DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN: What It Means and How to Fix It

You type a web address, press Enter, and instead of a page Chrome shows "This site can't be reached" with a small line underneath: DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN. It looks technical, but the message is simple. Your browser asked for the address of a website, and the answer came back: that name doesn't exist.

Sometimes the fault is on your device and a one-minute fix clears it. Sometimes the fault is with the website itself, and no amount of cache clearing will help. This guide explains what the error means, how to tell which side the problem is on, and how to fix it on Windows, macOS, Chrome, Android and iPhone. If you own the site, there's a full section on finding the cause on your domain and making sure it never happens again.

What does DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN mean?#

Every website has a name (like example.com) and an IP address (like 93.184.215.14). Computers connect to IP addresses, so before your browser can load a page it asks the Domain Name System (DNS) to translate the name into an address.

NXDOMAIN is short for "non-existent domain". It's the DNS response that means the name you asked for has no record anywhere the resolver looked. Chrome reports it as DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN: the DNS probe finished, and the result was "no such domain".

The same error shows up under different names in other browsers:

It's different from errors where the server is found but fails, such as a 502 Bad Gateway or a 404 error. With NXDOMAIN, your browser never reaches any server at all, because it never learned where the server is.

Is it your device or the website?#

Before you change any settings, spend 30 seconds working out where the problem is. This saves a lot of wasted effort.

1. Check the spelling. A single wrong letter (gooogle.com, example.con) produces exactly this error.
2. Try another website. If every site fails, your internet connection or DNS settings are the problem, not one domain.
3. Try another device or network. Load the same address on your phone using mobile data instead of Wi-Fi. If it works there, the issue is on your computer or your network.
4. Use an outside check. A tool that tests the site from a different location tells you whether the domain resolves for everyone. Our guide on how to check if a website is down walks through the options.

If the site fails everywhere, for everyone, the problem is almost certainly with the domain itself. Skip to the section for site owners.

Common causes of DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN#

How to fix DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN as a visitor#

Work through these in order. Most people are fixed by step 2 or 3.

1. Restart your router and device#

It's a cliché because it works. Restarting clears temporary DNS caches on your router and gets a fresh connection from your provider.

2. Clear Chrome's DNS cache#

Chrome keeps its own DNS cache, separate from your operating system.

1. Open a new tab and go to chrome://net-internals/#dns.
2. Click Clear host cache.
3. Go to chrome://net-internals/#sockets and click Flush socket pools.
4. Reload the site.

In Edge, use edge://net-internals/#dns instead.

3. Flush your operating system's DNS cache#

Windows: open Command Prompt as administrator and run:

ipconfig /flushdns

If that doesn't help, renew your IP address and reset the network stack, then restart:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
netsh int ip reset
netsh winsock reset

macOS: open Terminal and run:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

You'll be asked for your Mac password. Nothing is printed when it works.

4. Change your DNS servers#

If your internet provider's DNS servers are slow, broken or filtering, switching to a public resolver often fixes the error immediately.

• Windows: Settings > Network & internet > your connection > Hardware properties > DNS server assignment > Edit.
• macOS: System Settings > Network > your connection > Details > DNS.
• Android: Settings > Network & internet > Private DNS, then enter a provider hostname such as dns.google or one.one.one.one.
• iPhone and iPad: Settings > Wi-Fi > tap the (i) next to your network > Configure DNS > Manual.

5. Turn off your VPN, proxy or security software#

VPNs and some antivirus tools route DNS lookups through their own servers. If those servers fail or block a domain, you get NXDOMAIN. Disconnect the VPN, pause web protection for a moment and try again. If the site loads, adjust that tool's DNS or filtering settings.

6. Check your hosts file#

The hosts file overrides DNS on your computer. An old entry, often left behind by development work or adware, can send a domain nowhere.

• Windows: open C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts in Notepad as administrator.
• macOS: run sudo nano /etc/hosts in Terminal.

Remove or comment out (with #) any line containing the domain you can't reach, save the file and flush your DNS cache again.

7. Fixes on Android and iPhone#

• Toggle Airplane mode on and off to reset the connection.
• Switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data to see which network is the problem.
• In Chrome on Android, clear browsing data for cached images and files, or go to Settings > Apps > Chrome > Storage > Clear cache.
• On iPhone, forget the Wi-Fi network and rejoin it, or reset network settings (Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings) as a last resort.

If none of this works and the site fails on every device and network, the problem isn't yours to fix. It's the website's DNS.

How to fix DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN on your own website#

If visitors report this error on your site, or you see it yourself from several networks, your domain isn't resolving. This is an outage in the most complete sense: your website, and usually your email on that domain, are unreachable for everyone. Work through these checks.

1. Check that your domain hasn't expired#

This is the first thing to check, because it's common and urgent. Look up your domain in your registrar's dashboard or in a public RDAP or WHOIS lookup such as ICANN Lookup (lookup.icann.org) and check the expiration date and status.

• If the domain has expired, renew it immediately. Most registrars keep an expired domain recoverable for a period after expiry, often with an extra fee once it enters redemption. After that it can be released and registered by someone else.
• A status like clientHold or serverHold means the registrar or registry has suspended the domain, often over unpaid renewal or unverified contact details. The domain stops resolving until the hold is lifted. Contact your registrar.

2. Check your nameservers#

Your registrar tells the world which DNS provider is in charge of your domain through its nameservers. If they point to the wrong provider, or to an account where the zone was deleted, lookups fail.

Run this in Terminal or Command Prompt:

nslookup -type=ns example.com

Or, on macOS and Linux:

dig NS example.com +short

Compare the result with what your DNS provider (Cloudflare, your host, Route 53 and so on) says your nameservers should be. A mismatch after a hosting move is one of the most common causes of a site vanishing.

3. Check that the A and AAAA records exist#

Even with the right nameservers, the domain needs a record that points to your server.

dig A example.com +short
dig A www.example.com +short

An empty answer for the hostname people are visiting means there's no record. Check both the bare domain and www, because they're separate records and it's easy to set up one and forget the other. A CNAME for www that points to a deleted hostname will also produce NXDOMAIN.

To rule out your own resolver, query a public one directly:

dig @8.8.8.8 example.com

Look at the status: line in the header. NXDOMAIN means the name doesn't exist. NOERROR with no answer means the name exists but has no record of that type. SERVFAIL usually points to a DNSSEC or nameserver problem rather than a missing record.

4. Allow for DNS propagation#

If you changed nameservers or records recently, some resolvers will keep serving old answers until their cached copies expire. Record changes usually spread within the record's TTL. Nameserver changes can take up to 48 hours. If the error clears on some networks and not others, propagation is the likely reason. Lowering TTLs a day before a planned migration keeps this window short next time.

5. Check DNSSEC after a provider move#

If DNSSEC was turned on with your old DNS provider and you moved without updating or removing the DS record at your registrar, validating resolvers will reject your domain. Remove the old DS record or add the new one from your current provider.

Site owner checklist#

Does DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN hurt SEO?#

A short blip on a visitor's own device has no effect on your rankings. A real DNS failure on your domain is different. Google can't fetch any page on a domain it can't resolve, which is why DNS resolution is one of the host status checks in Search Console's Crawl Stats report. Google treats a brief outage gently, but a domain that stays unresolvable means no crawling, no fresh content in the index, and eventually pages dropping out of search. If the cause is an expired domain that someone else registers, you can lose the name, its backlinks and its search history for good.

How to stop it happening to your site#

DNS outages on your own domain are almost always caused by a change: a renewal that didn't go through, a record deleted during a migration, nameservers swapped by someone who didn't know what they did. Three habits prevent nearly all of them.

1. Turn on auto-renew and keep the payment card current. Make sure renewal notices go to an inbox someone still reads, not an address belonging to a former employee or agency.
2. Watch the expiry date yourself. Don't rely on the registrar's emails alone.
3. Monitor the site from outside. You want to hear that your domain stopped resolving from an alert, not from a customer.

MyKavo covers the last two. It looks up the registration of every website you monitor once a week over RDAP and shows the expiry date and registrar on the website's page, flagging it when expiry is 60, 30 and 14 days away, and when a domain has already passed its expiry date. Its site health checks request your homepage every 5 minutes. A domain that stops resolving counts as down, and after two failed checks in a row MyKavo sends a down alert by email and to Slack, Discord or a webhook if you've connected one, then a recovery alert when the site is back. If your site uses HTTPS, the same checks watch your certificate's expiry, and you can check any certificate now with the free SSL Certificate Checker.

The bottom line#

DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN means a domain name didn't resolve. If it happens on one device, check the spelling, clear Chrome's and your system's DNS cache, switch DNS servers and turn off your VPN. If it happens everywhere, the domain itself is broken: check the registration and expiry, the nameservers and the A records, in that order.

If you run websites, don't wait for a visitor to find out first. Check your certificate with the free SSL Certificate Checker, then start free with MyKavo to get alerted the moment your site stops responding and see your domain's expiry date long before it lapses.