Safari problems with ATT U-Verse with Motorola NVG510 gateway

After hours spent on phone with Apple Support & AT&T, I think I finally found a fix for Safari/NVG510 Motorola on my Macbook Pro using Google & your solution to change DNS servers to 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220. I don't even know what DNS is but so far, so good. All this included two visits from AT&T with no resolution. Last I heard from Apple Support, Senior Advisor had referred problem to their engineering department. Appears they all need to familiarize themselves with Google.

Throughout all this, our Dell PC & new iPad 2 have shown no problem with our server.

I am finding Apple Support too specialized & often get transferred from one tech to another. Going to an Apple Store for classes is like a session with "Laurel & Hardy". The store noise - various levels of participant's skill, etc. makes it almost impossible to learn.

Thank you.

Wow lol... Well my Bro came over took one look at my Motorola tower & said that not even U-verse! They gave me a black tower but AT&T Real U-verse is Silver & much larger His was just installed & he uses a iPhone & iPad2 & his friend works for Att! Still having trouble looking for AT&T help! Last Week then I'm moving on! THX much for the tips.

So, I just got off the phone with AT&T, and their "advanced" support tech told me that the problem we and all the people on this and AT&T's support forum are complaining about does not exist. He said this was a problem with the 3300 model, but they monitor people's systems and this problem is not happening for users of the NVG510. Then he offered to send another tech out to give me yet another Motorola NVG510 (which would be my third), as it is the only hardware they offer for U-Verse Internet-only customers. Um...no, thank you. Finally, as a hail mary, he gave me a new DNS address to plug in, and said that someone will follow up with me in 3 or so days to see how it's going. And what if it stops working in the meantime? Well, I should call AT&T back. Again. And we can have take 2 of this futile, frustrating, waste of time I will never get back conversation. Yippee.

I arrived at this level of tech support when I called AT&T to cancel my U-Verse service and go back to hi-speed DSL, which I had no problems with in my old house. Unfortunately, that's not an option at my new address, so it's U-Verse or nothing. I'm going to give his "fix" a try (I already tried the Google DNS addresses, but they didn't work) before I opt for "nothing."

FYI, the gateway your brother has is for people who have U-Verse Internet and TV, not just Internet.

I spent over an hour trying to figure what was wrong with my NVG510. I just switched to U-Verse and hit the problem where images don't load or it doesn't load the CSS style, therefore, everything screws up. I used this method you posted, thomasfromgrass:

"so my next step was to go to System Preferences > Network > Advanced > DNS and change the DNS server address from 192.168.1.254 to 68.94.157.1 then check to see if I still got page load errors."

It worked like a charm for my 2007 Black Macbook. Thank you, hmph, and the others for the support of this annoying error!

Switching to AT&T has been a total nightmare. We have the NVG510 for our Mac *10.7.3 (*updated) and all the same symptoms have occurred, repeatedly. We never have any true constancy with internet connection. Trying to contact AT&T? The worst customer service! That's if you can get a human being to speak to you. We have tried everything. They keep saying a fix is in the works with firmware. Six plus months, still waiting. In our area, AT&T is the only option we have for HSI. I am so sick of it all.

DNS is the system that translates a website name like "apple.com" into the number that is the actual address of the website (ex: 17.172.224.47). Ordinarily, your internet service provider configures your router to use its own DNS service (which is pretty reasonable). However there are 3rd party DNS operators that typically do it better than AT&T, Comcast, etc. 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220 are operated by OpenDNS which is a good, free DNS provider. The other good one is Google which uses 8.8.4.4 & 8.8.8.8. You are generally going to get slightly better internet performance by using OpenDNS or Google. And you might get significantly better performance as well as elminate some problems.

sour grapes: I gave up with Uverse and the NVG510 after reading these posts, getting advice from lisfolks, and one (only one) helpful tech at ATT who admitted the NVG510 did not work well with Apple products, particularly multiple ones like my household (he even suggested I go to Apple forum to see the extent of the problem!). I went back to DSL and upgraded my Airport Extreme. Like others, I spent tens of hours trying to figure out what was wrong. I didn't have the patience or confidence to reset DNS. So within days of getting Uverse I decided to go back, although it took 10 days before ATT actually restored the DSL signal. Took awhile even then to get new modem (Motorola 3360) to work with new Airport. Senior advisor at Apple support helped figure it out. Things are better now -- web pages open fully, laptops and other devices (ipad, iphone) not getting kicked off, and speed better even when we have multiple devices using Internet simultaneously.

I did the switch of the DNS Servers as well, and so far, so good. Thanks for passing along the tip.

Updating the DNS servers has seemed to work for the installs I have completed myself. As for the issues with customer service some of you have posted about... Instead of calling into AT&T's customer support line and dealing with that nightmare try att.com/uversesupport I give all my customers this website in addition to my cell number to call me if there are any issues after I leave the premise.

AT&T just recently came out with a firmware update for the NVG510. However, it does NOT fix the DNS issues.

Again, this is not an issue with Apple's products, though AT&T is telling many people that. The NVG510 is broken, and AT&T has been aware of multiple issues since before November 2011.

The recent firmware update fixed problems some people were having with a version of VPN called PPTP. This is typically used by people to connect to their work computers from home. If your VPN uses the version called IPSec, that worked fine; and PPTP now works fine if you received the firmware update.

DNS stands for Domain Name Service or Servers. It acts like a phone book. Every computer on the Internet (or any network) has a numbered address so it can send and receive messages to/from other computers. DNS servers contain a listing matching the number ('IP') addresses to name addresses that real people can understand and remember. When you type something like 'apple.com' into your browser, that name is sent to the DNS, which switches it to the number address so your request can be sent to the right location. The numbers that have been noted in this thread are addresses to get to the DNS servers in the first place to do that name/number lookup.

The NVG510 intermittently does not complete the connection to the DNS servers provided by AT&T. The servers themselves have nothing wrong with them; they're just not getting the message from the NVG510. Web pages now often have parts connected to different web servers, so you might get part of a web page, but not other parts, or you may get no pages at all, or it may just appear to be very slow.

Putting the numbers for any DNS servers, including the ones that show normally on the NVG510's status page, into your computer itself overrides the NVG510 and allows your computer to connect to those servers to get the name and address information instead of having to rely on the NVG510.

Finally, yes, DSL and Uverse are two different things. In the end, they look the same because they both allow you to get onto the web and surf to your heart's content. However, the way they do this, and thus the modems they require to do it, are very different. A DSL modem won't work on Uverse, and a Uverse modem won't work on DSL. So, at this point, we have a very limited selection of alternatives in modem/routers (or "residential gateways" as AT&T calls them) for use with Uverse.

If the only problem you're having is with the DNS, adding the numbers to each of your devices (computers, iPads, iPods, iPhones, or whatever non-Apple devices you have) is an easy fix. If you're having other problems, then switching back to DSL until AT&T gets their Uverse modems working properly may be a better option. If, like me, you don't have the option to switch, then we'll continue to look for workarounds to make Uverse modems meet our needs.

I am a new UVerse customer (just activated it last night).. and have had one heck of a time getting my apple products to work.. I entered the DNS updates on my computer. I can browse decently.. but when I try to connect to my VPN (I work from home).. it tanks. Before calling tech support I figured I'd poke around and look for a solution and I found this forum. Would you have any tips for settings on the router?? I also cannot get my iPhone to work but I am going to try to add the DNS settings on there too and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

I'm assuming, since you're posting to this thread, that your Uverse modem/router/gateway is an NVG510? If so, the next question is what is your firmware version? If you know how to check the NVG510's web-based settings, then you can find it under the Device tab, System Information link, then look for the line that says Software Version. If it shows 9.0.6h0d48, then yours is currently using the older firmware version. The latest version is 9.0.6h2d21.

Do you know what type of VPN you are using - PPTP or IPSec? (You can ask your work IT people if you don't know.) The PPTP version wouldn't work under the earlier firmware version (9.0.6h0d48), but it should work fine under the newer one.

Yeah I found my version..and yep its the old version. But nowhere on that page does it give me the option to get the new version. I chatted a while ago and he didn't mention me needing an update.

He did say the techs are short staffed right now so the soonest appontment is Saturday. (Insert impatient person expression right here) They did say I'm not getting enough bandwith and mentioned a line issue.

I just wish I would get that rare tech support tier 2 person who will speak in 'tech speak' to me... They are few and far between...(I'm in tech support also) Because of this I have very high expectations for support when I call in to companies. I have to remind myself to be patient... hahaha.. Which is while I am waiting for a tech, I am trolling my Apple user experts here.

Sooo about my VPN.. I can connect using PPTP or L2TP. And.. your above comment makes sense as to why I held connection after I swapped, now that I think about it. However I noticed I would get connected but certain things would not connect. I tried to change the DNS settings, and they seemed to work on my computer plugged in.. but my iPad and iPhone don't work after the fix. I finally got frustrated with wi fi and turned it off and hopefully my imac here will hold out. Thinking of leaving it off and plugging the good ol airports back in...

Can you point me to where I can download that firmware update?? I cannot miss anymore work.. LOL

I really dislike being a customer. hahaha!!

By the way Lisfolks, I called AT&T today and asked them for the updated version.. but they said my version 9.0.6h0d48 is the newest one. He said I have line errors on here still and that they have a bridge tap on my line so I think that may be the issue. 😟 But if you have the firmware version I'd love to have it.. I can provide my email address if you'd like. 🙂

Thanks!

There is no download available for the firmware update. It's apparently something that has to come down through AT&T's automated systems. The correct current (or "new") firmware version is 9.0.6h2d21, NOT 9.0.6h0d48 as you currently have. You'll just have to wait for it, if the AT&T support people don't know how to kick it in. And, yes, neither PPTP nor L2TP will work under the old firmware - only IPSec as far as I've seen.

I'm curious as to why your iPad and iPhone don't work. Once the DNS settings are in place on the iOS devices, they should connect just fine. What errors are you getting?

The techs that come to your home will probably be able to fix the line errors; however, I don't think they'll be able to upgrade your firmware. I guess we'll find out. Again, once that new firmware is installed, you'll be able to do the VPN.

Note: when I got the new firmware, I got errors trying to connect. I didn't know the upgrade had occurred. Looking in the log on the NVG510, I could tell that some kind of administrative hanky-panky had occurred on the modem, so I rebooted. It was after the gateway reboot that I noticed the new firmware version. So, check your log. If you've got some administrative-looking messages on there, reboot and see what happens.

Good luck with the line errors!