DNS Server Not Responding error in Chrome Windows 10

Last Updated on August 1, 2017

The Google Chrome occasionally shows “DNS Server Not responding” error while browsing the internet. This is, of course, annoying because the error doesn’t actually tell us its cause and the culprit. And, unlike other errors in Google Chrome, this one is fairly common.

Clearing browser data and the cache also doesn’t fix the problem and will obviously result in data loss. So, in this post, I’ll be discussing the method for solving the DNS server not responding error in Chrome.

Reasons for Chrome Error DNS Server Not Responding

  • Website is down
  • Antivirus or an anti malware software is blocking the website
  • DNS Cache is corrupt.

Fixes for the Error DNS Server Not Responding in Chrome

Check if the website is down

Before diving into more intricate details, we must first check whether the website you are trying to access is even available online or not. The thing is that sometimes because of a lot of load or server malfunction or other technical difficulties, sometimes, a website can go down. In that case, the Google Chrome won’t be able to find the website on the internet and will tell you that the DNS Server is not responding.

There are many services that allow you to check whether the website is available online at the moment by accessing that website from various locations in the world. The most common ones are:

Using these services is of course very easy and free. All you have to do is head over to any one of these sites and just enter the URL of the website that you are trying to access. Among these three, my preferred one is CurrentlyDown and I regularly use this website to check if some website has a reliable uptime or not.

currentlydown DNS Server Not Responding

It shows you the availability history or the website, the response codes that the website sent to everyone when it was down along with the location map showing the countries where the website was down.

If the website shows as down, then you can be assured that the problem is not on your side. Wait for a few minutes/hours for that website to get back online. If the website shows as UP on CurrentlyDown, then there could be a problem on your PC.

Wait for a few minutes/hours for that website to get back online. If the website shows as UP on CurrentlyDown, then there could be a problem on your PC.

Flush DNS Cache

All your requests for every website that you browse go through DNS servers. These servers assign names to the websites which otherwise are actually just IP addresses on the web. for example, Google.com has an IP address of  216.58.211.142. And this is the only thing that the computers know about Google’s domain name.

Whenever you enter google.com on your address bar, the request goes to a Recursive DNS server and then asks it for the actual IP address of that website. You can learn more about DNS in the video below.

YouTube video

Of course, all this is very time consuming if the PC asks the same DNS information from the servers again and again. This is why DNS cache is used. It temporarily stores the domain names (website address) and their IP address on your PC so that it won’t have to ask for the same information repeatedly.

Sometimes, this data gets messed up and this is why you will see DNS Server not responding error in Chrome. We can clear the DNS cache to fix this.

  • Press Windows + X to open the Start menu context menu. Press A to open the Command Prompt as Administrator. Accept the UAC prompt.
  • In the command prompt window, type ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter.

clear dns cache windows 10

If everything goes well, the command prompt window should show “Windows IP configuration successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.” Try opening the website that you were trying to access and see if it opens how or not.

Disable Antivirus Temporarily

Some antiviruses have started providing Web security plugins these days and this can hinder your browsing if the website that you are trying to access is in the blacklist of that security suite. The two I use are AVG antivirus and Malwarebytes AntiMalware and both of them have the options to block malicious websites that can harm your PC.

If flushing the DNS cache doesn’t fix the problem, it might be your antivirus which is blocking the website. You can try temporarily disabling them and see if the website opens or not. I’ll show you the process of disabling web protection in Malwarebytes Antimalware so that you can get the idea on how to do it on your PC.

disable malicious website protection malwarebytes

  • Press the Windows and type Malwarebytes.
  • Open the Malwarebytes Antimalware Notifications app and accept the UAC.
  • In the Malwarebytes window, go to the SETTINGSDetections and Protection.
  • Click on the Disabled radio button on Malicious Website Protection header.
  • Close Malwarebytes.

Doing this will disable the web protection that Malwarebytes provides by monitoring the websites you visit. Almost all antiviruses and anti-malware will have their settings in this way. You can ask me in the comments on how to do this for your particular antivirus if you find trouble doing this.

Use Google DNS or Open DNS

If all other methods fail, this is the one which will save your day. It could be possible that your ISP might have blocked the website with some obscure method which is causing the DNS Server not responding error in Chrome. To counteract this, you can simply switch the DNS server your ISP provides with Google DNS or Open DNS. Both of them are free to use and provide an excellent way to get past this annoying censorship.

Howtogeek has an excellent article explaining the method for switching DNS on your PC with step by step guide alongside. So, you just have to follow the steps given in that guide and the website that you are trying to visit will start working perfectly. This will fix the DNS server not responding error in Google Chrome.

 

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Written by Utkarsh

Utkarsh Bhatt is a certified tech expert and software engineer for a Fortune 500 Company. He was born in 1995, making him one of the oldest members of the team at EFX. Utkarsh loves solving technical issues and is always the first to jump on any problem that needs solving. When he’s not coding or debugging, he enjoys playing video games (especially Super Smash Bros.) and watching cartoons.

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3 thoughts on “DNS Server Not Responding error in Chrome Windows 10”

  1. I must’ve done something using Malwarebytes, because the only time google search works for me is when I’ve disabled the antivirus software or deleted it.

    I want to be able to have it running in the background and still be able to use google. Please help 🙁

    AJ

    Reply

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