Ok so for about a week my computer has been royally pissing me off in the worst way possible. My laptop is a vertitable Porsche of a system. 32GB of RAM… Intel i7 Processor… 1TB SSD… it isn’t new but it’s a top of the line system and I take better care of my laptop than I do my own body (okay, that’s not entirely true… well maybe). Today I met my match with a “Resolving Host” issue… let me explain.
The internet service we have at home is blazing. Everything is fast. I’m not one of those stupid click-happy users who downloads spyware, malware and potentially unwanted programs. I know how malware works (heck, I even reverse engineer it in my spare time using IDA PRO and gdb). I’m not a novice or new user. I pay attention to what I click.
But here’s the thing: for the past month or so my computer has been slugging along and I never really took the time to figure out why. And to be more exact: it wasn’t the computer itself but rather my browsers.
My main go to browser is Google Chrome. I have Microsoft Edge and Firefox Quantum but I still use Chrome because I’m used to it and all my extensions live there.
Sometimes rebooting my computer would temporarily speed things up but it didn’t always fix things.
Now before I get into my issue and how I fixed it I need you to know something about me. I used to work the Help Desk in college and I did Tier 2 and Tier 3 technical support at IBM as my first job. I know how this stuff works.
But what really pisses me off is when I need to use Help Desk skills on my personal computer. It’s like I have this innate believe that tech guys should be immune to computer problems. It’s like I’m blaming God saying, “Hey, this can happen to everyone else but not me! It’s not fair!” wha wha wha! And then I start whining like a baby.
So whenever my computer starts acting weird I usually don’t apply the same critical thinking skills to my personal machine that I do to a client or customer.
Anyway, over the past few weeks my browser would continually say, “Resolving Host” in the status bar.
It was the most annoying thing in the world. I pop open Google Chrome, and it says, “Resolving Host” in the status bar. And it just hangs there… it doesn’t matter if I refresh the page or close and open the browser, Chrome is stuck in “Resolving Host“.
After a few minutes it would sometimes fix itself but I couldn’t find any rhyme or reason to it.
Until today.
How to Fix “Resolving Host…” In Chrome
So here’s the thing – if you’ve ever experienced this error the first thing you need to fix is yourself: stay calm. There is hope.
Resolving Host means there’s a problem… resolving the host.
To be more precise, it means there’s a problem with DNS. The Domain Name Service, is the internet service that’s responsible for translating domain names, such as fixedbyvonnie.com to an IP address. If this step fails you’ll never be able to browse any where.
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_CONFIG huh?
One other thing: when you see this “Resolving Host” issue sometimes the page does eventually error out. In my case, it displayed the following error:
This site can't be reached google.com's server IP address could not be found. Try: Checking the proxy, firewall, and DNS configuration Running Windows Network Disgnostics DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_CONFIG
w00t.
And yes, I actually clicked the “Checking the proxy, firewall, and DNS configuration” and “Running Windows Network Diagnostics” links and neither helped one bit.
So here’s how I fixed this super annoying issue (and here’s what you need to do right now to fix this problem.”
First we need to open an elevated command prompt.
Hit the Windows Key, type “cmd” and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.
1. Flush DNS
This is a quick way to open the command prompt as an Administrator. Now we’re going to flush the local DNS cache on your system. If the local cache gets corrupted it can affect your ability to browse the web because the name-to-IP mappings will be invalid.
Bust open the command prompt and type this exactly:
ipconfig /flushdns
Alright, good now we need to use netsh to reset your IP settings.
Using netsh to reset TCP/IP
We’re going to type:
netsh int ip reset
yeah baby!
netsh is a command line scripting utility that system admins use to automated tasks and configure various aspects of the local computer. We’re using this magical tool to reset our TCP/IP protocol stack. This trick is a lifesaver – it saved my but tonight – and that’s why I’m sharing it with you.
After it completes it’ll ask you to reboot.
You can type:
shutdown /r /t 0
That’s a zero not an “oh”. It says, restart the computer and wait zero seconds. In other words, do it now.
When the box comes back up all should be well.
What to do if that didn’t work
If you’re still having problems resolving host after following my above suggestions then make sure:
You aren’t using a Proxy. Hit the Windows Key, type “inetcpl.cpl”, hit the “Connections” tab, choose “LAN Settings” and make sure everything is unchecked. Everything, meaning: “Automatically detect settings”, “Use Automatic Configuration Script” and “Use a proxy server for your LAN”
Secondly, make sure you’re IP and DNS settings are set to use DHCP.
Hit the Windows Key again, type “ncpa.cpl”, double-click your Adapter, go to “Properties”, double click “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and make sure everything is set to “Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain DNS server address automatically”
If you still have the problem after making this change, either reboot your internet router or manually change your DNS server to 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 or 4.2.2.2.
Sounds crazy I know but just do it. Sorry to sound mean – but it works.
Alright that’s all I have I hope this was helpful – if it was remember to share this post with your friends and leave a comment! Thanks!
Oh yeah, and Happy New Year! hehe.
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