0

I previously had a lot of domains blocked using my HOSTS file, but after a reboot it took several minutes for DNS to begin resolving to anything. So I disabled DNS caching as I saw recommended online.

This all became too much of a hassle and I have reverted my HOSTS file back to be much simpler. Now every web/DNS request seems to take much longer than it should, nothing is being cached. Running the command net start dnscache or net stop dnscache results in

The service is starting or stopping.  Please try again later.

Investigating further, the DNS Client service in Windows has a "Starting" status and is not changing.

Windows Services

System Configuration (MSConfig) shows "Start Pending"

MSConfig

What do I need to do to get this back to a working state again? Web browsing works but it is slower than usual. Other devices on my same network behave normally so I know it's an issue with this machine (windows 11 Home)

EDIT to show the dependencies for the DNS Client service DNS Client Service Dependencies

Improve this question
7
  • Do you have any event in the event log relating to starting and stopping DNS, that would be the first place to look. Also right click the service, properties, dependencies. Are the services it depends on in the running state?
    – GeneMoody-Action1
    Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 16:31
  • Have you rebooted?
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 16:51
  • @GeneMoody-Action1 See my update to show the dependencies and yes I have rebooted, nothing has changed
    – Chris Barr
    Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 16:58
  • Are all of those services running, and again what are events surrounding this, maybe clear the system and application logs, reboot to this state, and check them?
    – GeneMoody-Action1
    Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 17:03
  • Yes, those 4 dependent services are running. The event log for Microsoft > Windows > DNS Client Events shows 0 events. I have now cleared out the application & system events and rebooted again (is that what you meant by "reboot to this state"?) - no changes
    – Chris Barr
    Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 17:57

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

So this is not a 100% solution as my service is still stuck in the "starting" mode, but I have managed to speed up my DNS resolution so using the internet feels normal again. However I'm not clear on why this all works at all if the DNS Client has not been started... Whatever I guess, this at least mostly works for me for now.

I browse with Firefox, it can do it's own DNS resolution. I had previously disabled this but I changed the "Enable secure DNS using:" setting back to "Default Protection"

In Powershell as Admin I ran Clear-DnsClientCache

In the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Dnscache

There is a Start key which should be set to 2 to mean "automatic startup" - it was already set to that. All good there (source)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters
  • Add DWORD named MaxCacheTtl with value 86400
  • Add DWORD named MaxNegativeCacheTtl with value 5

Finally, restart.

Things are not perfect but it works for now and browsing is at a normal feeling speed again. An issue I am still noticing is my Spotify client will not connect or is extremely slow. I can use Spotify web client, but not the desktop app. Not sure why.

Also there seemed to have been a service issue with my ISP while I was trying to diagnose this, so that sure didn't help either.

Improve this answer
0

I want to point anyone to the answer on a similar question I asked - Basically the "real" solution here is to reinstall Windows. It's extreme but it worked!

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .