DNS Queries Reached after Hurricane Power Outage

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1

I recently faced a short power outage due to hurricane Milton. Fortunately, my devices remained on thanks to a UPS, but after the power was restored, I began seeing this error repeatedly in Pi-hole's logs:

WARNING in dnsmasq core: Maximum number of concurrent DNS queries reached (max: 150)

I don't know if it was just a coincidence that this error started to happen after the power outage or this was an issue slowly building up before the outage.

Setup details:

  • System: Raspberry Pi 4
  • Running on: Docker
  • Docker Tag: 2024.07.0
  • Pi-hole: v5.18.3
  • FTL: v5.25.2
  • Web Interface: v5.21

What I've Tried:

  • Created 02-custom-settings.conf in /etc/dnsmasq.d/ to override default settings from 01-pihole.conf.
  • Adjusted the following values in 02-custom-settings.conf:
    • max-concurrent-queries=512 (Increased from 150 to 256 to 512)
    • dns-forward-max=1024 (Increased from 150 to 256 to 512 to 1024)
    • cache-size=20000 (Getting desperate at this point)
    • min-cache-ttl=300 (Recommended according to another post)
  • Tried restarting the DNS resolver, Flush network tables, restart DNS server, re-deploy the docker-compose for Pi-hole. The issue still persists.

The error keeps saying that (max: 150) despite me manually trying to increase it. Maybe it doesn't have permission to read the configuration? I'd figure I'd give it a shot at fixing it:

root@pihole:/etc/dnsmasq.d# ls -l /etc/dnsmasq.d/01-pihole.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1515 Oct 10 14:30 /etc/dnsmasq.d/01-pihole.conf
root@pihole:/etc/dnsmasq.d# chmod 644 /etc/dnsmasq.d/02-custom-settings.conf
root@pihole:/etc/dnsmasq.d# chown root:root /etc/dnsmasq.d/02-custom-settings.conf
root@pihole:/etc/dnsmasq.d# ls -l /etc/dnsmasq.d/01-pihole.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1515 Oct 10 14:30 /etc/dnsmasq.d/01-pihole.conf
root@pihole:/etc/dnsmasq.d# ls -l /etc/dnsmasq.d/02-custom-settings.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 576 Oct 10 14:29 /etc/dnsmasq.d/02-custom-settings.conf

After doing so, pi-hole doesn't seem to be reading 02-custom-settings.conf still! Despite trying to restart the DNS resolver, flush network tables, restart DNS server, re-deploy the docker-compose for Pi-hole, etc.

At this point, I am so lost and don't know what to do anymore. :sob:
Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Cleanup of the hurricane is already a headache.

2

(Moderator edit: explicit debug log removed)

3

Below seems not right:

A server= directive is missing in above 01-pihole.conf (127.0.0.1 in below example is my Unbound):

$ cat /etc/pihole/setupVars.conf
[..]
PIHOLE_DNS_1=127.0.0.1#5335

$ cat /etc/dnsmasq.d/01-pihole.conf
[..]
server=127.0.0.1#5335

Try run below reconfigure and select "Repair":

pihole -r

Oops forget about above repair, it runs in Docker!
Could you post your Docker compose, run command, YAML config here pls?
I'm no Docker expert but something seems not right to me.

Oh and next time, only post the resulting token URL here thats displayed after uploading the debug log to the Pi-hole tricorder server?
For privacy, dont post the full logs here!

4

Luckily I can still run pi-hole commands, I just need to enter the docker container with the docker exec command. I tried that command, and unfortunately it still didn't work.

Gotcha. I tried changing the DNS in the container as a troubleshooting technique, but it didn't work out. Turns out, docker compose has a dns field that I can use, so I'll be using that instead.

    dns:
      - 1.1.1.2       # Cloudflare (Malware Protection)
      - 1.0.0.2       # Cloudflare (Malware Protection Backup)
      - 8.8.8.8       # Google DNS (Primary Backup)
      - 8.8.4.4       # Google DNS (Secondary Backup)

Thanks for the heads up!

So after backing up my settings, restarting the entire pi-hole project with a new docker compose, it still wasn't working. I tried the regular installation without docker, still wasn't working.

So it turns out, a singular smart lightbulb was overwhelming/ddossing my entire network. A lightbulb of all things!! I've been stressing and researching so many posts, and this entire issue was because a smart lightbulb went rouge and started sending a bunch of requests likely due to a fried board from the power outage... :melting_face: