Sometimes, Chrome Browser experiences problems accessing certain websites and gives out error message that says “This Webpage is Not Available” due to DNS PROBE FINISHED NXDOMAIN Error. You will find below the steps to fix this error on your computer.
DNS PROBE FINISHED NXDOMAIN Error in Chrome
The Error code DNS PROBE FINISHED NXDOMAIN is basically trying to tell you that the webpage which you are trying to access is not available at this time, because the DNS Lookup failed when Chrome browser tried to access the requested webpage.
In order to understand this better, all that you need to know is that when you type a website name into the browser (say YouTube), the browser takes the help of a DNS server to translate the website name into its corresponding IP Address (216.58.218.110).
In this particular case, the Chrome browser on your computer was unable to bring you the requested webpage, because the DNS server as used by your computer was unable to provide Chrome with the information about where the webpage that you are requesting lives/resides on the internet (IP address of the webpage).
Luckily, the solution to DNS PROBE FINISHED NXDOMAIN Error can be as simple as just flushing out the browser cache or the DNS cache. In case the problem still does not go away, you may want to ditch your current DNS provider and switch to Google DNS.
Clear Chrome Browser Cache
Clearing the browser cache can help you fix many browser related problems. This solution can help you, in case the Chrome browser on your computer is serving cached images, instead of bringing updated webpage.
1. Open Google Chrome Browser on your computer (In case you are not already there)
2. Next, click on the 3-dots Chrome Menu button located in the upper-right corner of your screen (See image in step 3 below)
3. From the drop-down menu, hover your mouse on More Tools and then click on Clear Browsing Data… option in the side menu (See image below).
4. On the next screen, click on the Down Arrow button next to “Obliterate the following items from” and then click on From beginning of time.
On the same screen, select the type of data that you want to clear from Chrome Browser Cache. You can just choose Cached Images and Files or select more items like Browsing History, Download History and others (See image above).
5. Finally, click on Clear browsing data button to allow Google Chrome to clear all the Cached data from your Computer (See image in item#4 above).
Flush DNS Cache
Follow the steps below to Flush the DNS Cache, which should fix the DNS PROBE FINISHED NXDOMAIN Error in Chrome browser on your computer.
1. Right-click on Start button and then click on Command Prompt (Admin) in the menu that appears.
2. On the Command Prompt window, type ipconfig /flushdns and press the enter key.
Once this Command is executed, try to open the webpage that you were trying to access. This time, you should be able to reach the website without encountering any error message from Chrome browser.
Reset Network Adapter (Winsock Reset)
Follow the steps below to Reset the Network Adapter on your Windows 10 computer.
1. Right-click on Windows 10 Start button and then click on Command Prompt (Admin) in the menu that appears.
2. On the Command Prompt window, type netsh winsock reset and press the enter key.
3. Once this Command is executed, Restart your computer.
Switch to Google DNS
In case you were unable to fix DNS PROBE FINISHED NXDOMAIN Error using above steps, you should consider the option of switching from your current DNS provider to Google DNS or OpenDNS.
Both Google and OpenDNS are known to be highly reliable DNS Servers and are likely to be faster than the DNS Servers used by your Internet Service Provider.
1. Right-click your mouse on the WiFi icon located at the bottom right corner of your screen. From the little menu that appears, click on Open Network and Sharing Center Option (See image below).
2. On the Network and Sharing Center Screen, click on your WiFi Network Name (See image below).
3. On the next screen (WiFi Status), click on the Properties option (See image below)
Note: You maybe prompted to enter your Admin Password, in case you are not logged in with your Admin Account.
4. On the WiFi Properties screen, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and then click on the Properties button (See image below).
5. On the next screen, first select the option Use the following DNS Server addresses and then enter 8.8.8.8 in the box next to Preferred DNS Server and enter 8.8.4.4 in the box next to Alternate DNS server.
6. Click on OK to save the new DNS Server settings.
With these steps you have successfully changed the DNS Server on your Windows 10 computer to Google DNS. In case you want to use OpenDNS you need to type in 208.67.222.222 in the Preferred DNS server box and 208.67.220.220 in the Alternate DNS Server box.