dns error when trying to e-mail a certain person

[joepc]

I'm having a problem trying to send out an e-mail with a certian e-mail address. It comes back with a dns error. I can e-mail anyone else with no problem and if I go to another pc I can e-mail the person which gives a dns error with no problem.

I'm using win 98 with outlook 2000. I get error in outlook express as well. I acctually can't e-mail anyone with the @domain.com address. Can anyone give me any ideas why this might happen?

 

[jrbarnett]

Have a look on this PC in the C:\WINDOWS\HOSTS and C:\WINDOWS\LMHOSTS files to see if there is an entry for the domain.com (with a fake or edited IP address). If there is, take it out and reboot the computer.

These files don't have extensions at all, and are plain text so can be edited with Notepad, but to save them you have to put quote marks around the name to stop Notepad adding a .txt extension to the filename.

John

 

[ChrisAC]

Is the error coming from the PC or from the mail server. Your email client would normally send the outgoing mail to a mail server which would then look up the MX record for the domain. I would presume that all the PC's on your LAN use the same mail server. Could you post the error?

Chris.


**********************
Chris Andrew, CCNA, CCSA
chris@iproute.co.uk
**********************

 

[schemamasta]

Dunno if it will work, but you can open a command line window (DOS) and type c:\>ipconfig /flushdns
This command will flush the DNS resolver cache and may force the system to look up the valid address. The fact that you can send to that same address from another pc means that the problem is local to your machine.

Hope this helps,
Mark

 

[ChrisAC]

The email client won't look up the domain that the email is destined for. It will only send it to the local SMTP server. Post the error message.

Chris.


**********************
Chris Andrew, CCNA, CCSA
chris@iproute.co.uk
**********************

 

[schemamasta]

This is true iproute, I meant that the client machine would look up the address of the SMTP server. Which should have a static IP or a reservation in DHCP. If for some reason the SMTP server is a DHCP client, then this machine may have gotten confused.

Mark

 

[ChrisAC]

Oh, yeah!

;-)

Chris.

**********************
Chris Andrew, CCNA, CCSA
chris@iproute.co.uk
**********************

 

[joepc]

I had already checked the host and lmhost files, and nothing was in there. The ipconfig /flushdns command sounds like a great idea. I forgot all about that. Does the command work with win98 though?

 

[schemamasta]

I think it works with '98.... although I'm not 100% sure. Reading back on Chris' comments, I think he's right though. If you can send to other addresses from that PC, it can obviously find the mail server. Won't hurt anything though. My appologies Chris.

Mark