unable to resolve webpage

[penfold]

I'm not sure where the problem is on this one - hence putting it in general. Anyway the problem is this: we have everyoneprint installed which allows web based printing for users. Now for some users it appears that when they try and navigate to the webpage it fails to resolve the address. The problem seems to be restricted to our wireless however, it doesn't affect all devices. It also doesn't affect the same type of device as at one point we thought it was due to an OSX update but this was ruled out when we had other users who could access it.

 

On a device that I can't get to the webpage I can't ping the name but I can ping the IP. However, when I look at the settings they are using the same servers and IP range as a device that works so it can't be anything related to the servers but it doesn't seem to be the device connection as it can browse the internet fine but it just cannot access this particular web page. I'm a bit stuck into where to start looking because it seems that it is a DNS issue with the device, but DNS seems fine as everything resolves OK on another device.

 

If it helps I have the problem on my windows phone but it seems it is also affecting some android (different vers) also.

 

Any ideas where to start looking?

[budgester_]

Check the DCHP, DNS settings that the wireless is giving out, anything in the DNS logs ?

 

Sounds like the DHCP server on the Wireless is not sending out the correct DNS settings, i.e. local DNS, is there a seperation on your network, guest and authenticated ?

[penfold]

There is but it's not as straight forward as that. We can have 2 devices both using the same server to authenticate, on the same IP Range and using the same DNS Server. However, one device will work but the other won't. Originally I thought it was a DNS issue, but 2 different devices will use the same settings with different results which lead me to think it's the device as troubleshooting DNS looks OK. But it seems to be too many devices for it to be a device issue. The problem is I can't properly replicate the problem

[LiamH]

Have you tried flushing the DNS on the devices? or checking the DNS results may shed some more light (ipconfig /displaydns on windows)

 

Checked hosts file for any manual entries?

 

Make sure you don't have a rogue access point on the network. We once had a staff member bring in a home router for wireless access that was also acting as a dhcp/dns server.

[penfold]

Managed to get this sorted. We use an internal and external DNS Servers and for some reason we had some devices connecting to our external DNS servers as default which then couldn't resolve the webpage. Although the redirect was in DNS the actual server wasn't so it failed so when it tried to resolve the redirect it couldn't find the server.

@LiamH - is there way to flush the DNS on mobile devices? I didn't know how to do this, but managed to track the problem down as I did a flush DNS on a working laptop which then had the same problems and helped me narrow the problem down.

 

Thanks all.

[LiamH]

Managed to get this sorted. We use an internal and external DNS Servers and for some reason we had some devices connecting to our external DNS servers as default which then couldn't resolve the webpage. Although the redirect was in DNS the actual server wasn't so it failed so when it tried to resolve the redirect it couldn't find the server.

@LiamH - is there way to flush the DNS on mobile devices? I didn't know how to do this, but managed to track the problem down as I did a flush DNS on a working laptop which then had the same problems and helped me narrow the problem down.

 

Thanks all.

 

What kind of mobile device is it? Android has a clear network data option on my phone, not sure about stock however.