Every month or so all my devices lose internet and the only way to connect them all back is to disconnect them from the DNS server that Pihole is running.
I set my Pihole to have a static IP but for some reason after around a month or maybe longer, it just fails. This has happened 4 times over the last while and the only fix is to essentially uninstall everything on my Pihole, disable it, and then reconfigure it from scratch again.
I’m not sure what’s going on so any help would be appreciated.
Do you know if your router is acting as a DHCP server? Most do, and if you’ve set up the Pi as one without logging in and turning off your router’s, you’ve set up two conflicting DHCP servers, and that would explain your issues.
I’m assuming my router is acting like a DHCP server as it’s all on default settings and my other devices are handed an IP address something like 192.168.5.xx
I’m not able to log into my router anymore (tried all the ways: 192.168.2.1, 1.2, 5.1, etc) so you’re probably correct that with both dhcp servers up and running they’re probably conflicting.
The fact you’re not able to log into your router is the first problem you need to solve here. If you’re having network issues, the router is always the first thing that needs to be working perfectly. Otherwise whatever else is going on is probably being affected by the router in some way.
What you’re doing right now is sort of like saying “Hey, does anyone know how to get this bad smell out of my car? Nothing I do seems to work. Oh, BTW, the engine is on fire, it’s been like that for a while, I don’t know how to put it out. Anyway, so the thing with this smell is…”
My take was that there was some corrupted setting that wouldn’t let me access the router as I’m having no other network issues but you’re right in that I wouldn’t have any of these issues if I could just log into the router and actually properly set a static IP.
Figured I’d ask the void if they recognized the smell since there are people much smarter than me out there
With Pihole off, look for your gateway address. That will be your router address. Are you using windows on your usual pc? Ipconfig command should show you your gateway, easily.
Then tap that into your browser to log in to your router and deactivate dhcp from it.
Ya that was something I tried initially, looking up the default gateway using ipconfig and then trying that address.
It didn’t work before but maybe this time I’ll try again, ensuring that piholes not running.
Use https://x.x.x.x not http://
Tried both. Usually http:// is the one that works for me for my other services on different ports. It’s very likely a conflict with my routers dhcp 🙃
Plug a pc straight into the router and do an ipconfig /all. It will tell you the router gateway if you don’t have a static ip. Go to the gateway ip and turn off dhcp.
This doesn’t work for me unfortunately :/ I suspect my router needs a factory reset since I’m not able to log into it at all
Then go to your server dhcp and put a dhcp exclusion for the pi hole ip and anything else you have static’ed
I just want to reiterate what others have said: do some googling about your router make and model. Look for the instructions for “hard reset” or “factory reset”. Follow those instructions. Once you do, you should be able to find the default login online.
Once you’re able to log into your router, I’d suggest keeping it as your DHCP server and simply following the instructions to set up a pihole with it. Everything seems to work more smoothly without the pihole as DHCP server.
Ya a factory resets pretty much the only thing I haven’t tried yet and it’s simply because I don’t want to have to reset up all my lights and smart devices but I fear that might need to happen.
I don’t think I have my Pihole set up to by my dhcp server, just my dns
You can avoid that by using the same Wi-Fi network name and password that your current network uses. Your devices won’t know the difference.
Gotcha. That makes sense!
Good luck. I literally went through something similar a few weeks ago. It took a little time but my entire network runs better now. You got this!
Thank ya! Networking is very confusing for me and I’ve been tinkering on windows and Linux machines for decades 🤪 always something to learn