[topcat]

The problem is that if I try to use my browser (either Chimera or Safari) to visit a server that the DNS can't find, the browser can never find any new addresses after that - all attempts produce the "x.y.z could not be found" message, even for well known sites! Only a reboot fixes this. I can still browse sites I visited prior to getting the first error message, so those sites are remembered and my internet connection still works. This seems to happen regardless of the order in which I list the DNS servers in Network Preferences. It makes no difference whether my laptop is connected to the LAN at work or through a cable modem at home. Interestingly, Network Utility is still able to get addresses from the DNS even though the browser cannot! I'm using OS 10.2.3 on a Pismo. Any thoughts?

[ghporter]

You're saying that exiting your browser and restarting it doesn't help? Interesting... I think that your problem is not related to your network setup as much as it is related to your ISP's DNS servers. They are either not maintaining the correct server addresses, or their servers are not working correctly. Of course browsing around a bunch of sites that can't be found isn't the best way to spend your time, but that's beside the point.

Next time this happens, go into your Network Utility and see what's listed for server addresses. See if you can disconnect and then reconnect to your provider instead of rebooting. If your IP address is assigned automatically, see what happens if you leave the DNS entries blank-they should be automatically assigned as well.

[topcat]

When this happened again, I tried adding a new DNS at the top of the list of servers in Network Preferences. This corrected the problem without rebooting or restarting the browser. Not sure why. Maybe that server will be better behaved and the problem will disappear. Thanks for the suggestions.

[shiff]

Finally, someone else has this problem. I swear I thought it was me going crazy.

It happens exactly how he says it. On my network at work (test network) we use DHCP and get assigned a group of DNS servers; occasionally I will get a "Page Cannot Be Displayed". I know it is not the internet connection because by ip it is fine. I then thought maybe it is one of the dns servers in the loop that has an issue so I racheted it down for dhcp to assign 1 dns server as a test. Same issue.

Next step, I took that exact same dns server placed it in the network settings and viola, the problem goes away. At the time, I could reproduce this every single time. Either here at the office, at home, and at our data center.

I have not tried it lately or after the 10.2.4 upgrade.. I have just left our Data Center dns server ips in the network settings and everything runs just dandy.

Not a huge deal, but I was new to the mac when it happened and just figured I had a setting wrong even though how these things work is not rocket science no matter what os you use..