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Internet Guide makes iTunes downloads extremely slow

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When using Internet Guide, iTunes downloads are extremely slow. My location is Vancouver, Washington and my home connection is Comcast ~12 Mbps.

I tested a 35 MB download (the app “Paper Pilot”). With Google Public DNS, it took less than a minute. With Internet Guide as my DNS it took 10 minutes!

About 20% of the time I do get fast download speeds using Internet Guide, but the rest of the time things are very slow.

This has been an ongoing problem and I only recently figured out that Internet Guide is causing it. Because it happens in iTunes, I am not sure what DNS names are being resolved incorrectly.

Edit: Added output of dig commands as requested by RotBlitz.

Via Google:

lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://itunes.apple.com. @8.8.8.8
http://itunes.apple.com.   3171    IN  A   17.250.237.16
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://albert.apple.com. @8.8.8.8
http://albert.apple.com.   535 IN  CNAME   http://albert.apple.com.akadns.net.
http://albert.apple.com.akadns.net. 235 IN A   17.112.200.65
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://phobos.apple.com. @8.8.8.8
http://phobos.apple.com.   419 IN  A   17.250.236.65
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://gs.apple.com. @8.8.8.8
http://gs.apple.com.       501 IN  CNAME   http://gs.apple.com.akadns.net.
http://gs.apple.com.akadns.net. 300    IN  A   17.112.176.11
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://itunes.com. @8.8.8.8
http://itunes.com.     2350    IN  A   17.149.160.45
http://itunes.com.     2350    IN  A   17.251.200.74
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://www.itunes.com. @8.8.8.8
http://www.itunes.com.     421 IN  CNAME   http://itunes.com.
http://itunes.com.     421 IN  A   17.149.160.45
http://itunes.com.     421 IN  A   17.251.200.74

Via Internet Guide:

lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://itunes.apple.com. @216.146.35.35
http://itunes.apple.com.   256 IN  A   17.250.237.16
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://albert.apple.com. @216.146.35.35
http://albert.apple.com.   93  IN  CNAME   http://albert.apple.com.akadns.net.
http://albert.apple.com.akadns.net. 179 IN A   17.149.240.65
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://phobos.apple.com. @216.146.35.35
http://phobos.apple.com.   50  IN  A   17.250.236.65
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://gs.apple.com. @216.146.35.35
http://gs.apple.com.       3096    IN  CNAME   http://gs.apple.com.akadns.net.
http://gs.apple.com.akadns.net. 179    IN  A   17.151.36.30
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://itunes.com. @216.146.35.35
http://itunes.com.     3479    IN  A   17.149.160.45
http://itunes.com.     3479    IN  A   17.251.200.74
lava:~$ dig +noall +answer http://www.itunes.com. @216.146.35.35
http://www.itunes.com.     3478    IN  CNAME   http://itunes.com.
http://itunes.com.     3478    IN  A   17.149.160.45
http://itunes.com.     3478    IN  A   17.251.200.74
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asked Jun 23 at 10:06 AM

Nate\'s gravatar image

Nate
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"I figured it would have something to do with CDNs and geographic routing."

Great to see that you fully understood what's going to happen. Both, Google and DynDNS IG are fed by the CDN providers with the IP address information they distribute, so it's not really the recursive DNS service being the problem. There is not too much you can do. Btw, routing is totally with your ISP and his peers, whereas DNS information is with the CDN provider in this case...

Two things you could try:

  1. Open a ticket with DynDNS, so that they become aware of this, and they may try to contact the relevant parties to look for a solution.
  2. Contact your ISP and report this routing issue to them to see if they can correct it at their end. You may provide the details for the different IP address results as of above, including traceroute outputs to the relevant IP addresses, which are different for Google and IG.

Ah, btw, you could also perform the testing with your ISP's DNS server IP address(es) to see what they would return...

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answered Jun 23 at 12:39 PM

RotBlitz\'s gravatar image

RotBlitz ♦
23.8k ● 4 ● 13 ● 93

Of course you’re right about routing vs. DNS. And I will take this up with support.

Jun 23 at 03:51 PM Nate
10|600 characters needed characters left
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To help you analyzing this, you would need to copy & paste a series of command outputs here.
This is mainly based on an Apple KB article.

(Include the commands. Note the trailing dots (after .com.)! No screen shots please!)

These return the Google results:

nslookup http://itunes.apple.com. 8.8.8.8
nslookup http://albert.apple.com. 8.8.8.8
nslookup http://phobos.apple.com. 8.8.8.8
nslookup http://gs.apple.com. 8.8.8.8
nslookup http://itunes.com. 8.8.8.8
nslookup http://www.itunes.com. 8.8.8.8

These return the Internet Guide results:

nslookup http://itunes.apple.com. 216.146.35.35
nslookup http://albert.apple.com. 216.146.35.35
nslookup http://phobos.apple.com. 216.146.35.35
nslookup http://gs.apple.com. 216.146.35.35
nslookup http://itunes.com. 216.146.35.35
nslookup http://www.itunes.com. 216.146.35.35

In case you don't use Windows, but Mac, use this command syntax instead:

dig +noall +answer AppleDomain @DNSserverIP

Edit:
Just seeing, it may be useful to also include ax.itunes.apple.com in the measure, because this involves CDN providers.

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answered Jun 23 at 10:25 AM

RotBlitz\'s gravatar image

RotBlitz ♦
23.8k ● 4 ● 13 ● 93

I’ve added the output from dig. The address that’s different between the two is the Akamai address from gs.apple.com. I figured it would have something to do with CDNs and geographic routing.

Jun 23 at 10:52 AM Nate
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