Something I’ve noticed whilst using Windows Vista (which may be closely related to the issues I’ve had previously with my router) is that occasionally all access to websites will stop and all I’ll get is a “Cannot Find Server” error page immediately. I don’t know exactly what is causing it, but flushing the DNS cache seems to fix it.
To flush your system’s DNS Resolver Cache do the following:
- Open a command prompt with administrator priveliges (Click Start, type “cmd” and right-click it then go to “Run as administrator” or press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER)
- Click Continue on the User Account Control dialog
- Type the following string:
ipconfig /flushdns
and hit enter. You should see the message “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache” - Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter.
You should now be able to access websites again. This is a perfectly harmless fix to try but there are no guarantees as to whether it will fix your specific problem. However I have found it to be an adequate fix for my own issue until I can pinpoint the cause of it.
