Translate.google.com blocked, but no reason there

Pi-hole v5.6 FTL v5.11 Web Interface v5.8

I can open 'translate.google.com'.
Content is rendered as expected.
But I can't change the language or switch languages. Translation doesn't work.

Pi-hole uses these 3 add lists:

  • raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
  • v.firebog.net/hosts/static/w3kbl.txt
  • adaway.org/hosts.txt
    Follow my personal inspection directly - just the first one has the record for domain 'google.com', but It is commented:
    #74.125.127.105 g # google.com

So few tests:

  1. pihole -q google.com
    > Match found in exact whitelist
    > translate.google.com

Match found in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts:
adservice.google.com.vn
fgoogle.com
www.fgoogle.com
marketingplatform.google.com
smartlock.google.com
ads.google.com
adservice.google.com
crashlytics2.l.google.com
s0-2mdn-net.l.google.com
pagead-googlehosted.l.google.com
www.doubleclickbygoogle.com
video-stats.video.google.com
adservice.google.com.au
adservices.google.com
news-server-drm-google.com
ssl-google-analytics.l.google.com
drive.google.com.it-barcelona.com
adservice.google.com.mt
analytics.google.com
mail-ads.google.com
pagead.l.google.com
partnerad.l.google.com
www-google-analytics.l.google.com
Match found in https://v.firebog.net/hosts/static/w3kbl.txt:
www-googletagmanager.l.google.com
adservice.google.com.au
Match found in https://adaway.org/hosts.txt:
ads.google.com
adservice.google.com
crashlytics2.l.google.com
s0-2mdn-net.l.google.com

  1. pihole -q -exact google.com

[i] No exact results found for google.com within the block lists

Whitelist record is defined (as you can see from the test above).
To be sure, DNS was flushed from every single client - nothing.
Same behaviour in each browser (FF, Chrome, IE, Safari), each platform (W10, Ubuntu, iOS).
To be sure - the webpage is running w/o Pi-hole.
Q:
is the Whitelist with the higher priority or the Blacklist?
Seems to be the Blacklist.

Thx for a help.

Solved by empiric research:

gstatic.com

The whitelist is higher priority. The specific order of precedence is as follows:

  1. Exact Whitelist
  2. Regex Whitelist
  3. Exact Blacklist
  4. Blocklist domains (AKA gravity )
  5. Regex Blacklist

If a domain is found anywhere from top to bottom, FTL skips the rest of the tests.

then the priority order doesn’t work as was written,
because:

  • the reason was caused by domain block based on exact black list record defined by me (manual entry) = ‘gstatic.com’
  • but the domain affected was in the exact white list in the same time (seen from the test above). No priority of such record has been performed.
  • and I achieved the solution by deleting the entry from the exact block list.

So, the exact block list must be in higher level of the priority.

No, it wasn't:

Note that gstatic.com and translate.google.com are completely different domains.

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I tried to replicate the described situation:

  1. Whitelist (Exact) contains the domain: 'translate.google.com' (the rule enabled)
  2. Blacklist (Exact) contains the domain: ‘gstatic.com’ (the rule enabled)
    Browser behaviour:
    I can open a domain, I can't switch languages, I can write to a language block, but the translator doesn't respond.

Change:
3. Blacklist (Exact) no longer contains the domain: ‘gstatic.com’
4. Whitelist (Exact) contains the domain: 'translate.google.com' (the rule enabled)
Browser behaviour: according to normal expectations

Change:
5. Blacklist (Exact) no longer contains the domain: 'gstatic.com’
6. Whitelist (Exact) no longer contains a domain: 'translate.google.com'
Browser behaviour: according to normal expectations

Follow your:

Note that gstatic.com and translate.google.com are completely different domains.

I think this isn't the right statement. Because behind the translate.google.com is working the gstatic.com where Google has off-loaded its static content (ico, images,...). Then both of the domains are linked and have fixed relations. And for proper operation of the translator is the gstatic.com mandatory.
This is the reason, why is the page rendered the first time, but it doesn't provide expected behaviour.

Google Translate Get translations from Google Translate. https://ssl.gstatic.com/translate/favicon.ico

Rest assured it is.

That's a choice of the website designer.
Those dependencies would be encoded in HTML etc.

DNS doesn't care about websites - it is completely unaware of them.

All DNS does is to provide services for translating a given domain to a set of IP addresses (or reverse).

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