Overview
A Windows 10 Home Edition Acer laptop is working just fine when suddenly apps requiring public internet connections start to fail or freeze. Analysis shows that DNS has failed.
I’ve tried everything I can find from many hours of searching that looks halfway appropriate to no avail. Want to avoid reloading the system as I have better things to do on my weekends.
Accessing external systems by IP address works just fine so the hardware itself is up.
Problem Description
DNS operations fail on a specific Windows 10 Home edition system at what appear to be random intervals. The house is full of other computers, both Windows Home and Windows Professional, that keep on working when the one problematic computer stops.
Both the wired and WiFi networks fail.
The failing computer can previously be working for hours, even days, when suddenly DNS stops. I have not yet correlated any particular activity to the failure. Happens with or without Windows 10 updates being present though I remember a few application updates happening, but not the apps (will remember now).
Primary activities are multiple web browsers and putty.
This is a home system on a FIOS router without a real DNS service so the rather large number of “reverse DNS” solutions are inappropriate and will be down voted unless someone gives me reason to hope their solution will applies to Windows Home systems in a home when all other computers are fine.
My windows “hosts” files has the IP addresses and names for a few special systems. A ping on them resolves the correct IP address so such pings work but name look ups still fail.
Problem Diagnostic
The following always happens when the problem is active:
nslookup example.com
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.1.1
(note the upper case K)
When the system is up the Server is populated by the name of the router. In all cases the IP address of the router is provided.
Reboots that work
A “safe boot” restart clears the problem. This needs to be followed by a regular boot.
A shift-restart slow-boot to completely restart the system also works.
Looking for something gentler, and even better, a fix to prevent this error.
What Doesn’t Work
All Network Settings troubleshooter and repair options do not help.
Series of standard ipconfig commands when run as administrator:
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
The following are also useless to me for avoiding reboot as they require it
NETSH winsock reset catalog
NETSH int ipv4 reset reset.log
NETSH int ipv6 reset reset.log
Manually change DNS to 8.8.8.8 (Google public DNS) does not help.
nslookup example.com
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
Server: UnKnown
Address: 8.8.8.8
Have scanned for viruses. Malware Bytes comes up with what looks like a PUP false positive to a Firefox configuration file. Avast Free and Windows Defender find nothing.
-Software Information-
Version: 3.7.1.2839
Components Version: 1.0.586
Update Package Version: 1.0.10708
License: Trial
-System Information-
OS: Windows 10 (Build 17134.765)
CPU: x64
File System: NTFS
User: System
File: 1
PUP.Optional.MyStartTB.ShrtCln, H:\USERS\GILBE\APPDATA\ROAMING\MOZILLA\FIREFOX\PROFILES\JJK24VIY.DEFAULT\PREFS.JS, No Action By User, [122], [301376],1.0.10708
The prefs.js file is full of nothing but calls to the user_pref() function.
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar", 0);
user_pref("app.normandy.first_run", false);
user_pref("app.normandy.startupRolloutPrefs.extensions.fxmonitor.enabled", true);
. . . . .
(DNS request timed out. Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.1.1 is all wrong for me as the solutions assume DNS servers are the issue)
2023-06-26 Edits
Still actively looking for a solution as it has bitten me on other systems as well. Windows-10 Pro and corporate laptop on VPN. Also got a comment on Windows-7 having the same issue.
It is very easy to believe in Windows-7 as this obscure error smells of very old code that comes from the day when memory was much more limited and there was no searious paths to return specific details. Therefore programmers had to get creative, like using an upper case "K", to provide some hints on where mysterious errors came from.
Anyone with acces to kernel and networking source might be able to find it by using a recursive, case sensitve, search for "UnKnown".
The one thing in common is that all of these systems are all connected to an additonal Neatgear GS108 1GB switch that sites between the main FIOS router. The problem was happening on a prior slower router as well.
