Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    PFSense not playing nicely with Android TV

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved DHCP and DNS
    dns resolver
    21 Posts 7 Posters 4.8k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • GertjanG
      Gertjan
      last edited by

      Your mean this one :

      62cb918c-3c75-4c59-ad5d-f5f54ad4a573-image.png

      That's an option for pure paranoid network, where even the DNS LAN traffic has to be crypted.
      Only experts, who control every connected device, and fools would activate this option (imho).

      I've never played with this option. I don't know, right now, if my own devices even support it.

      No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
      Edit : and where are the logs ??

      F B 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • F
        furriephillips @Gertjan
        last edited by

        @Gertjan I wonder how one might test such a situation...

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • S
          sotirone @2fst4u
          last edited by

          @2fst4u Turn off DHCP Registration in DNS Resolver until the need for reloading is fixed in some future version.

          How much RAM does your pfsense box have and how many pfblocker dns entries do you have? Low RAM with large pfblocker lists leads to long unbound restart times.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • B
            beatvjiking @Gertjan
            last edited by

            @Gertjan that's fine. I have seen many installations where it was turned on just to support it for the devices that wanted it - until recently, that never seemed to be a problem. Just thought I'd put the information out there in case you happened to have turned it on.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 2
              2fst4u @beatvjiking
              last edited by

              @beatvjiking said in PFSense not playing nicely with Android TV:

              We've seen issues with Android devices when Unbound has the "respond to SSL/TLS queries" option on. Turning it off fixes it. Interestingly, the Android devices reporting the problems also have problems with Google's own DNS. I haven't had a chance to get my hands on any of the devices in question, but this behavior's been confirmed in a lot of places on a lot of devices, so it's worth a shot.

              My understanding is that some Android versions default to SSL over TLS and fall back to regular DNS eventually. The latest pfSense release seemed to "cut off" a lot of recent Android devices (they'd eventually load sites and things, but large numbers of DNS requests timing out = users thinking the internet was down).

              Thank you for the suggestion. I gave this a try and let it run for a few days but the TV has still had this issue just as often as it was previously. It was worth a shot and I'll leave that setting off now anyway.

              @sotirone said in PFSense not playing nicely with Android TV:

              @2fst4u Turn off DHCP Registration in DNS Resolver until the need for reloading is fixed in some future version.

              How much RAM does your pfsense box have and how many pfblocker dns entries do you have? Low RAM with large pfblocker lists leads to long unbound restart times.

              It's an SG-3100. I've pared down my pfblocker lists to just four DNS ones. It's not so much that inbound is taking a long time to reload I think, it's just that when it does reload (maybe - I'm still not sure that's why) the TV gives up trying.

              S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • S
                sotirone @2fst4u
                last edited by

                @2fst4u 4 lists could still have millions of entries. Do a Force Reload on the pfblocker page and see how many total entries it says it loaded.

                The usual culprit for unbound reloading frequently as mentioned before is the DHCP Registration in DNS Resolver. That means every time a DHCP client connects (and maybe disconnects?) unbound reloads to update. This is especially problematic when you have many Wifi clients that might connect and disconnect frequently for whatever reason. I think I read somewhere in here that a fix is being worked on for a future release. The current fix is to disable the DHCP Registration in DNS Resolver.

                2 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 2
                  2fst4u @sotirone
                  last edited by

                  @sotirone pfblocker only reloads at midnight though, so surely it isn't forcing unbound to reload, right?

                  I've disabled the registration of DHCP clients too. Unfortunately the problem persists.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • F
                    furriephillips
                    last edited by

                    I think I might have resolved my particular issue... I was timing the incidences of the lock-ups of my TV & I could only get about 1 hour before having to reboot it, to resolve the problem. I believe that I set my DHCP lease to 3600s during a DNS outage, as it was causing havoc, having to wait for my devices to re-establish their DNS serviceability.

                    Anyway, I just set the TV’s IP from automatic, to manual & it has since managed to automatically continue-play a second episode of a Netflix TV show I’ve been watching...

                    I remain hopeful & will update you if it looks like it has been completely resolved.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • F
                      furriephillips
                      last edited by

                      I can confirm that manually configuring my TV’s network settings has resolved the regular freeze-ups.

                      Good luck @2fst4u

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • johnpozJ
                        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                        last edited by

                        sounds more like your tv was having issues renewing its lease to be honest. Vs a dns related problem.

                        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • M
                          Millstone50
                          last edited by Millstone50

                          I was having a myriad of issues with an Android P device after upgrading to 2.4.4_3 and also having SSL/TLS DNS turned on; this would cause intermittent DNS lookups to take an excessively long time (2-3 minutes). I don't use forwarding. I captured packets and there was a ton of TLS spam between pfSense and said device, all for DNS, with intermittent communication breakdowns and retries.

                          Being that I probably gave the settings a once-over when doing the upgrade to 2.4.4_3, I am unsure whether it is something specifically in that version or if it's a coincidence. Regardless, turning off is a workaround for now. I'm not sure if a proper certificate is needed for this to work properly or if it's just a bug.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • First post
                            Last post
                          Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.