[[email protected]]

I upgraded to version 10.2.6 yesterday, using the combo updater (in respect to numerous advice lately to stay away from the other).

Now I'm getting a heap of troubles with accessing web pages. Every now and then Safari begins complaining about servers not being found. Playing about with the dns-config, I discovered altering the sequence (I've got 3 dns addresses listed.) helped; I could again access the 'missing' pages.

And after a while, the same things happens. Altering the dns list once or twice seems to do the trick again. But I can't keep doing this, now can I?

And just to make the point: This _only_ happens with my 10.2.6 iBook; not with the PCs around me.

This is sembarrassing...


Bankmann

[SMacTech]

Are your DNS servers local to you or out in the internet? Possibly you are having a time-out issue with them. When you get a failure for a website in Safari, what does NSLookup reveal at that moment? Try pinging your DNS servers and see if you are getting any packet loss or unusually long return times.
I assume you are using a manual IP and you are not using DHCP.

[kennethmac2000]

I'm starting to wonder if the problems in 10.2.6 are because of the new version of the kernel that it includes.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by kennethmac2000:
I'm starting to wonder if the problems in 10.2.6 are because of the new version of the kernel that it includes.

I don't know, but I have not had any problems with 10.2.6 on 7 Macs that I have installed it on.

[MasonMcD]

I also started having DNS troubles recently. It was limited to the infopop boards at ArsTechnica, so I stuck their IP addy in my hosts file as a fall-back when the DNS fails.

But, yeah, the DNS thing is weird. Only certain addresses.

[gatorparrots]

Originally posted by MasonMcD:
I also started having DNS troubles recently. It was limited to the infopop boards at ArsTechnica, so I stuck their IP addy in my hosts file as a fall-back when the DNS fails.

FYI, /etc/hosts is referenced before a DNS lookup occurs, so you have effectively trumped DNS lookup for that domain name. It isn't a "fallback", in this case.

lookupd -configuration

Code:
...
LookupOrder: CacheAgent FFAgent DNSAgent  NIAgent DSAgent
_config_name: Host Configuration
...

(The default lookup order in 10.2 is: cache, flat files, DNS, NetInfo, DS)

[[email protected]]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Are your DNS servers local to you or out in the internet? Possibly you are having a time-out issue with them. When you get a failure for a website in Safari, what does NSLookup reveal at that moment? Try pinging your DNS servers and see if you are getting any packet loss or unusually long return times.
I assume you are using a manual IP and you are not using DHCP.

Yes, I have to. For some reason Mac OS X very often refuses to receive any DHCP configuration apart from IP address and network mask form Win2K DHCP servers. I don't know why, but it's a pain.

I've also discovered that switching between locations (configurations) unlocks the dns block.

For the time being, I'm not upgrading my G4...

Anyone know how to downgrade to 10.2.5?



Bankmann

[dlefebvre]

It's not related with DNS, but with 10.2.5, I was getting more and more Kernel Panics. It started with one, once in a while, but at the end I was crashing at least once a day, sometimes 2 or 3. I felt I was back with OS9 again (no offense). In fact I got more crash in a week with 10.2.5 than with 10.0 thru 10.2.4 combined. I read it had something to do with USB (I just read about it, I don't necessarily understand it). anyway, since I upgraded to 10.2.6, no more Kernel Panics. It stable as before.

[DeathMan]

So what can we do about it? I'm getting these really long annoying pauses regardless of which DNS I'm using. Its the old Safari goes about 1/5th of the way and just sits there forever. Sometimes I'll stop it and try to reload the page. Nothing seems to work consistently. It does it from home and from my work (.edu bandwidth with own dns)

[Rainy Day]

So what can we do about it? I'm getting these really long annoying pauses regardless of which DNS I'm using. Its the old Safari goes about 1/5th of the way and just sits there forever. Sometimes I'll stop it and try to reload the page. Nothing seems to work consistently. It does it from home and from my work (.edu bandwidth with own dns)

I had this problem once. Turned out i had a bad IP address or two in the "DNS servers" box of my TCP/IP configuration. When trying the resolve an IP address, the system does a round-robin lookup. If any DNS server is off-line, unavailable or nonexistent, the OS will twiddle its thumbs until it times out (seems like a minute or two) before moving on to the next one.

[topcat]

I had the same problem on my Pismo with 10.2.3 and every OS version since then. Not all the time, but enough to be annoying. Reordering the DNA servers in Network Prefs often fixes it. Also changing to a "Location" with another IP (e.g., from staic to dynamic), if you can do that. Also, just unplugging the ethernet cable for a while and then reconnecting often fixes it. But its a pain. One interesting point: it only seems to happen when I'm connected to the ethernet at work, not on my Airport home network.

[[email protected]]

Now, I'm trying not to get over-excited here, but...

So far today I haven't had even a single dns crap out...

I haven't bothered lately with using my iBook at work because of the DNS-problem. Except for about half an hour two days ago; downloading some upgrades from Apple (although not installing). I didn't have any problems then, either.

Today I've been downloading and browsing for a few hours. And so far, so good!

And the only thing I've done is to change my network drop cable. Monday, in fact.

I'm reluctant to accept this as the solution, though... since I was using the old cable with both 10.2.4 and 10.2.5 without any problems...



Bankmann

[[email protected]]

So far today I haven't had even a single dns crap out...
Bankmann [/B]

There's such a thing as cursing in a church. Or throwing giant pebbles about in crystalware glass houses.

My dns lookup crapped out again...

*sigh*


Bankmann
(aka Mr-Expletive-Deleted!)

[[email protected]]

I'm still not breaking out the champagne, but things are running along a little easier now...

Yesterday really turned out to deserve its nomer. Every second klicked link turned out with dead dns syndrome. Apple's sites (any and all), as well as quite a few foreign sites (I'm browsing from Norway) were unreachable, no matter what I tried.

As a last desperate attempt I removed several 'locations' that I'm not using at the moment, as well as whiping the dns addresses for my current 'location' - replacing them with the public dns addresses of Fast DNS Servers.Com. Haven't had a crap out since.

Oh, and, yes - I did test before replacing the dns addresses...

We're running our own inhouse dns (on Win2K Adv Srv w/Active Directory) in conjunction with our ISP's dns. No PC user has any trouble, but I'm beginning to wonder whether this setup is 'lethal' to Mac OS X?




Bankmann

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by [email protected]:
I'm still not breaking out the champagne, but things are running along a little easier now...

We're running our own inhouse dns (on Win2K Adv Srv w/Active Directory) in conjunction with our ISP's dns. No PC user has any trouble, but I'm beginning to wonder whether this setup is 'lethal' to Mac OS X?

The only thing different in our setup is our DNS servers talk directly to the named servers and not our ISP's.
We are running Win2k SP3 AD, but not advanced server.

[Angus_D]

Occasionally lookupd starts going up the creek randomly. If this happens on a regular basis, your best bet is to reinstall the OS. Yes, this sucks.

[Freeflyer]

OK, I'm glad it's not just me.

The lookup problem is getting out of hand. It's getting to the point that I'd rather go and use my old pc for browsing than the powerbook since the upgrade to .6.

It all worked fine before, so what have they changed and when are they going to fix it.

I don't expect to do an os reinstall to fix this. My DNS settings are fine, and if I ping the servers I get nice returns averaging around 35ms.

Anything else that I can do or try?

Cheers,

J.

[Angus_D]

It's probably not related to the .6 update.

[Hugi]

When setting up a new server, I noticed that NS lookups did not work correctly. nslookup would never return an address, but sometimes, other software would.

The problem turned out to be that OS X was bugged about our DNS server not having a name assigned to it's IP address.

Perhaps that might be your problem?

[Freeflyer]

Some wothwhile ideas (how do you name a dns server?) but doesn't explain why it's only been happening since the .6 update. Nothing else on my system has changed.

Before it was fine, now it's a pain in the a$$.

J.

[antosha]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Occasionally lookupd starts going up the creek randomly. If this happens on a regular basis, your best bet is to reinstall the OS. Yes, this sucks.

Hi, I ran .6 upgrade through Software Update last night on my PB Rev B 667. The first thing that was unusual was that all my Locations were missing. Airport was off, and in the Airport status pulldown in the status bar there was no option to enable it at first.

After adding a location, and selecting DHCP, Airport icon showed a connection, but i was unable to resolve hosts.

I rebooted, and DHCP option was <i>gone</i> from the System Preferences -> Network -> AirPort -> TCP/IP -> Configure pulldown (the only thing I have is "Manually", "Using PPP", "AOL Dialup". The AirPort status does not appear in the menu bar anymore even though I do have that checked off. I tried connecting with an ethernet to my router, but that doesn't give my powerbook an IP.

Also, "Sharing" in System Preferences does not load (just stuck on "Loading Sharing...").

Has anyone reported problems like this since the .6 upgrade? Do you have any suggestions on how I can remedy this?

Thanks,

Anthony

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by hugi:

The problem turned out to be that OS X was bugged about our DNS server not having a name assigned to it's IP address.

That is very odd that a DNS server does not have a name. You cannot setup one without a name, in all of my experience in doing it.

[Hugi]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
That is very odd that a DNS server does not have a name. You cannot setup one without a name, in all of my experience in doing it.

You can indeed set one up without a name, although it is not advisable and can cause errtic behaviour. (in this case we were just setting up the server on a different IP-address from the final one).

- H

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

I'm not sure if this is relevant to any of your problems, but I had trouble with DNS resolving all through the weekend - bizarrely Safari seems the best client, consistently failing less than IE on XP and OS 9.

The solution for me was to unplug the modem router (ADSL), wait 25 minutes - the time it takes BT to drop the connection apparently - then plug it back in.

[Sarc]

this is really starting to get into my nerves ...
can't browse, can't ping, rendezvous appears to be half-broken too.
it's definetly DNS related, checking the console logs I get all sorts of DNS errors ...

damn !

[Freeflyer]

Where can you check console logs. I'd like to look and see if I'm getting similar errors.

Thanks,

J.