Is NextDNS down in South Africa today?

Sites blocked despite being whitelisted

If a domain you''ve added to the allowlist still gets blocked, check whether the request actually reaches NextDNS. Go to Logs tab and filter by that domain — if there''s no entry at all, your device isn''t using the configured profile. Make sure the correct profile ID is set in the app or system DNS settings, and that no local resolver is overriding it.

DNS queries not reaching NextDNS servers

Open nextdns.io/setup and run the connectivity test. If it fails, the issue is usually one of these:

- Your router is hardcoded to use ISP DNS and ignores device-level settings

- Port 853 (DNS-over-TLS) or 443 (DNS-over-HTTPS) is blocked by a firewall

- The NextDNS CLI is installed but the service isn''t running — check with systemctl status nextdns

- IPv6 is active on the device but the profile only has IPv4 linked endpoints

Online banking or payment pages not loading

Financial services often use aggressive anti-fraud scripts and third-party trackers that get caught by default blocklists. In the Logs tab, look for blocked requests at the moment the page fails. Temporarily disable the Privacy > Blocklists filters, reload the page, and check which domains now resolve. Add only those to your allowlist — don''t whitelist the entire bank domain blindly.

High latency on DNS resolution

If ping to resolved hosts spikes, first check which server handles your requests — the Logs tab shows the PoP location. If it''s geographically far, force a closer endpoint by specifying it manually in the CLI config or switching from DNS-over-HTTPS to DNS-over-TLS, which sometimes routes differently. Also check if DNSSEC validation is enabled: it adds a round-trip and can noticeably increase response time on slow connections.

Analytics logs not updating in dashboard

- Browser cache can freeze the Logs view — hard-reload with Ctrl+Shift+R

- If logs show no activity for hours, the linked IP or device ID may have changed

- Profiles using the linked IP method stop logging when your public IP rotates — switch to the device-based method via the app instead

- Ad blockers running in the browser sometimes block the websocket that streams live log data