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I'm unable to figure out why this one computer on a network cannot resolve URLs. When an address is typed in, the message "Page cannot be displayed" is shown. When the IP is typed in, the page loads. Google was used as a test site.

  • The computer obtains a valid IP through the server.
  • The computer obtains a valid DNS through the server.
  • There is no proxy.
  • There are no erroneous HOST file entries.
  • Windows Firewall is off and no other firewall programs are loaded
  • Cannot ping sites with URL. (i.e. www.google.com receives "Ping request cannot find host www.google.com")
  • Can ping site if IP is used instead of URL. (i.e. 74.125.224.48 "Ping replies received")
  • DNS service on workstation was stopped and started.
  • Computer was rebooted as well as cold booted.
  • Changing the DNS manually to different servers did not fix. (8.8.8.8; 208.67.222.222; 208.67.220.220; internal DNS)
  • IPCONFIG /flushdns after each DNS change did not fix.
  • IE, Firefox, Chrome are all affected.
  • No malware detected on full scan using AVG, Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware.
  • Checked for rootkit with TDSSKiller and none detected.
  • Server is able to browse without issue.
  • Other computers on network can browse without issue.

Any suggestions for what to try next or ideas about what is possibly going on would be appreciated.

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5 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

You want to a use a tool called nslookup. This is command-line tool that is included with Windows, so you already have it. Just open a command prompt, type nslookup, and press enter. Then you can start entering names to resolve. You can change the server it checks against by type "server x.x.x.x", where x.x.x.x is the IP of the new server. Type "quit" when finished.

The other thing I would check is IPv6. You may have a dns server that's returning IPv6 addresses, or a machine that is sending out IPv6 address requests, and then a browser that only knows IPv4 routes to the web.

After that, if and only if you still haven't found the problem, you can try a reset of your ip stack. From a command prompt:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

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Argh... +1 Beat me :P FYI, but you probably know - I only learn't yesterday during some DNS troubles here that you don't need the server command... If you are doing just one lookup for example, you can type "nslookup target server" ! I may be sad, but, I thought it was pretty cool when I found that out! – William Hilsum Oct 19 '11 at 2:47
nslookup returns correct entries. I confirmed the server is not returning IPv6 addresses. I ran the command but it did not resolve the problem. – Mirage Oct 19 '11 at 2:57
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

After all the other suggested options did not work to resolve the problem, I tried a repair install of the OS. I still don't know the root cause of the issue, but that corrected the trouble and the computer can browse normally again.

Thanks to everyone for trying to help figure out the cause.

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up vote 0 down vote

Did you also do IPCONFIG /registerdns after flushing? Can you ping the DNS servers?

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ipconfig /registerdns is not required to resolve remote DNS addresses. It merely registers the current DNS name in the local nameserver. – Hello71 Oct 19 '11 at 0:50
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Can you ping 8.8.8.8? I am guessing yes, and yet DNS requests are not getting through to 8.8.8.8. Something in the path must be blocking it - what can you tell use about your internet connection - do you control the router? If you change your IP manually to one of the PCs that work, does it still fail? – Paul Oct 19 '11 at 1:00
Yes, I can ping 8.8.8.8 and the other DNSs I tried. I changed the IP to another workstation on the network and get the same result. – Mirage Oct 19 '11 at 1:21
It seems likely that the problem is on your machine specifically. You could confirm this by booting a linux livecd and seeing if you can resolve. – Paul Oct 19 '11 at 2:18
It's looking like a restore of some sort will be needed. Wanted to avoid the time consuming step until all other options were exhausted. – Mirage Oct 20 '11 at 11:16
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up vote 0 down vote

When you ping an address say mail.google.com - does DNS resolve and show the IP address or does it say that the host cannot be found? (Checking if DNS is up)

If it does resolve the address, can you use the IP address directly into the browser to go to the site? (Checking if DNS resolving correctly)

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Unable to resolve URLs, but able to ping IP addresses. – Mirage Oct 19 '11 at 2:11
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up vote 0 down vote

I had a similar (but not quite the same) problem a few weeks ago on a Windows 2003 Server. I could ping by IP address but didn't get name resolution even though the DNS servers were setup correctly. Also had some strange characters in place of the hostname when pinging (ping -a x.x.x.x). It was fixed by resetting Winsock:

netsh winsock reset catalog

You'll then need to reboot before you try again.

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I tried the command and rebooted. Computer is still unable to resolve DNS. – Mirage Oct 19 '11 at 20:10
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