diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 9a12b9b73..af6fc0c5f 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -21,8 +21,8 @@ at anytime.
   *
 
 ### Changed
-  *
-  *
+  * keep track of failures for DHT peers for up to ten minutes instead of indefinitely
+  * skip ignored peers from iterative lookups instead of blocking the peer who returned them to us too
 
 ### Added
   *
diff --git a/lbrynet/dht/constants.py b/lbrynet/dht/constants.py
index bf48d005c..28b17e74d 100644
--- a/lbrynet/dht/constants.py
+++ b/lbrynet/dht/constants.py
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@ rpcTimeout = 5
 
 # number of rpc attempts to make before a timeout results in the node being removed as a contact
 rpcAttempts = 5
+# time window to count failures (in seconds)
+rpcAttemptsPruningTimeWindow = 600
 
 # Delay between iterations of iterative node lookups (for loose parallelism)  (in seconds)
 iterativeLookupDelay = rpcTimeout / 2
diff --git a/lbrynet/dht/contact.py b/lbrynet/dht/contact.py
index 51eb10fe1..2df93a675 100644
--- a/lbrynet/dht/contact.py
+++ b/lbrynet/dht/contact.py
@@ -185,5 +185,12 @@ class ContactManager(object):
         return contact
 
     def is_ignored(self, origin_tuple):
-        failed_rpc_count = len(self._rpc_failures.get(origin_tuple, []))
+        failed_rpc_count = len(self._prune_failures(origin_tuple))
         return failed_rpc_count > constants.rpcAttempts
+
+    def _prune_failures(self, origin_tuple):
+        # Prunes recorded failures to the last time window of attempts
+        pruning_limit = self._get_time() - constants.rpcAttemptsPruningTimeWindow
+        pruned = list(filter(lambda t: t >= pruning_limit, self._rpc_failures.get(origin_tuple, [])))
+        self._rpc_failures[origin_tuple] = pruned
+        return pruned
diff --git a/lbrynet/dht/iterativefind.py b/lbrynet/dht/iterativefind.py
index 5b0e9c992..f1158d10d 100644
--- a/lbrynet/dht/iterativefind.py
+++ b/lbrynet/dht/iterativefind.py
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ class _IterativeFind(object):
                 if (contactTriple[1], contactTriple[2]) in ((c.address, c.port) for c in self.already_contacted):
                     continue
                 elif self.node.contact_manager.is_ignored((contactTriple[1], contactTriple[2])):
-                    raise ValueError("contact is ignored")
+                    continue
                 else:
                     found_contact = self.node.contact_manager.make_contact(contactTriple[0], contactTriple[1],
                                                                            contactTriple[2], self.node._protocol)