Is Quad9 down in South Africa today?

Sites Loading Slowly After Switching DNS

If pages started crawling after you pointed your resolver to 9.9.9.9, the issue is almost always TTL flushing lag. Open a terminal and run: ipconfig /flushdns on Windows or sudo dscacheutil -flushcache on macOS. Then close and reopen the browser. If latency stays high, check that your router isn''t still forwarding queries to the old DNS — many routers cache the upstream address independently of the OS setting.

Certain Websites Blocked Without Obvious Reason

Quad9 filters domains flagged by threat intelligence feeds. If a legitimate site is unreachable, it''s likely caught in a block. To confirm, switch temporarily to 9.9.9.10 — the unfiltered resolver — and retry. If the site loads, the domain is on the blocklist. You can submit a false-positive report at quad9.net/result so the team can review and remove it.

DNS Queries Not Resolving At All

- Verify the correct IP is set: 9.9.9.9 for IPv4, 2620:fe::fe for IPv6

- Make sure port 53 (UDP/TCP) isn''t blocked by a local firewall or router ACL

- Try DNS-over-HTTPS endpoint https://​dns.​quad9.​net/​dns-​query to bypass port restrictions

- If using DNS-over-TLS, confirm port 853 is open and the hostname is dns.quad9.net

Online Banking or Payment Pages Won''t Load

Financial domains occasionally share infrastructure with flagged hosts or use subdomains that trigger threat filters. If your bank''s login page or checkout stops working after switching resolvers, test with the unfiltered endpoint 9.9.9.10. Confirm the issue is DNS-related and not a browser cache problem by clearing cookies and retrying in a private window.

DoH or DoT Setup Fails in Browser

- In Firefox: go to Settings → General → Network Settings, enable DNS over HTTPS, enter https://​dns.​quad9.​net/​dns-​query

- In Chrome: open chrome://settings/security, select ''With Custom Provider'', paste the same URL

- If the connection fails, check that your ISP doesn''t intercept TLS on port 443 — some do, and it breaks DoH handshakes

- Restart the browser fully after saving changes; partial reloads don''t always apply new resolver settings

IPv6 Resolution Failing Inconsistently

Mixed IPv4/IPv6 environments often have misconfigured prefix delegation. If AAAA records resolve fine on 9.9.9.9 but connections time out, the problem is routing, not DNS. Run ping6 dns.quad9.net to test reachability. If that fails, your gateway likely drops IPv6 traffic before it reaches the resolver.