Cannot Resolve DNS?

Can't login with latest client, says DNS cannot resolve almost immediately after login attempt. Any clues?

check your internet connection.. make sure you can get to other websites that also use DNS, which is like everything... www.google.com... check many many sites, not just one or two, as your ISPs DNS server might be having issues, and you'll notice some other places not loading correctly

if that all works but SL still says unable to resolve DNS, you'll have to check into your firewalls... which is more complicated

I am receiving this exact same issue, client 1.1.5.0 (2)

I am able to access all other websites or internet enabled programs, moving my Mac outside of my firewall router onto a direct hardline cable connection to my Cable Modem does not resolve the issue.

Another Mac sitting next to this one, an older G4 iMac can access Second Life without any issue as well as 2 PC's also on the network.

Any other suggestions?

(I work in IT so I'm comfortable with advanced suggestions to try.)

try flushing the lookupd cache.
(When searching for information, lookupd consults its information sources in the following order:

1. lookupd's cache
2. The NetInfo domain hierarchy
3. The DNS, if appropriate
4. NIS)

I do this by running ONYX and 'clean' the system caches.
---------------
You can also try creating a new Account in System Prefs. Log into that, Download SL and see if DNS resolves.

-If this works, then you know that SOMETHING in the original Account is broken.

-If it DOESN"T work, then the problem is likely to be in the network, either your IPS, or your router/modem.

Went through these steps and had no resolution, oddly enough I can access this site, download site, and everything else at the secondlife.com domain from this workstation except for login.

I know it is not the network as the other terminals, connecting through the same router and internet connection, are able to link up without issue, something has to be screwy in the way this client is connecting, odd since I've redownloaded it twice now just to insure proper downloading and the disk image verifies the checksum without issue.

Any other suggestions?

Katie,
did you try the new ACCOUNT test?

Are you sure your router / firewall is open for all the ports that SL uses?
See the knowldedgebase. Search on FIREWALL for info on the ports required.

If that still doesn't fix it,
then you might try using the FreeDNS servers.
at freedns.com
instead of your ISPS... an unlikely long shot...

Sure did, created two other test accounts, one Admin and one User, neither operated, both produced the same error.

I am 100% sure that the router is open given that the other systems are able to connect out, all firewalling I have on my network is hardware based and I've even tried moving this system outside of the firewall to see if it would make a difference.

I may give the FreeDNS a shot and see if it makes a difference, it never hurts to have a few extra DNS servers to throw into the resolution pool anyway.

It gets better, I did a log of connection details on my network interface to see what the actual server that was failing was and came up with...

The server is...

util.agni.lindenlab.com

So I've begun running network tests and found the following...

Ping has started ...

PING util.agni.lindenlab.com (66.150.244.151): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=0 ttl=50 time=36.585 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=25.887 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=28.296 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=26.219 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=28.095 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=5 ttl=50 time=30.450 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=6 ttl=50 time=26.350 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=7 ttl=50 time=29.721 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=8 ttl=50 time=28.155 ms
64 bytes from 66.150.244.151: icmp_seq=9 ttl=50 time=28.506 ms

--- util.agni.lindenlab.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 25.887/28.826/36.585/2.942 ms


No problems pinging the server, it must be something in the actual client that is causing an issue as the server name is resolving and attempting to connect out and, given another person had this same issue, I'm VERY hesitant to think it's a computer specific issue...

Further Data from my Secondlife Console Log File...

---

===== Sunday, May 13, 2007 9:20:28 PM America/Phoenix =====
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: idle_startup: Attempting login as: Katie Eriksen
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: Current Directories:
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: CurPath: /Applications/Second Life.app/Contents/Resources
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: AppName:
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: ExecutableFilename: Second Life
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: ExecutableDir: /Applications/Second Life.app/Contents/MacOS
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: ExecutablePathAndName: /Applications/Second Life.app/Contents/MacOS/Second Life
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: WorkingDir: /Applications/Second Life.app/Contents/Resources
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: AppRODataDir: /Applications/Second Life.app/Contents/Resources
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: OSUserDir: /Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: OSUserAppDir: /Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: LindenUserDir: /Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/katie_eriksen
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: TempDir: /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems/SecondLife
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: CAFile: /Applications/Second Life.app/Contents/Resources/app_settings/CA.pem
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: dumpCurrentDirectories: SkinDir:
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: parseFile: Couldn't open file /Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/katie_eriksen/overrides.xml
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: parseFile: LLXmlTree parse failed. Line 1: Couldn't open file /Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/katie_eriksen/overrides.xml
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: loadFromFile: Unable to open control file /Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/katie_eriksen/overrides.xml
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: init_start_screen: Loading startup bitmap...
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: setLastError: Unable to open file for reading FILE:/Users/Igloo/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/katie_eriksen/screen_last.bmp
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: init_start_screen: Bitmap load failed
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: idle_startup: Resolving Agni userserver domain name userserver.agni.lindenlab.com
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: on_userserver_name_resolved: ...Userserver resolved to 66.150.244.151:12036
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: LLCircuit::addCircuitData for 66.150.244.151:12036
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: idle_startup: Verifying message template...
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: idle_startup: Message template is current!
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: LLMessageSystem::disableCircuit for 66.150.244.151:12036
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: LLCircuit::removeCircuitData for 66.150.244.151:12036
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: checkMessages: Packet from invalid circuit 66.150.244.151:12036
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: authenticate: Authenticating: Katie Eriksen,
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: authenticate: Options: inventory-root, inventory-skeleton, inventory-lib-root, inventory-lib-owner, inventory-skel-lib, initial-outfit, gestures, event_categories, event_notifications, classified_categories, buddy-list, ui-config, login-flags, global-textures, END
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: LLUserAuth::authenticate: uri=https://login.agni.lindenlab.com/cgi-bin/login.cgi
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: process: LLXMLRPCTransaction CURL error 6: Could not resolve host: login.agni.lindenlab.com (Domain name not found)
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: process: LLXMLRPCTransaction request URI: https://login.agni.lindenlab.com/cgi-bin/login.cgi
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: authResponse: Processed response: 6
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: createXml: Alert: [ErrorMessage]
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: createDialog: Alert: Unable to connect to Second Life.
DNS could not resolve the host name.
Please verify that you can connect to the www.secondlife.com
web site. If you can, but continue to receive this error,
please go to the support section and report this problem.
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: idle_startup: Initializing Window
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: login_show: Initializing Login Screen
2007-05-14T04:20:33Z INFO: login_show: Decoding Images
2007-05-14T04:20:33Z INFO: login_show: Setting Servers
2007-05-14T04:20:33Z WARNING: process_impl: URLRequest Error: 6, 6, http://secondlife.com/app/login/
2007-05-14T04:20:33Z INFO: processChain: Pump generated pipe err: 'STATUS_ERROR'

What I am seeing is a failure to connect to the HTTPS login.agni.lindenlab.com server, I am also unable to traceroute that server or ping it in any way, however, I am able to ping and traceroute the lindenlab.com domain so I think it is that specific server.

** Correction - I can connect to that server address via Firefox yet Second Life still doesn't work.

2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: process: LLXMLRPCTransaction CURL error 6: Could not resolve host: login.agni.lindenlab.com (Domain name not found)
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: process: LLXMLRPCTransaction request URI: https://login.agni.lindenlab.com/cgi-bin/login.cgi
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z INFO: authResponse: Processed response: 6
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: createXml: Alert: [ErrorMessage]
2007-05-14T04:20:32Z WARNING: createDialog: Alert: Unable to connect to Second Life.
DNS could not resolve the host name.
Please verify that you can connect to the www.secondlife.com
web site. If you can, but continue to receive this error,
please go to the support section and report this problem.

Still no good. No one has a solution?

sorry if youve covered some of this... (didnt re-read everything)

When you said other computers worked, did you mean they worked with SL, or they was just able to get to the internet? SL requires more ports to be open in the firewalls than the ones used just for normal web browsing.

Make sure you have the following ports open on your software firewall(s) on the machine, and your Routers firewall, and any other one that might be present... 443/TCP, 12035/UDP, 12036/UDP, 12043/TCP, and 13000-13050/UDP.

Some 3rd party software firewalls on the machine can also have more than just port blocking, and might block certain software it finds as a worm or whatever.... for testing you can try with all software firewalls (including the one built into OSX) are completely disabled... but it more likely ports blocked on a router.

Hmmm...
1. Be sure the OS X builtin firewalls are OFF.

2. My router has a 'DMZ' setting...basically, if I define my computer as being in the DMZ, *ALL* firewall restrictions are removed and I can go anywhere and do anything. This is a great debug tool. Of course, I'm also vulnerable to attack, so I use it very sparingly.

3. YOu can LOGIN to the MY ACCOUNT page on the web, right? This isn't a case of 'the lindens turned off my ALT account?'

Edit: Fixed. For anyone else having this problem please go to terminal and do the following:

sudo -s
rm /etc/resolv.conf
ln -s /var/run/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

It took me quite awhile to figure this out, but apparently the link to the file is broken where SL looks for it. This obviously doesn't occur on all machines, but nonetheless, if you think you've had the same problem, try this little fix.

Nirak,
I'm impressed.

more bad SL programming then... looking in the wrong place for DNS servers? weird

Thanks Sterling. Hopefully that should get everyone who had this issue back up and running. If anyone else is still having this issue after attempting my fix, please post here and we'll try to figure it out.

Just figured this one out myself today!

Works 100%, good catch!

I'm not by any means a Mac person but from the source code, it looks like this error is coming back from curl..

OpenDNS is Yummy...! http://www.opendns.com