Bug 18455 – DNS resolves fail in Webkit even though they work for FireFox and ping

• Status: RESOLVED
• Resolution: INVALID
• Component: New Bugs

I have a domain which was newly connected, so when I first tried to visit it, the resolve failed, I couldn't ping, just what is expected. But after a while, ping succeeded and FireFox could access the website.

Webkit still insisted the server cannot be found, even after restarting Webkit this didn't work.

Catfish_Man was nice and provided the command "sudo dscacheutil -flushcache" which "fixed" the issue for me, but still this might be a larger problem? Here is an IRC discussion about it:

<sebastian> How is it possible that webkit cannot find a URL that is pingable and Firefox can connect to it?
<sebastian> Webkit tells me it cannot find the server
<sebastian> Does it cache DNS requests even after I close it?
<sebastian> Because it is a newly connected domain
<Catfish_Man> sebastian: sounds like it could indeed be dns caching. I've seen issues with that before, although with Adium+MSN, not Safari
<sebastian> I wonder what I could do to reset that cache
<sebastian> "emptying the cache" doesn't do the trick
<Catfish_Man> sebastian: try sudo dscacheutil -flushcache 
<sebastian> works now
<sebastian> is this expected behaviour or a bug? I think it shouldn't cache when the browser is closed inbetween... hm
<Catfish_Man> sebastian: the cache is at the OS level, so it doesn't know anything about browsers
<Catfish_Man> but, I'd assume it's a bug
<sebastian> how do ping and firefox get it right, then?
<sebastian> ok
<Catfish_Man> probably by using APIs that don't use the cache
<Catfish_Man> although I don't know the details, just guessing there
<cpst> yeah I've seen this bug before
<cpst> an easy way to reproduce it is when you go between net connections
<cpst> and the first is wireless with a login screen that every name resolves to
<cpst> sometimes it won't forget it very easily
<cpst> well, it is probably more than likely an OS bug

[Cameron Zwarich (cpst)]

As I said in the quoted IRC discussion, I have seen this bug while using my school's wireless connection that resolves every name to an authentication server until you actually authenticate. I think it is likely an OS bug.

[Alexey Proskuryakov]

Could you please file it via bugreport.apple.com?

reported at bugreport.apple.com as bug ID 5861575

Closing as invalid, bug has been fixed in an OS X upgrade. Not webkit specific.