MBA Snow Leopard DNS Issues

[chillconsulting]

It seems like it has been since the update to snow leopard when my dns issues started, but I'm not quite sure that is the problem.

I have a MBA, so all of my networking is done over my Wireless(AirPort)

I can connect to ANY Wireless Networks fine, grab a DHCP address just fine, and also grab 2/3 DNS servers from the DHCP server just fine.

My issue is that at random intervals my MBA will stop resolving addresses. It can continue to ping out to a DNS server via it's IP address, but will have a connection timeout on resolving the address for roughly 45 seconds. When the 45 seconds is up, it will begin to resolve addresses again. I have poked around google and found that it could be due to DNS sever priorities in Snow Leopard using the bottom DNS first instead of the top. I ruled out that issue by adding on one static DNS server (4.2.2.1)in my network configurations manually.

This happens on every network I am connected to that has a gateway to the internet. I have not tried to resolve local names on a local network, but I have tried resolving 'normal' addresses.

For now, I'm writing this post via remote desktop (windows machine) from my MBA with a static IP inserted as the address because if I stick a address that needs resolved first, every 3-10 minutes it will freeze and won't resolve the name, lose the connection until it can resolve the names again.

I have posted what I thought might help someone else diagnose the issue, because I am stump. Please take a look at my testing outputs here:

Index of /~hillchri/dns

 

[IvanLasston]

I have not found a good reason for this either. It seems to happen when the MBA comes back from sleep for me. If I toggle my Airport Off/On the MBA seems to resolve again but I haven't figured out why it won't resolve. As you said I see that DHCP and DNS both set to the correct values but the MBA just won't resolve. Sorry to say you are not alone, but I don't have a solution other than toggling the Airport.

 

[chscag]

Try switching to OpenDNS. LINK Use the addresses given in the Wiki link. Forget about the static address - I can verify that it will be of no help.

Regards.

 

[IvanLasston]

I have tried the ISP DNS, Open DNS, Dynamic DNS, and Google DNS and until I reset the airport on the MBA with an On/Off toggle - I don't get name resolution.

By the By I have a MacbookPro on the same network and it seems to have less trouble, but I do have to toggle the Airport on that machine once in a great while, but not nearly as often as the Macbook Air.

 

[chillconsulting]

What now?

So what are we supposed to do? It's getting to the point where it does it every couple of minutes or so... it's killing any chance of productivity.

 

[IvanLasston]

You could try a backup and restore, or downgrade to leopard and see if goes away. You could also try taking it into the apple store. It may be hardware too. The downgrade would eliminate any doubts about hardware if it works. Or you could make an external disk - running leopard - and boot from that - see if it goes away.