# My pi-hole isn't blocking ads!
**URL:** https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [January 26, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450 "2020-01-26T04:09:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Noodlesatpihole](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/Noodlesatpihole)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/1 "2020-01-26T04:09:38Z")
#### Please follow the below template, it will help us to help you!
## Expected Behaviour:
pihole should block ads and run like usual
## Actual Behaviour:
pihole isn't blocking ads. it is only blocking ads once in a while.
## Debug Token:
[https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/bf4m45bv51](https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/bf4m45bv51)
---
### Author:  [@jfb](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/jfb)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2020, 4:34am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/3 "2020-01-26T04:34:44Z")
Your debug log did not upload. Please generate a new one.
And, please post a screen capture of your admin dashboard showing the last 24 hours graphs and header boxes, along with the output of the following command from the Pi terminal:
`echo ">stats" | nc localhost 4711`
---
### Author:  [@jfb](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/jfb)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2020, 11:59pm UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/7 "2020-01-26T23:59:32Z")
Your debug log shows no problems. If you look at your graph of queries over time, from about 1930 to 0700 there were no queries received, but then they resumed a bit after 0700. I don't see anything in your log that shows FTL was restarted about 0700 (when the queries resumed), which indicates that Pi-Hole was running the entire time.
If it was running the entire time and did not receive any queries, there is perhaps another DNS server that clients were using.
In your router, what are the DHCP settings for DNS (what DNS server(s) are specified)? From a Windows PC (if you have one), what is the output of the following (both run directly on the command prompt and not via Putty session to the Pi):
`nslookup pi.hole`
`ipconfig /all`
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### Author:  [@jfb](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/jfb)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2020, 12:21am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/9 "2020-01-27T00:21:13Z")
On the Mac terminal, run these commands:
`nslookup pi.hole`
`nslookup pi.hole 192.168.8.9`
`scutil --dns`
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### Author:  [@jfb](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/jfb)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2020, 12:32am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/11 "2020-01-27T00:32:24Z")
In this forum, you can paste text replies directly into the reply, and this helps us copy text for troubleshooting.
Note that in Resolver 1 in the second output, that there are two DNS servers available to the client. The first is Pi-Hole, and the other is Cloudflare. The client is free to move to either server, and I suspect it moved to Cloudflare for some period of time.
> [@Why should Pi-hole be my only DNS server?](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/why-should-pi-hole-be-my-only-dns-server/3376):
>
> Reduced Ad Blocking Capability The main reason you should Pi-hole as your only DNS server is that you will see increased performance in the blocking of ads. If you have two DNS servers (Pi-hole and something else), your network clients may not always query Pi-hole for name resolution. If a query happens to be answered from a non-Pi-hole DNS server, your block lists will not apply (since that DNS server doesn't know about them). All Queries Need To Go Through Pi-hole First Since other DNS serv…
---
### Author:  [@Noodlesatpihole](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/Noodlesatpihole)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2020, 12:35am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/12 "2020-01-27T00:35:13Z")
But, the problem is, that I also want another DNS server because, In case something goes wrong with my RPi 3, I can still connect to the internet.
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### Author:  [@jfb](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/jfb)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2020, 12:46am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/13 "2020-01-27T00:46:59Z")
> [@Noodlesatpihole](#):
>
> I also want another DNS server because, In case something goes wrong with my RPi 3, I can still connect to the internet.
If you want redundancy/reliability and no ads, you need to run a second Pi-Hole and list that as the second DNS. As you have it configured, you have the backup but you don't have the ad-blocking, which defeats the purpose of having a Pi-Hole.
Pi's are very reliable, given a stable power supply. If you have a UPS, put the Pi on that so if you lose power the Pi won't have a sudden power loss (they don't take kindly to that).
If you have only one DNS server listed (and it's your only Pi-Hole), if you can't connect to the internet you should (1) check the Pi-Hole is running, and if it can't be restored then (2) shift your DNS to something other than Pi-Hole until you get the Pi-Hole running again.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2020, 2:53am UTC](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/my-pi-hole-isnt-blocking-ads/27450/16 "2020-02-17T02:53:03Z")
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