How to Fix: Resolving Host issue on Google Chrome

Recently while trying to access a website, I was greeted with the ‘This webpage is not available’ error. Along with that, the bottom corner of the screen displayed a Resolving host status message. Upon further investigating, I wasn’t the only one bugged with this error.

Instead, many other concerned users have also lined up their complaints across the Google Support Forums. So what is this error all about? It could be attributed to the issues with the Domain Name Server (DNS).

DNS is responsible for translating the domain name (say example.com) to its numerical IP Address format (such as 192.168.0.1). This conversion is necessary because the browser cannot understand the URL in a plain text format; instead, it requires the associated IP address. The DNS server takes care of this, bringing up the correct IP address from its so-called address book.

However, if there are any changes in the DNS, a mismatch between IP and domain, or if the DNS cannot find the required IP in its database, it could result in trouble. One will lead to the Resolving Host issue on your Chrome browser.

Fortunately, a few methods exist to rectify Resolving host errors that shall be covered in this guide.

Delete DNS Cache

Your system holds DNS data for every site you visit. This helps the browser to directly pick the information from this cache rather than loading it from scratch.

However, if many such cache files get accrued, the browser might be unable to use the correct DNS entry, and the site would fail to load.

Here are the steps to clear the DNS host cache:

1. Launch Google Chrome on the computer.
2. Type in chrome://net-internals/#dns in the address bar, and hit Enter key.
3. Hit the Clear host cache button.
   
4. Restart the browser.

Now verify if the underlying issue has been fixed or not. While deleting the DNS cache might slow down the website load time for a few seconds, it’s just a one-time delay. So it’s worth the wait.

Switch to Public DNS

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sets up your DNS by default. However, in some instances, you could consider manually switching over to a public DNS like Google DNS, Cloudflare DNS, etc. This has been known to fix many DNS-related issues and could spell out success here.

Here are the steps to change the network DNS address:

1. Launch Control Panel and change the View By Type to Small icons.
2. Select the Network and Sharing Center menu.
3. Click on Change Adapter Settings from the left menu bar.
   
4. Right-click on the connected network for the context menu and select Properties.
   
5. Select the Internet Protocol Version 4 option, and click on the Properties button.
   
6. Switch to the Use the Following DNS server address option.
7. Type in 8.8.8.8 under Prefered DNS Address, and 8.8.4.4 under Alternate DNS Address.
   
8. Hit OK to save the changes.

Besides Google, Cloudflare has recently made its DNS available, whose address is 1.1.1.1. So if the Google DNS one doesn’t yield the desired results, you may try out Cloudflare.

Reset IP Configuration

TCP/IP is a set of networking rules that govern the interaction of two or more computers over the internet. But there could be a slew of network-related errors if there are any issues with the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or the Internet Protocol (IP).

The safest bet is to flush the current IP and renew another one. Follow the steps to reset the IP configuration:

1. Open the Start menu, and search Command Prompt.
2. Launch Command Prompt as an administrator.
   
   
3. Now execute each of the below three commands, one at a time:

   ipconfig /release
   ipconfig /flushdns
   ipconfig /renew

4. Relaunch the Chrome browser.

Now check if the Resolving Host issue has been fixed or not. Do keep in mind that your IP address has now been changed. So if you need to enter IP anywhere manually, use the newly generated one.

Refresh DNS Client

The DNS Client service is constantly running in the background. Sometimes, this service can resolve the domain names but fails to cache them. As a result, the entire process would come to a halt. In that case, you should consider refreshing it so that it starts afresh.

1. Open the Run dialog box using Windows + R shortcut keys.
2. Type in services.msc, and hit Enter key.
3. Scroll to DNS client service, right-click, and select the Refresh command.
   
4. Restart Chrome and check if the issue has been fixed or not.

If there’s an issue with this client, then all the associated network services couldn’t start up, let alone function properly. So refreshing that it might become the need of the hour in those cases.

Disable AutoComplete Feature

Chrome’s Autocomplete feature uses your history and browsing activity to generate results. In other words, it is picking up the data from the cache. But if a website has changed its IP or DNS, that wouldn’t be reflected in the cache.

As a result, the browser would continue to use the old stored file, which could lead to the Resolving Host issue. So you could disable autocomplete feature and then check if the issue gets fixed.

Here are the steps to disable autocomplete:

1. Launch the Chrome app on the computer.
2. Click on the Menu, and select the Settings menu.
3. Select and open the Sync and Google Services sections.
   
4. Scroll to the Other Google Services section and disable the Autocomplete Searches and URL toggle.
   
5. Now try accessing the site, and the host might have been fixed.

AutoComplete is undoubtedly a handy feature, but if it leads to a host issue, you should keep it disabled.

Bottom Line

So this was all from this guide on how to fix the Resolving Host issue in the Chrome browser. We have shared five fixes, each of which should be able to fix the underlying issue with the Resolving host in the status bar.

Perhaps, there are chances that the website owner migrated to a new host and has recently made the DNS changes. Hence, taking time to resolve the new IP addresses, therefore revisiting the site after a few hours should also work in such cases.

In my case, switching from the default DNS to the one from Google Public DNS proved to be the savior. If you’re concerned with Google, you can use Cloudflare DNS addresses.

Which methods managed to work out for you? If you’ve tried anything else that has helped you resolve the issue with the host message in Chrome, then let us know.

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