Hello,
On my new Debian Squeeze installation (kernel 2.6.26) I'm running into a problem with browsers. Apt-get can access the debian repositories just fine, and ping has no problem resolving hostnames. However, when I run konqueror or iceweasel and try to access any sites, the browsers can't resolve the domains (The browser could not find the host server for the provided address.)

My /etc/resolv.conf looks like this:
nameserver 172.16.0.1

However, I doubt that the problem is with resolv.conf since ping can resolve any arbitrary existing domain name (I've tried google.com, linuxquestions.org, debian.org, and pandora.com).

Ideas?

EDIT:
I forgot to try accessing sites directly via IP earlier. Even when I attempt to load, say, 74.125.45.100 (google), I still get the "host cannot be found" error. I doubt also that this is a firewall issue, since internet access works fine on XP and slackware on the same box.

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to this =).
~Morgan McDermott

If you can ping but not connect you have yourself a DNS issue. Try
(write this down)http://64.233.169.103<-- google. If that works then you indeed have a DNS issue.

Thanks, anarchyinc.
Trying to access google with http://64.233.169.103 yields the same result: host cannot be found.

I'll research the possible DNS problem as best I can. Any suggested fixes?

No, if that didn't work then DNS is not the issue. That is what the test has proven. Looks like now we either have incorrect proxy server.... Look at the proxy first, if you have one turned on, turn it off.

Or your tcp port is blocked somehow, pings go though a different port than web access.


*have you tried hitting refresh just in case, sometimes my firefox times out like that. My kid automaticly restarts the modem and I keep telling her just to hit refresh first...

Mmm well, unfortunately it doesn't appear that any proxy is configured... I also made sure to refresh the page several times after I received the error, but to no avail.

I've also experimented with completely disabling my firewall, but that didn't change anything either. This is really bizarre.

Thanks again for all your help, anarchyinc. Any more possibilities?

disable IPv6 in your system and in firefox/iceweasel.

http://www.debian-administration.org...r_a_2.6_kernel

http://blog.williamkow.net/2009/03/090313a.html

See if that changes things for you..

Usually it just causes delays or DNS lookup failures so I'm not sure this is your issue.

Did this work? I forgot about this little bug. Can't remember what causes it though.

Sorry for the delay in response. I've been away all day. Going to try disabling IPv6 now.

This worked perfectly. Many thanks, AnarchyInc. I would have never guessed that having IPv6 enabled was the culprit.

For future reference, I specifically added these lines to /etc/modprobe.d/00local:
Since I run KDE I also added this to /etc/environment but I'm not sure if it's necessary

IPv6 was already disabled in iceweasel.

Thanks again, AnarchyInc =)!

From your description of the issue I wasn't sure that was the cause either.. but at least it worked out in the end.

Glad to hear you are up and running