SmartDNS + Android 5.1 (Lillipop) devices broken due to IPv6?

[AlexHK]

I've been using Amazon Fire TV using a SmartDNS service for a while using my RT-N66U and AsusWRT-Merlin 380.57. This works by simply adding the Wifi to the Fire TV and manually setting the "smart" DNS IP addresses on the device. All good. I am in Asia but can watch US Amazon videos.

A few weeks ago Amazon rolled out an update to their new firmware (Fire OS 5.0.5) which is based on Android 5.1. Now people like me have a problem. The combination of Android 5.1 and IPv6 seems to cause issues. People have successfully solved this problem by switching off IPv6 on their routers/modems, but this doesn't seem to do the trick in my case.

I talked to the u*locator support today (Smart DNS Service I use). They say it's because of IPv6 that seems to break their service. Under settings → system → about → network, the DNS is not in IPv4 but IPv6 format. Apparently Android 5.1 (Fire OS 5.0.5) and my cable provider plus the Fritz!Box Router I am forced to use by them don't go well together in this combination. Former OS version was based on Android 4.2.2. - no problems. I found several reported issues in other contexts (smartphone wifi, smartphone push notifications, etc.) with the keywords IPv6 in combination of Android Lollipop, my ISP and the router I gotta use. So it seems I am unlucky with this combination.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/help/smartdns-service-doesnt-anymore-fire-os-t3320449

I have disabled IPv6 in both

Connection type: disabled
Enable Router Advertisement: disabled

Not sure what else I could do.

The backup solution I have is to use VPN via my RT-N66U for the Fire TV's IP address. This works, but due to the slow VPN speed it's a bit slow and FireTV seems to automatically downgrade the resolution on slower connections...

 

[AlexHK]

Problem seems to be solved and unrelated to the IPv6 issue reported by other users.

Again, there was no problem on the old Fire OS (Android), but the issue started with the latest update to Android 5.1 by Amazon.

I noticed that despite having configured the IP address on the device as static with own gateway and DNS IP of my smart DNS provider, it would still show me the DNS IP addresses used by my Asus router (OpenDNS) under System > About > Network (on the Fire TV). So it would simply ignore the manually entered info.

Removing the Fire TV from "Manually Assigned IP around the DHCP list", where it was as a left over from times where I used VPN, solved the problem.

Why Android would despite having all info setup as static IP still query DHCP I can't explain.

Apologies for the dust.