TCP connection errors

Help
1

Started receiving the following error

Connection error (8.8.4.4#53): TCP connection failed while receiving payload length from upstream (Resource temporarily unavailable)

I get a bunch of these errors and nothing load

Not sure what to do. Here is the debug:

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/9hQPy6Xa/

Details about my system:
Raspberry Pi 4b

What I have changed since installing Pi-hole:
Nothing.

2

@Bucking_Horn @jfb any help on this?

3

This means your Internet (or maybe your local network) was unavailable when Pi-hole tried to send queries to the upstream server.

4

The moment i remove the pihole as my dns, everything works

5

Please generate a new debug log.

6

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/TsAJu4bj/

7

@rdwebdesign https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/EEYEdQWM/

8

@rdwebdesign here is a new debug as of 11/13/25.

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

10

That message is absent from your most recent debug log.

However, it shows timeouts for NTP as well as DNS requests, e.g.:

*** [ DIAGNOSING ]: contents of /var/log/pihole

-rw-r----- 1 pihole pihole 1.7M Nov 13 16:57 /var/log/pihole/FTL.log
   -----head of FTL.log------
   2025-11-13 00:31:03.120 EST [8226/T10111] ERROR: Failed to receive data from NTP server pool.ntp.org (23.143.196.200): Timeout
(…)
   2025-11-13 01:31:04.528 EST [8226/T10111] ERROR: Failed to receive data from NTP server pool.ntp.org (23.186.168.126): Timeout
(…)
   2025-11-13 05:31:07.856 EST [8226/T10111] ERROR: Failed to receive data from NTP server pool.ntp.org (69.89.207.99): Timeout
(…)
   2025-11-13 16:57:10.448 EST [13987/T14152] ERROR: Cannot receive UDP DNS reply: Timeout - no response from upstream DNS server

Like your original observation, this could suggest a temporary slow connection or loss of Internet connectivity.

11

So how do I resolve it? The only way I’ve been able to use the internet is to not use pi-hole

12

Your results suggest temporary connectivity issues for your machine running Pi-hole, where Pi-hole does not receive replies from public servers.

This could be related to the connection between that machine and your router, or your router and the Internet, or it could be related to communication to specific public servers only, where the latter may be a result of either your router or your ISP or the public server maintainers restricting traffic.

However, since you observe only temporary timeouts, this would make generic traffic filtering unlikely (e.g. by a firewall rule on your router).

Sporadic DNS timeouts could be explained by upstream DNS servers failing to provide a reply in time, e.g. when under heavy load, or if they'd be located far from your location.
If that would be the case, switching to another set of public DNS servers could mitigate your issue.

13

When I set the DNS on individual devices to the pi-hole, everything works fine. Its only when I set the Router DNS to pi-hole does it fail.