Dolphin-emu.org not resolving (not blocked) - solved :)

Help
1

Expected Behaviour:

dolphin-emu.org is resolving since it's not blocked.

Actual Behaviour:

dolphin-emu.org not resolving (not blocked)

Debug Token:

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/xWkBKbIy/

2

Can you please post the output of pihole -q --partial dolphin-emu.org?

3

Sure.

pihole -q --partial dolphin-emu.org

Please enter your password:

Please enter the correct second factor.

(Can be any number if you used the app password)

Found 0 domains partially matching 'dolphin-emu.org'.

Found 1 lists partially matching 'dolphin-emu.org'.

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/hagezi/dns-blocklists@latest/adblock/pro.txt (block)

||analytics.dolphin-emu.org^

And TY for the help

4

Only the analytics.dolphin-emu.org domain is blocked by the list.

Do you see entries in the Query Log page showing that dolphin-emu.org is blocked?

If you do, please click on the row to expand the details and post here, like this example:

image
image1192×101 5.29 KB

5

I do not see any blocks for it.

I even did the "disable blocking" for a bit and still no result.

nslookup just shows:

nslookup dolphin-emu.org
Server: 127.0.0.1
Address: 127.0.0.1#53 (direct on the ubuntu 24.04 server running pihole)

Non-authoritative answer:
*** Can't find dolphin-emu.org: No answer

or on Windows:

nslookup dolphin-emu.org
Server: pi.hole
Address: 192.168.10.164 (ip of pihole ubuntu 24.04 server)

Name: dolphin-emu.org

Ok, just realized forgot to mention, sorry, I am using Cloudflared for DNS over TLS (DoT) support.

Sure enough, if i change to Google (ECS, DNSSEC) it works as expected.

Hell Ok, even works if I choose "Cloudflare (DNSSEC)".

Sorry had forgotten for a sec that Cloudflared was in play.

6

It looks like Cloudflared for DNS over TLS is blocking the domain.

7

Oops. Just realized.

cloudflared version 2024.8.3 (built 2024-08-22-1348 UTC)

ROFL, glad just a lab box in a VM behind a firewall lol.

Of course, updated to the latest, 2026.5.0 (built 2026-05-13-11:24 UTC)

And now working as expected, figures:

dig -p 5853 dolphin-emu.org

; <<>> DiG 9.18.39-0ubuntu0.24.04.3-Ubuntu <<>> -p 5853 dolphin-emu.org
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 11868
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: fc1b44a60038ca9f (echoed)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;dolphin-emu.org.               IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
dolphin-emu.org.        35      IN      A       37.19.207.38

;; Query time: 15 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#5853(127.0.0.1) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Tue May 19 22:44:19 EDT 2026
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 87

My bad, problem solved. Thanks anyways.

Solved by:

# Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (noble)
# Add cloudflare gpg key

sudo mkdir -p --mode=0755 /usr/share/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-main.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg >/dev/null

# Add this repo to your apt repositories

echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared noble main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudflared.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install cloudflared
8

Never mind that won't work either. As soon as you reboot, it will be broken.

Realised that cloudflared service failed to start.

It's because Cloudflare removed support for proxy-dns as per cloudflared proxy-dns command will be removed starting February 2, 2026 · Changelog

So yeah, CloudflareD is now dead for this use case. Bummer.

Thankfully, AdGuard's dnsproxy works great.

Adguard DNS Proxy:

wget ``https://github.com/AdguardTeam/dnsproxy/releases/download/v0.81.3/dnsproxy-linux-amd64-v0.81.3.tar.gz`` tar -xzf dnsproxy-linux-amd64-v0.81.3.tar.gz sudo mv linux-amd64/dnsproxy /usr/local/bin/ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/dnsproxy

Create Service:

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/dnsproxy.service << 'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=DNS Proxy (DoH)
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/dnsproxy -l 127.0.0.1 -p 5853 -u https://1.1.1.1/dns-query -u https://1.0.0.1/dns-query
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
User=nobody

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Enable Service:

	sudo systemctl daemon-reload
	sudo systemctl enable --now dnsproxy
	sudo systemctl status dnsproxy

Verify:

	https://one.one.one.one/help/

	dig @127.0.0.1 -p 5853 google.com

	dig google.com @127.0.0.1

	sudo nmap -Pn -sT -sU -p 5853 127.0.0.1

	sudo lsof -i :5853 -S
9

Stubby works well DNS Privacy Daemon - Stubby :: dnsprivacy.org

Same with dnsdist DNS-over-TLS - dnsdist documentation

Both have native packages so you don't need to download binaries and manually install them.

10

CoreDNS might also be worth a look: https://coredns.io/. It's a Swiss army knife sort of application/service, supporting various plugins. I don't use it to reach a DoH, but I do use it as a DoT proxy to my Pi-hole.