterix gave this error: The following input errors were detected: A valid domain must be specified. Now maybe the issue with this new paired down list was the asterix, and it wasn't just Google's name servers that were being blocked but maybe EVERYTHING?  However, looking at my old 180 domain long list, there are no entries that begin with a wild card, but a few that end it one.  However, Testing this pared down version without asterixes still blocks google's name servers. Finally, I also tested with the redirect to 127.0.0.1 with the same results as 0.0.0.0 So I'm still curious why using the domains in a text file like you suggested @johnpoz is blocking Google nameservers (and possibly everything?) and also curious if I can use a wildcard symbol for domains in the default UI to accomplish "*.licenses.example.com"?

i actually stopped using freenas and moved to Ubuntu server (headless) and find Plex works a lot better on it and other features are supported

well I wasn't sure in which category to post. anyway, that's clear now. appreciate any help on the questions too! thanks.

Excellent idea. Thanks for all the advice!!  8)

I asked the others, it was the streamer having an issue and the cpu use was coincidence.

thanks for the help everyone. I've just received my Openreach HG612 (Huawei), plugged it in, set my PPPoE username to bthomehub@btbroadband.com and my password to (randomly) 12345. Plugged it in to WAN port and works straight away! Wish everything did that!

pfSense is based on FreeBSD, so most of documentation you will find here — https://www.freebsd.org/docs.html Better logging is a crash dump you have send to pfSense team, what else? You can also change the default 50 entries behaviour of syslog via GUI, if you want more just look at  /status_logs_settings.php on you pfSense firewall, you can even setup external syslog server and send all log directly to it. https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Copying_Logs_to_a_Remote_Host_with_Syslog https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Log_Settings despite the documentation slightly outdated after reading it you should not ask such questions like "where do I find better logging that has more than 50 entries?" Yes, pfSense docs are not the best documentation but I can not agree with you about "pointless RTFM comments" — most of crashes of stable 2.3 are related to NIC drivers and this is solvable problem in most cases, that was pointed in https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Unexpected_Reboot_Troubleshooting. You have  provided NO information about you hardware and software, so your first question and offense at the expression "RTFM" absolutely not justified, IMHO. If you are not looking for help here, I don't understand what kind of response are you waiting for. May be this?  https://www.amazon.com/pfSense-Definitive-Christopher-M-Buechler/dp/0979034280

It seems like i dont have internet connection, but it is filtering internet traffic WAN-LAN in bridge mode. What URL does the PFSense need to reach to be able to update? getting Updating pfSense-core repository catalogue… pkg: https://pkg.pfsense.org/pfSense_v2_3_2_amd64-core/meta.txz: No address record repository pfSense-core has no meta file, using default settings pkg: https://pkg.pfsense.org/pfSense_v2_3_2_amd64-core/packagesite.txz: No address record Unable to update repository pfSense-core Updating pfSense repository catalogue... pkg: https://pkg.pfsense.org/pfSense_v2_3_2_amd64-pfSense_v2_3_2/meta.txz: No address record repository pfSense has no meta file, using default settings pkg: https://pkg.pfsense.org/pfSense_v2_3_2_amd64-pfSense_v2_3_2/packagesite.txz: No address record Unable to update repository pfSense post did not help.

This smells like it could be related to two other issues I had after upgrading from 2.2.6 to 2.3.2: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=109938.45 (starting post 47 and ending post 49) Which subsequently led to a follow-up question which went unanswered (and still unresolved): https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=118578.0 Could all of this interface weirdness be rooted in the upgrade from 2.2.6 to 2.3.2? Prior to the upgrade I was having none of these issues….

thanks for all your replies. i'll check these options out.

Grazie mille I will try that!