Cannot find server+DNS

[John Smith]

Hey,

I'm having a bit of an issue with Internet Explorer(IE6) when trying
to dial-up to my ISP. It keeps coming back with the error 'cannot find
server'. However I can browse to an IP address no bother.
I can also ping the dns servers so i'm connected on their network. I
have no probelm connecting to the internet through my proxy in work on
the LAN on the same PC. Before I upgraded my PC from 2000 to XP i
never had this problem.
One thing i did notice was that when i dial-up to the ISP and check my
settings the DNS connection suffix is blank???
I am using Service Pack 1 also.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.
Tks
Paul

 

[Guest]

Hi, John -

You didn't say whether your machine was running XP Home or XP Professional,
but if it's an XP Professional machine try opening a command prompt window
and typing 'ipconfig /flushdns' (no quotes) and hit the enter key.

If this solves your problem, stop and then disable the DNS Client service in
Control Panel --> Computer Management --> Services

I think your issue is that you're getting slow response from DNS servers so
Windows XP thinks your DNS server is unavailable - and is removing them from
the list of available DNS servers. If all your DNS servers are slow, they
all get removed from the list and then you can't resolve hostnames at all ;-)

The DNS conneciton suffix will be blank unless you're connecting to a Win2k
or Win2k3 domain - it's nothing to worry about.

good luck -

 

[David Efflandt]

Hey,

I'm having a bit of an issue with Internet Explorer(IE6) when trying
to dial-up to my ISP. It keeps coming back with the error 'cannot find
server'. However I can browse to an IP address no bother.

An ISP dialup connection should not try to "Log onto network" (which is
different from authenticating to your ISP). Do you have some sort of
proxy setting in IE? What 'server' is it looking for?

I can also ping the dns servers so i'm connected on their network. I
have no probelm connecting to the internet through my proxy in work on
the LAN on the same PC. Before I upgraded my PC from 2000 to XP i
never had this problem.
One thing i did notice was that when i dial-up to the ISP and check my
settings the DNS connection suffix is blank???

You do not need a DNS suffix unless you want DNS for hostnames without a
domain to search a specific domain for that hostname. Maybe it is looking
for your work proxy and cannot find that at home. Try unchecking your
proxy settings at home.