Fixing “ERR_NAME_RESOLUTION_FAILED” on Windows

When every site says the address can’t be found, reset Windows networking in three commands.

28 July 2012 · 1 min read

From the archive: first published on mohamedsharaf.net in July 2012. Rewritten and checked in 2026; some details may be out of date.

Chrome says “Error 137 (net::ERR_NAME_RESOLUTION_FAILED)” or “This site can’t be reached”, and so does every other site, while other devices on the same network work fine. Often the problem is a broken DNS cache or network stack on that one Windows PC.

Open Command Prompt as administrator and run:

ipconfig /flushdns
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset

Restart the computer afterwards. The first command clears cached DNS answers; the other two reset Windows’ network settings to their defaults.

If it still fails, try a public DNS server on that PC (see my list of public DNS servers) and check that no VPN, proxy or security software is intercepting DNS.