Google Cache / CDN issues

I'm having issues with some google services, for example YouTube videos loosing quality randomly, YouTube avatars not displaying from time to time, being unable to download something from Google Drive and stuff like that. If that happens, when I try to access let's say a YouTube avatar with this link:

https://yt3.ggpht.com/-rwG6jZ7xjEE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/B1O-rC_btvs/s76-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg

I get a 404 error.

I discovered that when this happens the domain yt3.ggpht.com points (using ping or traceroute) to address 203.208.50.44 or similar. And when I try pinging it the pings are between 300-1000ms with a 10-25% packet loss.

However, when I use another connection, the ip address for that domain is for example 172.217.20.193 with ping ranging from 9ms to 11ms. The addresses are usually starting from 172. and 216.

But when I do a nslookup from my OpenWrt router, I get this response:

Server:		127.0.0.1
Address:	127.0.0.1#53

Name:      yt3.ggpht.com
yt3.ggpht.com	canonical name = photos-ugc.l.googleusercontent.com
Name:      photos-ugc.l.googleusercontent.com
Address 1: 74.125.128.132
Address 2: 64.233.171.132
Address 3: 173.194.219.132
Address 4: 203.208.43.76
Address 5: 203.208.43.75
Address 6: 203.208.43.74
Address 7: 203.208.43.106
Address 8: 203.208.43.108
Address 9: 203.208.43.107
Address 10: 203.208.50.43
Address 11: 203.208.50.42
Address 12: 203.208.50.44
Address 13: 64.233.184.132
Address 14: 74.125.126.132
Address 15: 108.177.12.132
Address 16: 74.125.23.132
Address 17: 74.125.28.132
Address 18: 74.125.200.132
yt3.ggpht.com	canonical name = photos-ugc.l.googleusercontent.com
Address 19: 2a00:1450:400c:c0b::84

Of course, these change, but I never see addresses starting with 172. and 216.
From the list above, only one IP address is giving me good results - 74.125.128.132 (60-80ms, which is fine because I use LTE connection), the rest ranges from 200-500 ms

Ping statistics for 203.208.50.44:
    Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 83, Lost = 17 (17% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 319ms, Maximum = 491ms, Average = 440ms

Can you state the actual issue you're having with the OpenWrt device, please?

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My best guess that it's more to do with the route (as in internet route to server) and have nothing to do with the router. Because when the other topic (by @ahmar16, referenced by @vgaetera above) was opened, I did some testing on my other router (running a different firmware) and also had issues with these sites.

My test wasn't through, so not conclusive, but just indicative.

So I added one last post to my topic above and it should help in rectifying DNS related issues.

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Thanks guys for help, I managed to troubleshoot that problem and found out that there was a problem with my ISP's DNS server. Now I switched to 1.1.1.1 both IPv4 and IPv6. I'm able to use Google Drive and the images in YouTube display correctly.

However, I'm still having issues with YouTube randomly stopping buffering for like 30 seconds and/or loosing quality (switching from 1080p down to 240/360/480). The interesting fact is that when it freezes and I reload the page, everything is back to normal. I don't think it is internet speed issue, because I'm getting between 80 to 120 Mbps. Also if it was a speed issue I would probably notice speed dropping during large file downloads? I'm completely out of ideas for this one, I was pretty sure it was related to DNS aswell. It's also hard to get the moment - it might happen once in every 10 videos or few times in one.

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You could try an alternative video streaming service (preferably some 4K videos) and see if you will observe same behaviour. I imagine it could happen during download but you don't notice it because you wouldn't be "watching" the download speed.

For now I can tell you that this does not happen with HBO GO (but I think it is streaming in 1080p). My fiancee is watching a series for past 3 hours and she is not reporting any issues with loosing quality or buffering. I'm pretty certain that the problem happens only with YouTube, no matter of time and/or number of users, but I will try watching few 4K videos somewhere else.

It doesn't have to be 4K; thought the bigger the stream the easier it's to detect small interruptions. Though if it's frequent with HD on Youtube and you have seen none on other platforms then it's likely to be something to do with the DNS and the routing.

You could probably ask @ahmar16 if he has noticed something similar, as these issues seems to correlate to certain parts of the world, while other sues haven't seen them.