Problems Downloading Brave

Problem - Brave not updating, attempted to download and failed.

How to reproduce - I’d assume just trying to download. Went to brave.com/download. Clicked on link to download Windows 64 bit. Site redirected to laptop-update.brave.com, and received:

This site can’t be reached

Check if there is a typo in laptop-updates.brave.com.

  • If spelling is correct, [try running Windows Network Diagnostics](javascript:diagnoseErrors()).

DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN

I can do a “nslookup laptop-updates.brave.com” to get an IP address (151.101.13.32, although I just got 151.101.185.32). Replacing the name with IP gives a domain error:

Fastly error: unknown domain: 151.101.13.32. Please check that this domain has been added to a service.

Details: cache-fra19152-FRA

Tried with both Brave and Chrome. Chrome: 96.0.4664.45, Brave 1.21.76.

Tried for a couple of days with a couple of reboots between. Still no luck…

All I can guess is my ISP doesn’t like the Brave site for whatever reason. Tried through my router and directly through the ISPs router.

What version of Windows are you on?

Is any antivirus or other security software installed?

Are you using ‘Secure DNS’ settings in Brave? What if you turn it off?

Also,

What did you mean by this exactly?

Windows 10, 21H1.

AVG. Hadn’t tried it but with AVG down, same problem.

Secure DNS was on, although it had a warning, “Secure DNS may not be available all the time” but same result with it off.

Initially, I was using Chrome for everything. https://brave.com/download will not download for me with either Brave nor Chrome. I figured I could download the installer with Brave, then stop it and load. No luck. No luck with Chrome, either…

Terry

So if you go directly to https://laptop-updates.brave.com/latest/winx64 you get the same error?

Are you behind any kind of proxy?

Yes:

This site can’t be reached

laptop-updates.brave.com’s server IP address could not be found.

Try:

  • Checking the connection
  • Checking the proxy, firewall, and DNS configuration
  • Running Windows Network Diagnostics

ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED

No proxy. Wowway internet. Have a router between the ISP’s modem and the rest of my equipment. Never spotted anything like this before. Seems to only affect the laptop-updtes.brave.com. Also don’t get the “name not resolved” when comes up with:

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: dualstack.o.sni.global.fastly.net
Addresses: 2a04:4e42:2c::288
151.101.185.32
Aliases: laptop-updates.brave.com

Sounds like the name is resolved, except through Brave (and Chrome)… Of course, am I getting a valid IP address? Not sure.

Terry

Regarding Secure DNS, you shut it completely off with this toggle, correct?

The toggle switch itself should be gray in your case if so.

I can’t say for certain that the IP address you’re getting is correct, but I think likely yes, as it is very similar to many other IPs returned for that address.

Can you paste your entire nslookup output?

Also, what if you enable Secure DNS, but use one of the included providers – such as Quad9?

Yes, I turned it off with the slider. Now, when I went back in, it was on again…

Tried it with the Quad9, and receive:

This site can’t be reached

The webpage at https://laptop-updates.brave.com/latest/winx64 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

ERR_ADDRESS_INVALID

Turned it off, trying again (verified it stayed off when I re-entered the Security page), got:

This site can’t be reached

laptop-updates.brave.com’s server IP address could not be found.

Try:

  • Checking the connection
  • Checking the proxy, firewall, and DNS configuration
  • Running Windows Network Diagnostics

ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED

My nslookup output… Now you know my non-conventional home IP range… Change my service provider, and I’m not going to run into my address range matches the modems!

Inline image

So no matter how I try to get there, I’m getting odd results. Haven’t seen an issue with any other sites…

Thanks for your help and input,

Terry

This is a really strange one.

Is that JHR-AC860M.WORKGROUP the local system running Brave (and the nslookup) or is it another (presumably Windows) system on your network?

Can you show the output of this? Get-DnsClientServerAddress | select ServerAddresses

Also:

  • Is AVG being updated?
  • Does it provide an ‘offline scan’ option? If so, please use it and see if it finds anything. Barring that, run a full scan of the system.
  • Is your Win10 system applying automatic updates?

JHR-AC860M is my current router. The NetGear router went belly up and went with the JHR version.

Get-DnsClientServerAddresses:

Inline image

Virus definitions last updated 4 minutes ago, so that’s a yes!

Didn’t see offline scan. Doing a “Deep Scan”.

Currently up to date on Windows updates, although there’s a 21H2 that’s available.

I’ll respond if the deep scan finds something but I’m not expecting it…

| JimB1
December 5 |

  • | - |

This is a really strange one.

Is that JHR-AC860M.WORKGROUP the local system running Brave (and the nslookup) or is it another (presumably Windows) system on your network?

Can you show the output of this? Get-DnsClientServerAddress | select ServerAddresses

Also:

  • Is AVG being updated?
  • Does it provide an ‘offline scan’ option? If so, please use it and see if it finds anything. Barring that, run a full scan of the system.
  • Is your Win10 system applying automatic updates?

OK. Interesting. So it looks like your local Windows system has 2 DNS servers configured, the 172.x one shown in your earlier reply as well as the 64.x one seen there. The latter of which looks like it’s your ISP’s, try11-dns1.try.wideopenwest.com.

Not sure if that’s intentional, as your host could use one or the other. Also, not sure if you got those DNS server IPs from a manual configuration on your system, or via DHCP. If the latter, and if this is not your intended configuration, you’d want to change your router config to distribute something else to DHCP clients. But your router itself may very well be using your ISP’s name servers, so all of this could be moot. And I’m not super confident this is really the issue anyway, so maybe we can save that for later if needed.

In the meantime, what do you get back from Resolve-DnsName -Type A laptop-updates.brave.com -Server 64.233.217.2?

And plz repeat the above against the 172.x server, Resolve-DnsName -Type A laptop-updates.brave.com -Server 172.2.37.1.

Even though this does look like a DNS issue we can’t be sure yet, but the above will help us narrow it down.

Ultimately I do feel like we could figure it out with a packet capture (Wireshark) but that takes another degree of familiarity and effort, hopefully something else surfaces by then.

I do find this very odd. My network configuration does NOT have any secondary DNS. All comes from DHCP. According to the router, Wowway has two DNS servers, one you’re quoting 64.233.217.2 and 64.233.217.3.

Not sure what Resolve-DnsName does, but it doesn’t appear to have worked successfully. Looks like neither DNS server would give an answer to laptop-updates.brave.com.

Inline image

Then how is nslookup coming up with an IP address?

Inline image

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So the router must be passing forward the first WAN DNS server… Not sure why the Resolve-DnsName didn’t come up with an IP address though…

Terry

P.S. I’ve done a bit with Wireshark, so a Wireshark capture is possible although I haven’t ever figured out how to read the gobbledy-gook that comes out of it! :slight_smile:

Unclear. I know historically, at least on *nix platforms, the maintainers of nslookup have been trying to deprecate it for eons but it continues because it’s so culturally ingrained.

But if I had to bank on which method duplicates Windows’s actual DNS resolution under the hood, my money would be on PowerShell’s Resolve-DnsName.

Do this at your own risk; but if I were you I would try configuring your router to distribute Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) to DHCP clients. And then wait a while, or renew your DHCP lease, but one way or another make sure your Windows system gets the new addresses (verify with Get-DnsClientServerAddress).

And then see what happens with your browser issue.

Using GPDNS may be sub-optimal for other reasons but we can cross that bridge when we get to it.

P.S. While I think we might be uncovering an issue here, I’m still perplexed as to why it failed when you explicitly set Brave to use Quad9. Something there still doesn’t add up.

Could NOT figure out how to configure DNS into my router. Changed my computer’s configuration to use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Also tried using the Secure DNS internal to Brave with the Google option. Think it’s slightly different:

This site can’t be reached

The webpage at https://laptop-updates.brave.com/latest/winx64 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

ERR_ADDRESS_INVALID

Here’s the results of the various PowerShell commands:

Still not getting an IP address (I assume) with the Resolve-DnsName…

Terry

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