Win 10 IPV4 name resolution intermittently dropping

Question

I have a Win 10 box on my office network that will intermittently lose it’s ability to resolve IPV4 names. When the issue occurs the user cannot get to any external internet website. I have narrowed the issue down to some type of networking issue on the Win 10 box, but cannot figure out what it might be, or what my next diagnostic steps should be. Here are the diagnostic steps I have tried.

1. Ruled out ISP issue, as all other computers in our small office have internet connection when this issue occurs on this box.

2. Ruled out internal LAN DNS issue, as all boxes receive their DNS and DHCP configuration via dnsmasq. Checked and compared this box with others in the office and there is no significant difference.

3. Compared routing table and arp cache with other working boxes and found no significant difference between them.

Symptoms when the issue is present:

a. Ping external web site by name. Does not work.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping meridianenv.com  
Ping request could not find host meridianenv.com. Please check the name and try again. 

This site is known to be up and responding at the time of this check.

b. Ping external web site by IPV4 address. Works.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping 66.160.145.21  
Pinging 66.160.145.21 with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from 66.160.145.21: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=54  

Ran this test immediately back to back with the previous test. Then immediately reran the previous test and the result was the same as above.

c. Ping to another internal LAN box by name. Works, but responds with IPV6 instead of IPV4.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping jab-prec3610  
Pinging jab-prec3610 [fe80::28f1:3c0b:c6a8:91ea%3] with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from fe80::28f1:3c0b:c6a8:91ea%3: time<1ms  

d. Ping to another internal LAN box by IPV4 number. Works. This is the same box as immediately above.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping 192.168.112.101  
Pinging 192.168.112.101 with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from 192.168.112.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128  

e. Ping from another internal LAN box, back to the problem box, by name. Works.

C:\Users\jeffb>ping acct-opti5040  
Pinging acct-opti5040.mei.lan [192.168.112.108] with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from 192.168.112.108: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128  

f. Ping from another internal LAN box, back to the problem box, by IPV4 address. Works.

C:\Users\jeffb>ping 192.168.112.108  
Pinging 192.168.112.108 with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from 192.168.112.108: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128  

When the box is working properly I reran these same tests, and the following two results changed (items a and c above).

a. Ping external web site by name. Works.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping meridianenv.com  
Pinging meridianenv.com [66.160.145.21] with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from 66.160.145.21: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=54  

c. Ping to another internal LAN box by name. Works and returns with IPV4 info.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping jab-prec3610  
Pinging jab-prec3610.mei.lan [192.168.112.101] with 32 bytes of data:  
Reply from 192.168.112.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128  

Other things I have tried:

1. Flush the Windows DNS cache. Did not fix the issue.

   C:\WINDOWS\system32>ipconfig /flushdns
   Windows IP Configuration
   Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.

2. Reset the IPV4 interface.

   C:\WINDOWS\system32>netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log
   Resetting Interface, OK!
   Resetting Unicast Address, OK!
   Resetting Neighbor, OK!
   Resetting Path, OK!
   Resetting , failed.
   Access is denied.
   Restart the computer to complete this action.

Not sure if this is successful, as it says resetting failed and access is denied. Then it states that it requires a reboot to take effect. While resetting the interface and rebooting the system may temporarily resolve the issue it is impossible to tell if the resolution is a result of the reset or the reboot. Since the system has been rebooted each day, this does not appear to be a solution to the issue.

3. Reset the IPV6 interface.

   C:\WINDOWS\system32>netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log
   Resetting Interface, OK!
   Resetting Neighbor, OK!
   Resetting Path, OK!
   Resetting , failed.
   Access is denied.
   Resetting , OK!
   Resetting , OK!
   Restart the computer to complete this action.

Same conclusion as with resetting the IPV4 interface above. This does not appear to be a solution to the issue.

This issue does not occur with any of the other Windows boxes in the office (mostly Win 7, and one other Win10 box). When the issue happens, it may only occur for a minute or two, or may last for 10 plus minutes. I can not correlate when it happens, or when it fixes itself, to anything else happening on our network.

I am looking for additional suggestions as to what might be causing this issue, diagnostic options, or what might fix it.

Thanks for any assistance.