DNS problem -

[Tim]

On Wed, 2013-11-13 at 11:03 +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> Maybe, maybe not. If one of their DNS servers was flakey, your
> complaint would not be alone. If they replaced/repaired their server,
> everyone will see the fix.
>  
> And the front line phone staff may be unaware of the issue.

It depends on the ISP.  I can mention two major ones in this country,
Optus and Telstra, who don't just service customers, but are backbones
for most other smaller ISPs, who will flatly refuse to admit that
there's ever anything wrong with their equipment, will endlessly tell
you reset your equipment, despite all evidence to the contrary that
their system is up the creek - e.g. their support newsgroup is full of
customers complaining that the DNS server isn't working.  So I am as
dismissive of anything they say, as they are of their customer
complaints (they're as arrogant as that against their phone customers,
as well).

I could mention an older ISP that doesn't exist anymore, Picknowl, that
would get back to your support query and say they've checked their
equipment, noticed something wrong and reset it, or didn't find a
problem but reset it just in case.  And, back in the dialup days, if you
had trouble connecting, they'd ask you to dial a specific number, and
they'd watch their terminal to check what your system was trying to do
as it logged in.  I had more faith in them.  Unfortunately, they got
bought out and ruined.

Another ISP (Adam) seems to publish their internal fault reports on
their status pages.  You can see fault history, scheduled maintenance,
reported faults, and expected repair times.  It's usually kept up to
date quite promptly.

But if you're going to make a fault report to an ISP, with any hope of
getting a proper response, you need to make a proper report that they
can follow up on.  Mention your own IP, addresses you've tried to access
but failed, your time and timezone - so they can check their logs, not
just their equipment at the current moment.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
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