One day, our internet just stopped working entirely. Our ISP was fine, router good, but no outside connection and I couldn’t access local devices. I have two Unraid servers. I took a quick glance at them, they were powered on, all looked ok. I decide to power cycle everything. Still no internet. Then I realize that I can still access Google from my phone when on WiFi.. hmm. That would mean… an issue with pi-hole!

I begin to try to diagnose from my phone with a hotspot to my computer. I’m getting warmer but some things just aren’t making sense. I go back and stare at the server running pi-hole. Then it fucking hits me.

I have the pretty odd and totally not ideal home network. I have plans to upgrade everything but currently I have two wifi networks tied to the same WAN. One network is run off of access points so I can get Ethernet to odd areas of the property. The Unraid server hosting pi-hole was connected to an AP and the Ethernet cable I used didn’t have a clip, so it just barely unseated itself from it, breaking the connection. The router+pi-hole config meant also breaking the internet if anything happened to pi-hole or that server. I swapped it for a better cable and it all instantly started working.

Spent that weekend sorting out the network so it doesn’t happen again. It was definitely a head-scratcher.