DNS Network Slow

 Kind of ridiculous to post on the internet about what to do when you lose access to the internet. I intend this as preemptive. Maybe you can help someone else.

I lost access to the internet with some obscure message about network service. When it breaks, turn it off. The message suggested that as well. Turned the provider gateway on and off, turned my PC on and off. Repeatedly. So, I called my provider and was trapped in the response tree. They even turned my gateway on and off themselves. Eventually I was in a chat text conversation with the providers Dennis who was also trapped in a response tree. It culminated with him sending me an email to confirm my identity. Since I couldn’t receive it on my PC, he was, in effect, instructing me to change providers.

Dennis sent me back to the providers original help phone number. My next-door neighbor had service. She has a different provider.

On reflection, it dawned on me that the problem was on my PC. Something like this once happened to me at work. I’d had to zero out my own IP address. In Windows 11 settings, I was prompted to restore DNS factory settings. That worked. Now I can’t find that prompt. Maybe because I don’t need it. If Windows 11 is that smart, why didn’t it fix itself?

It must have broke because some application got confused and ruined my settings. How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? It’s a hardware problem.