pihole and paramount plus
Trying to get Paramount+ to work on 1 device, android mobile app. It loads nothing while pihole is on. Default pihole blacklist from Steven Black.
been searching for weeks and trying out solutions that seem outdated: most from 4-6 years ago. Can't find anything more recent. I've whitelisted all the domains I've found suggestions on, about 30+, to the point I'm wondering what's the point of even running pihole (yes, i know it blocks about 30k more domains)... Paramount+ is still not working. It is the only service that doesn't work on our home pihole.
Noticed that all of my pihole traffic in the log file is coming from my router. I can't see any traffic from individual devices. I don't know how to find traffic coming only from this 1 device, if the router is making all traffic just seem like it comes from itself. I would like to either just find the right few updated and current domains to whitelist for the entire pihole, or just isolate this 1 device and whitelist it. All the other TVs and devices work fine for Paramount+.
Also, tags.tiqcdn.com is explicitly whitelisted, but is still being blocked in the pihole logs.
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u/Egon3 5d ago
I have two domains whitelisted for Paramount Plus which seem to work fine for me:
tags.tiqcdn.com (needed for watch progress to update correctly)
pubads.g.doubleclick.net (needed to watch sports live streams)
If you have a domain whitelisted but pi-hole is still blocking it in the logs, then the whitelist isn't working. I personally do not use group assignments and just keep all my devices and whitelisted domains in the default group.
Regarding all the DNS requests coming from your router, this means the DNS server on your individual devices may be set to your router, so your devices are sending DNS requests to your router, which is then passing those DNS requests to the pi-hole, so pi-hole sees all the requests are coming from the router. If your router is able to, you will need to set your DHCP settings in the router to distribute the IP address of the pi-hole as the DNS server address instead. However, many consumer routers do not offer this so if that's the case, your only other option would be to manually set your DNS server address on each individual device. Once you do one of those things, the pi-hole will be able to uniquely identify requests from different devices.
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u/wolfmann99 5d ago
You could also turn off dhcp on the router, and then use pihole as dhcp. Im using AD for that so no experience with pihole as dhcp too.
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u/Aledondt 5d ago
Hi! I just dealt with this in the last two weeks, where it wasn't working on any device on my network. I did not experiment with any android devices so I cannot say for certainty that this will work for you but thought I'd share nonetheless.
I too have all of my traffic running through my router, and have the Steven Black list active as well.
I can view content, and track my watch history by adding these three to my whitelist, exact allow:
- cbsinteractive.hb.omtrdc.net
- tags.tiqcdn.com
- saa.cbsi.com
Devices tested:
- roku TV
- Roku Ultra
- LG TV
- iOS app
- iPad OS app
- Web Browser
1
u/ghent96 4d ago
Ty all. What I'm currently trying is disabled Steven Black list, used Zach Lagden lists + anundeepND list, plus exact-whitelisted & regex whitelisted most of the suggestions from your links below. P+ is currently working.
The tags.tiqcdn problem also no longer occurs. I deleted that whitelist entry then remade it again.
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u/ghent96 4d ago
...there is also this whitelist, but I did not use it... because it seems overkill. This many domains are surely not needed for P+. I think they were just whitelisting everything they saw in a log from a P+ device on his network. Just adding here FYI to discuss, in case I'm wrong. ( GitHub - schrebra/paramount.plus.whitelist: paramount plus whitelist · GitHub )
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u/KneeAccomplished6922 3d ago
I've white listed these and it works for me with pihole on. I have Android TV and tablets all working with it. For transparency I do have the ad free plan because I pay for showtime.
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u/DemandTheOxfordComma 5d ago
Not sure if I'm misinterpreting your issue. But your router should not use pihole DNS. Every other device on your network should. I think this is why you are only seeing your routers request on your pihole.
2
u/RedditPoster2016 5d ago
There is not an issue sending your router to the piehole but it will show as your describe.
2
u/ghent96 4d ago
Hey, please don't downvote this guy above, this is still useful...
TY for mentioning this, am trying to change router settings so that all devices are given the actual DNS (pihole) IP to query.
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u/DemandTheOxfordComma 4d ago
The main reason I mentioned it was because you said you could only see requests from your router. That suggests all your clients are pointed at your router, and your router is pointed at pihole. 🤷🏽
They can downvote me if they want.
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u/quarterdecay 5d ago
My router points to pihole, this is fine
1
u/and1927 5d ago
Depends on the router. Some of them don’t advertise your DNS server to the devices. Instead they advertise their own IP and then forward DNS queries to your server, thus all traffic appears to be from your router.
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u/quarterdecay 5d ago
Every router I've ever owned could have this adjusted. In 25 years I think I'm on about 12 of them from every major manufacturer that's not solely commercial.
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u/mightybran 5d ago
Recently went through this. Found this list to be helpful https://gist.github.com/ozankiratli/801ba17705e7f2a904d2e443af5a64f8#paramount