diff --git a/cmd/cli/dns_proxy.go b/cmd/cli/dns_proxy.go
index d2065ef..44582c5 100644
--- a/cmd/cli/dns_proxy.go
+++ b/cmd/cli/dns_proxy.go
@@ -545,9 +545,11 @@ func (p *prog) proxy(ctx context.Context, req *proxyRequest) *proxyResponse {
 			return nil
 		}
 		// if we have an answer, we should reset the failure count
+		// we dont use reset here since we dont want to prevent failure counts from being incremented
 		if answer != nil {
 			p.um.mu.Lock()
 			p.um.failureReq[upstreams[n]] = 0
+			p.um.down[upstreams[n]] = false
 			p.um.mu.Unlock()
 		}
 		return answer
diff --git a/cmd/cli/upstream_monitor.go b/cmd/cli/upstream_monitor.go
index acc02bb..6e19e38 100644
--- a/cmd/cli/upstream_monitor.go
+++ b/cmd/cli/upstream_monitor.go
@@ -85,8 +85,6 @@ func (um *upstreamMonitor) increaseFailureCount(upstream string) {
 	if failedCount >= maxFailureRequest {
 		um.down[upstream] = true
 		mainLog.Load().Warn().Msgf("upstream %q marked as down immediately (failure count: %d)", upstream, failedCount)
-	} else {
-		um.down[upstream] = false
 	}
 }