PiHole Intermittently Not Working - Difficult to access hardware

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1

Summary: My PiHole is working intermittently, it is difficult to connect to it (SSH or WebAdmin), and any connections don't last long.

It is running on a Raspberry Pi Zero W. I do have unbound and wireguard running on the same Pi, but they have been running concurrently for a while with no problem.

In the few times I was able to connect, storage space was about 20% used up. I wasn't able to check system memory before I got booted.

Expected Behaviour:

PiHole should consistently return DNS queries, I should be able to SSH into it, the admin console should be easily accessible and

Actual Behaviour:

Running Wireshark, I see occasional DNS queries being returned from my pihole. A small amount of the total requests being sent out are being returned. Generally anything requested from the web browser doesn't work.

When I try to access the admin interface (using the IP address, 192.168.0.2/admin), I get an "Unable to Connect" error through Firefox (which is different from the error if it just can't find or can't reach an address).

When I try to SSH in, I get a "Connection Refused" error.

I am occasionally able to connect through the admin interface, and I ran a debug, but it stopped responding after a while. Below is the most complete debug I was able to get.

I have tried rebooting the pi, and I have tried restarting lighttpd

Debug Token:

I can't get the debug to finish, here is a pastebin link with the most complete debug I was able to get: PiHole Diagnostics - Pastebin.com

The most worrying part to me is this:
*** [ DIAGNOSING ]: Pi-hole processes
[✗] lighttpd daemon is
[✗] pihole-FTL daemon is

2

How are you connecting via SSH? using the Raspberry Pi IP?

3

Yup! I'm using PuTTY and using a saved session I've typically used. 192.168.0.2 port 22.

The PiHole has a permanent DHCP reservation as well. As of the start of this issue it's not showing up as a client in my router's DHCP table though. The reservation still exists though.

4

This seems a connectivity issue in your network.

If you are accessing the Raspberry Pi via IP, there is no way Pi-hole is involved.
Pi-hole is only involved when a DNS query is made (to translate a domains into an IP).

If the log is not finished and each time it fails in a different step, this could be related to a defective SD card.

5

I did a fresh install on the same hardware, but using a new SD card. I have everything configured the same (still using unbound and Wireguard), but everything seems to be working perfectly.

I think failing SD card was the answer. Thanks for much for helping me troubleshoot!

6

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