DNS Resolution problems with Mobile Broadband R216 device

[harry66]

Hi,

I currently have a corporate supplied R216 for use when I am on client sites, to VPN back into my office network.

However, I have noticed over the past month that on several occasions, the VPN client fails to connect because it says cannot resolve the DNS for our VPN access points - when and only when I use the R216 to connect.

If I temporarily switch to using the client site's guest wireless, the VPN connects just fine. Likewise, If I enable the hotspot on my mobile phone and use that, I can also connect.

The weird thing is that on some days the R216 can connect e.g. yesterday morning it was not working, but then started working later in the day working - but today it is not.

I have also found that if I connect to my phone hotspot first and then switch to the R216 then it often starts working again - i.e. I am able to connect to our VPN. However, once I reboot, the same problem, the R216 connection fails to resolve the DNS.

This issue has been occuring intermittently since mid December. I am not client site that often - so I dont know how bad it would be if I tried it every day. 

One thing is almost certain, it is not my laptop network / firewall setup - because I can connect 100% of the time using the client's guest wireless (but I am not really meant to use). Likewise, when connecting to my phone hotspot it also connects 100% of the time.

Any ideas how to resolve this?

[Nabs]

Hi @harry66

With the information you've given the first thing that came to my mind was that the DNS settings being supplied by the DHCP server on the R216 are either wrong or the server it's providing is unavailable. As it's a corporate device they may have custom settings configured on the device to allow it to connect to the office network so it's worth checking with your IT support (who i assume supplied it to you?) to see if there is anything they have configured.

Typically a DNS server address is provided to your computer when it connects to a network however you should be able to override these settings if you're not happy with the one supplied. As an experiment it may be worth trying Google's public DNS settings, these are free and should work on anything with an internet connection.

If this isn't an option then post the IP address of the DNS server your computer is given when connecting to the R216. You can find this by doing and IPCONFIG in a command Window.

[grolschuk]

It would also be interesting to see if the DNS server assigned (you need to do ipconfig /all) from the R216 is the same as the one provided when on your mobile phone hotspot.

[harry66]

Thanks for the replies.

As I am currently connected and working I cannot spare the time to disconnect in the hope that it fails and get the DNS for the R216.

However, next time I am on site and things go wrong I will report back.

One thing to note, the R216 was shipped directly to me by Vodafone Corporate - my IT people never got there hands on it.

Cheers.