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All replies
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Helpful answers
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Oct 22, 2012 1:57 PM in response to manjelloby StumpyBloke,Manjello...who are you aiming your post at? This is all getting very muddy and confusing now.
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Oct 22, 2012 3:05 PM in response to StumpyBlokeby manjello,Anyone engaged in argumentum ad naseum, namely, not you.
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Oct 25, 2012 8:45 PM in response to Griff1324by thomas28,APPLE TAKE NOTICE!
I tried to rent a movie FAIL (3 day to download 1.5 gig)
I tried to update iPhone app FAIL
I tried to update OSX FAIL
I try to update client computers FAIL
Whatever you guys did undo it cause it *****
Apple Servers have become unusable
I own imac iphone ipad mac pro and macbook pro
They are all performing the same UNACCEPTABLY
By the way my download speeds are 30 mbps
Im having problems at home and work with these speeds
Steve would of never allowed this
Between the ios map catastrophe and downloads I think corporate is taking precedent over quality.
HELP SOMEONE AT APPLE
GET RID OF MY APP STUCK IN MY UPDAT QUE
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Oct 27, 2012 12:01 PM in response to twhiting9275by HM801,So, like a number of people I can reproduce the "slow downloads" when using third party DNS servers (opendns, google, dyn etc...). In theory DNS settings should not be an issue..... but appartently ANYCAST DNS is an issue with certain CDN's(content delivery networks such as akamai - which Apple uses I believe). These networks serve up content based on geolocation of the DNS server and not the end client... These Anycast based DNS services are load balanced so you don't always use the same ones even though you use the same ip (8.8.8.8 for example) It helps keep there service fast and for the most part works very well....except in cases like this. For example I make a request though opendns and the particular opendns server that responds is not close to me, but not busy but is half a continent away. The CDN gets the request, thinks I am actaully on the other side of the continent and serves up data from a datacentre close to that location...nows it is many hops from me and much slower. Also it could be that opendns is sending many requests to that CDN and now that CDN is really busy. Here is a rather in-depth explanation of the issue. http://www.cdnplanet.com/blog/which-cdns-support-edns-client-subnet/
This is why when you use your local ISP dns server, your downloads are much faster. Tthe CDN will use your actual location and you will download from a much closer datacentre... Also since Anycast load balances your requests, there are ocasions when the server is closer to you and you will see fast download speeds...therefore accounting for the random nature of download speeds.
If you want consistent download speeds from itunes or even microsoft I suggest you use your ISP's dns until this issue is solved between dns providers using Anycast and CDNs....
This is my interpretation of the issue and it is very high level and I am by no means an expert (so it may be a bit simplistic)... I just wanted to say that it does look to be a "known" issue and the results Endurion are seeing can definitely be explained by the way DNS is being used in these cases (Anycast DNS that is).
twhiting9275 is not wrong either.... DNS in its simplist form is pretty straigforward and should not cause issues, but AnyCast is adding an extra layer.
My two cents...
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Oct 28, 2012 1:05 PM in response to HM801by HM801,Also another good article on this... As you will see the main issue is how the CDN's are adding "tricks" to DNS that DNS was never intended to do.
http://jet-stream.com/blog/cdn-performance-heavily-disrupted-by-dns-services/
also
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Oct 30, 2012 10:50 PM in response to finaleMileby Amar Singh,I, too, don't quite understand why DNS would make a difference, but can absolutely confirm that switching from Google DNS back to Comcast's has made my iTunes downloads over 20 TIMES faster!
The extremely slow downloads had been bugging me for months, across multiple reboots of my hard-wired computer, router, and cable modem. Changing the DNS yielded an IMMEDIATE resolution to the problem.
My iOS 6 upgrade was half an hour into a 4-hour download when I found this thread. I aborted the download, changed my DNS, and tried again. iOS downloaded in under 10 minutes.
Thank You! I would never have guessed this was the issue, as "faster" DNS performance was why I switched to Google DNS in the first place. I know a fair bit about networking, managing multiple networks. But this is new to me. I'll read up on those articles you cite.
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Oct 31, 2012 2:09 AM in response to Amar Singhby Geerat,Yeh you're right. It makes no sense. I actually just switched from my ISP's standard DNS to the free google one and it sped up immediately to the usual full speed.Nice to finally sort out this problem, though.
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Oct 31, 2012 7:08 AM in response to Amar Singhby HM801,Ya it is a bit frustrating as I prefer to use the third party DNS solutions like opendns or dyn. Its unfortunate that in a situation like this either Apple or the third party DNS provider gets blamed for the slow download issue. From what I can see reading about this (and there is a ton of material out there on it) is that the CDNs (Content Delivery Network) providers such as Akamai need to change how they interact with DNS requests (especially the ones like opendns and google using anycast). Once they can geolocate the end client and not the DNS server, this will be a non issue.
For now though I will use my ISP's DNS.
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Nov 3, 2012 5:35 PM in response to nycawrby Tidbits,They don't ever pay attention. Why should they? We're all so stupid that we'll just keep using them anyway. . .
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Nov 4, 2012 5:48 AM in response to Griff1324by Salim,I was trying to download updated Apps through iTunes. The download would start and go from seconds, to 1 minute to 5 minutes and would absolutely crawl.
I then read this post about turning OFF then turning ON iTunes Match, which I do not use at all. Went into iTunes Match, said No Thanks on the landing page. Once I did that, my App downloaded in about 11 seconds.
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Nov 9, 2012 10:56 PM in response to Amar Singhby Warmbowski,I want to thank Amar for posting the info on the relation of CDN's to the locatoin of the DNS servers that are used to connect to the Apples CDN. I really don't find this a problem with Apple, but rather witht the CDN's like Akamai and Limelight. There are so many things wrong with these CDN's. I hope someone comes up with a better CDN architecture in the near future.
I was using a nice static Level3 DNS server that I've always used in the past without problem. The trouble is, it's located in Colorado, and I am on the west coast. Now that I changed to local server, downloads are screaming.
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Nov 11, 2012 12:08 PM in response to Warmbowskiby Stefan Roever,After reading this thread, I reviewed my DNS settings. Turns out the old Comcast DNS servers at 68.87.64.146, 68.87.64.150, and 68.87.64.196 are no longer supported as of October 2012 (see dns.comcast.net).
Switching to 75.75.75.75 and 75.75.76.76 instantly made my iTunes downloads about 20x faster.
Thank you for pointing us to the root issue (CDNs and DNS settings).
Stefan
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Nov 11, 2012 5:23 PM in response to Griff1324by vertig0gitrev,Just to add further confirmation as well as provide an extremely easy way to verify that it is, in fact, third party DNS solutions that are causing the problems.
Here's yet another article explaining how CDNs don't play nice with third party DNS solutions:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/20/apple_tv_itunes_downloads_slowed_by_go ogle_dns.html
An easy way to verify the DNS problem is to install OpenDNS DNSCrypt. It is a simple little add-in that provides a menubar icon to enable different aspects of OpenDNS.
1) Install DNS crypt: http://www.opendns.com/technology/dnscrypt/
2) Enable OpenDNS
3) Try to download a movie from iTunes. For me, I get TERRIBLE performance... something like an estimate of 3 hours to download a movie (for the record I have 50/25 FiOS... it isn't my connection).
4) Quit iTunes
5) Disable OpenDNS via DNSCrypt
6) Start iTunes and resume the download. Mine normally moves from 3 hours to about 5-8 minutes.
If that isn't proof enough, I don't know how else to convince those that doubt the problem lies in third party DNS solutions.
Full disclosure: I am a paying member of OpenDNS. I love their service, but have removed it from my home networking hardware configuration. It is now installed on each individual machine via DNSCrypt so as to easily disable when needed (and so that my AppleTV/iPhones don't use it).
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Nov 13, 2012 12:44 AM in response to vertig0gitrevby CharlieKirk,Morning guys,
As inexperienced as I am in the ways of DNS and routing can I suggest you try something I did, after encountering the same issue. Downloading films (HD) was taking 3 hours, I'm on a 70MB/down, 20 up.
Once the download had started and showed 3 hours, I clicked on the pause icon after a few minutes. Then clicked again to restart. Instantly it goes to 7-8 minutes estimated time - as it should based on download speed. Thinking this was a fluke, I've done it on the last four films, with the same effect.
I have no idea why this works, sounds bizarre - but works everytime. Worth a go - just thought I'd put it out there
Cheers
Charlie
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Nov 17, 2012 8:22 AM in response to Griff1324by Joe Batt,I purchased one movie in HD 4.5Gb in size and it said it would take 3.5 hours....about 2 mins later I rented another movie that was 1.46Gb in size and it downloaded in 10 mins.
I bought the 4.5Gb movie THEN the rental several minutes later and yet when the rented 1.46Gb movie had finished downloading the 4.5Gb movie had still done less than 500Mb...
Why?? Why are different movies downloading at different speeds??