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My Windows 10 laptop has been experiencing a weird issue where the Wifi connects but I cannot access the Internet. When it starts, there's nothing I can do but restore Windows from backup or re-install Windows.

nslookup on Command Prompt works fine, I get DNS name resolution. But, ping or web browser or anything fails to resolve a DNS name. They sit, wait, and timeout with a DNS resolution error.

Tried flushing the DNS cache, re-installing the network driver, resetting the winsock driver, flushing the route table, re-connecting to wifi, specifying static DNS server IPs, switching Wifi networks, tethering through my phone, and rebooting. Nothing works.

Doubt it's a hardware issue, since re-installing Windows or restoring from a recent backup fixes the issue... at least until it happens again a few weeks/months later. Also tried disabling the onboard Wifi and plugging in a separate USB wifi adapter, same result.

Anyone have any thoughts? What would cause, and how to fix?

I've been making frequent full-system backups in the event this occurs again, I restore from backup and all is fine. Only thing I can think that changed around the time the issue began was I got a displaylink USB hub/display adapter for a third monitor.

Crash Override
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  • Try another OS as a test, for a while. Run Ubuntu from a USB drive the next time connection fails, to confirm that it is OS and not HW. – DrMoishe Pippik Aug 07 '19 at 03:21
  • Thanks for your comment. I'm pretty sure it's not the hardware because yes, booting to another OS works fine. If I boot to Windows "safe mode (with networking)" it works fine. Boot back into Windows, and nslookup works but everything else fails to resolve DNS. If I re-install Windows or restore from a recent Windows backup, everything works again, until the next time it happens. – Crash Override Aug 07 '19 at 15:22
  • Does reinstallation from MS ISO, made with the Media Creation Tool, pose the same issue? Could it be a failed malware installation that is stuck in both the disk image and on the machine? Try a single (not permanent) malware scan with an alternative tool, such as Kaspersky Security Scan. – DrMoishe Pippik Aug 07 '19 at 16:53
  • Reinstalling Windows from scratch (from the Media Creation Tool) fixes the problem. Also, restoring from a backup fixes the problem. I have tried Antivirus and spyware scans, but not Kaspersky. – Crash Override Aug 07 '19 at 19:08
  • Just a thought, i wonder if my problems are caused by frequent switching of wifi networks? Sometimes the Wifi which my windows boots to is not the one I want, so I switch. Each have different SSIDs, passwords, and networks. Then maybe after a reboot, something gets stuck and I cannot unlock/flush it. I dunno, just a thought on behavior that I do which may not be common. – Crash Override Aug 15 '19 at 14:37
  • Have you tried setting DNS resolution to a fixed provider, such as CloudFlare, https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-1111/ , rather than let the ISP set it automatically? At least that would not change, though ISP does. – DrMoishe Pippik Aug 15 '19 at 18:44
  • Thanks but yes, tried changing DNS server to a fixed public DNS address rather than the auto-assigned one from DHCP. Tried several, not 1.1.1.1 but 8.8.8.8, 74.82.42.42, and 4.2.2.1. Same result- name resolutions works with `nslookup` on command prompt but ping, web and everything else times out resolving. Haven't had the issue in the last few weeks after the last time I re-installed Windows (fingers crossed) but I did install fewer software this time around, thinking that may help. – Crash Override Aug 19 '19 at 21:02
  • I now think the issue is with Windows itself. The issue happened again - wifi stopped working, while connected, nslookup works but everything else fails to resolve DNS. I restored from a 1 week-old backup, and the problem did not go away like it had before. Even though Wifi worked a week ago, it did not. This backup had all recent Windows updates, while in the past, my backups did not have recent Windows updates. So, I re-installed Windows from scratch (Media Creation Tool) and the Wifi started working again. I wonder if the latest Windows updates has something which breaks Wifi permanently. – Crash Override Aug 31 '19 at 05:50
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    Windows 10 v. 1903 appears to be a work-in-progress. v. 1809 appears to be reasonably stable, at this time, and if you have continued difficulties, stick with that 9or earlier) versions. – DrMoishe Pippik Sep 01 '19 at 01:32

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I just had the same issue on my Windows 10 laptop. I probably tried everything I could find in the net - nothing helped. Until finally I bumped on this - Windows 7 DNS not working (nslookup IS working; ping -4 name.com NOT working)

I tried to set the hostname before, it was probably the 1st thing I tried, but it did not help. In the answer by the link above they mention that the Domain record must be set also in the registry, at HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters. It was missing. So after I created it manually with regedit (with just an empty string value since my PC wasn't in a domain, apparently it's the only way to restore it) - it immediately started working even without reboot.

Andriy
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