Outdated or incorrect IP address being returned
When a DNS record is updated on the main authoritative nameserver, it may take some time to propagate to the recursive DNS servers globally and this occurs based on the DNS record's Time To Live (TTL). If a domain is responding with a stale DNS record, to refresh the record right away, scroll down to "How do I resolve this?".
NXDOMAIN (DNS record not found)
OpenDNS provides a Domain Name System (DNS) to provide answers to DNS requests that your computer would make in response to going to opendns.com: "which server IP address is opendns.com using?". In most cases, the response would be "OpenDNS is at the IP 67.215.92.211", and the webpage at opendns.com would load. This article will focus on the exceptions to a standard DNS response that occur in the form of a "Hmmm domain.com isn't loading right now" . For other types of DNS errors, read here.
What does it look like?
In the past, OpenDNS used to serve a Guide page for NXDOMAIN. This is no longer the case. As a result, the not found domain will depend on how your browser handles it.
For more information, read here: http://www.opendns.com/no-more-ads/
What does it mean?
Getting an NXDOMAIN (or not being able to load a domain/site in your browser) may signify one of the following:
1. The webpage you are trying to visit is currently offline or is having server issues. To check if this is the case, please visit http://isitup.org/ or http://www.isup.me/ to check if the site is down for other users on the Internet (including non-OpenDNS users) as well. If these sites report that the site is down, then the message is completely expected. Please see the following examples of up and down domains.
If the site is listed as up or online, please see the section titled "How do I resolve this?".
2. The website does not exist. You may confirm this by following the same procedure as 1. above.
3. The website recently moved servers, but the OpenDNS cache hasn't yet updated. See "How do I resolve this?" below.
How do I resolve this?
To resolve this issue if the site is reported as up, please visit http://cachecheck.opendns.com, search for the domain you are not able to reach, and confirm if all of our DNS resolvers match (unless this is expected like a CDN), and that none list "NXDOMAIN". If there is an issue, you will see a page similar to the following image. Please click the "Refresh the Cache" button (
) on the bottom of the page to initiate a cache flush for the domain in question. Often, refreshing the cache once or twice will resolve the issue.
After refreshing the cache a second time, please clear the cache on your network's devices to ensure that the most up to date DNS data takes effect immediately. This includes client computers, devices, and any local DNS servers on your network.
Please see [Clearing the DNS Cache on Computers and Servers] and Clearing the [DNS Cache on Browsers] for more information in this regard. If you have trouble restarting or rebooting your router or computer should flush the DNS and web browser caches on your devices.
If all of the above fails, please submit a support request to support@opendns.com and we will be able to further investigate the issue!