`BAD (HORIZONTAL) REFERRAL dig: too many lookup` and timeout error

[juniortour]

What is the name of the domain?

us-east-2.juniortour.site

What is the error number?

cURL 28 time out by HTTP request from time to time

What is the issue you’re encountering

Sometimes HTTP request to my Domain proxied by Cloudflare will timeout with cURL 28 time out.

What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?

1. Search through internet.
2. Use different sub domain and server machine.

What feature, service or problem is this related to?

DNS records

What are the steps to reproduce the issue?

Run command:

dig us-east-2.juniortour.site +trace @1.1.1.1

got many msg like:

;; BAD (HORIZONTAL) REFERRAL
;; Received 685 bytes from 212.18.248.61#53(e.nic.site) in 12 ms

site.			142555	IN	NS	a.nic.site.
site.			142555	IN	NS	b.nic.site.
site.			142555	IN	NS	e.nic.site.
site.			142555	IN	NS	f.nic.site.
site.			56155	IN	DS	51676 8 2 883175F6F5C68EA81563B62D1B2B79B6A997D60DC6E20CC70AFD0CD6 B7E82F62
site.			56155	IN	DS	51974 8 2 A06DC47457CC1185CF1B3A7CF6ECCB84978DE92939DD182BEED95215 09D0DA7B
site.			56155	IN	RRSIG	DS 8 1 86400 20240803170000 20240721160000 20038 . Tzdvpfp+2g3K4XtLcL2hflusgxng+AnEL2fmVmdG4Or8Ebtbh2XO9jeJ XQllTX2yDVfWLUhtaupZXztuxh39/tOBV7lqNicV6esKsepcM0hg8QzK NT6tFk3mik0aPRmBtJdmDEL8rnI6xfsCXWg+AE4ojnzyi1O9Xo16xero QgV/EhZQTjiLt/288SZfSog+Q/+zZ0bqDI1w4r06Izp7N2WpwUWqrd6i gLXHC1BcshZ9rq+SAKJDG0Sha0dyERLE2ZDmCVEYnZHfrhAWaydWwR7T XMnnsQkZlEs+TeFvNJKvbXQvKjcBXPP8R+xxFdPNVbjScIqkBVqlI9Qn fULQiQ==
;; BAD (HORIZONTAL) REFERRAL
;; Received 685 bytes from 212.18.248.61#53(e.nic.site) in 14 ms

site.			142555	IN	NS	b.nic.site.
site.			142555	IN	NS	e.nic.site.
site.			142555	IN	NS	f.nic.site.
site.			142555	IN	NS	a.nic.site.
site.			56155	IN	DS	51676 8 2 883175F6F5C68EA81563B62D1B2B79B6A997D60DC6E20CC70AFD0CD6 B7E82F62
site.			56155	IN	DS	51974 8 2 A06DC47457CC1185CF1B3A7CF6ECCB84978DE92939DD182BEED95215 09D0DA7B
site.			56155	IN	RRSIG	DS 8 1 86400 20240803170000 20240721160000 20038 . Tzdvpfp+2g3K4XtLcL2hflusgxng+AnEL2fmVmdG4Or8Ebtbh2XO9jeJ XQllTX2yDVfWLUhtaupZXztuxh39/tOBV7lqNicV6esKsepcM0hg8QzK NT6tFk3mik0aPRmBtJdmDEL8rnI6xfsCXWg+AE4ojnzyi1O9Xo16xero QgV/EhZQTjiLt/288SZfSog+Q/+zZ0bqDI1w4r06Izp7N2WpwUWqrd6i gLXHC1BcshZ9rq+SAKJDG0Sha0dyERLE2ZDmCVEYnZHfrhAWaydWwR7T XMnnsQkZlEs+TeFvNJKvbXQvKjcBXPP8R+xxFdPNVbjScIqkBVqlI9Qn fULQiQ==
;; BAD (HORIZONTAL) REFERRAL
dig: too many lookups

Screenshot of the error

[juniortour]

I also run nslookup on Windows, and I got timeout sometimes too:

This is a bug occurred accidentally, Is there any good way to reproduce it stably?

Thanks for your help sincerely.

[Laudian]

If a trace fails, I would assume that your DNS traffic is intercepted and routed to a different resolver.

Can you show something nonsensical, like dig cloudflare.com @pink.elephant? Or wait, that probably wouldn’t work.

Can you check dig cloudflare.com @google.com?

[juniortour]

Thanks for your help!

I’m usging Windows PC, so I tried nslookup cloudflare.com 8.8.8.8, this is screenshot:

And as I said, the timeout bug occurred accidentally, so maybe it works now, but it will fail next time.

[Laudian]

8.8.8.8 is a real resolver, so that doesn’t help. Try 216.58.210.142 please.

[juniortour]

I got timeout stably with nslookup cloudflare.com 216.58.210.142:

So is there anything wrong with my network?
I’m locate in China mainland, the DNS is complex, I know.

[Laudian]

@juniortour

I got timeout stably with nslookup cloudflare.com 216.58.210.142:

That’s actually good, that is what you should receive. If you had received a result, that would mean your DNS traffic was being intercepted.

On the other hand, it doesn’t really help finding the problem…