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There are some existing questions related to this issue, however none of them are quite the same, nor do any of them provide a resolution. Here's the question which most closely fits my issue (but not my question, which is how to fix it, not work around it).

I've been using .local domains for a couple of years natively from Windows 10, no Bonjour or other products involved. Occasionally (like once every several weeks), it would stop resolving. Yesterday, that reduced to about 2-5 minutes of uptime after a reboot until .local domains stopped resolving.

The most recent answer on this question suggests that the problem is that Windows multicast would stop working after any network issues, and that a bugfix was being planned for update 21H1. I don't see any network issues happening on my machine (turning Wi-Fi off and on again doesn't resolve the issue), and since we're now at 22H2, any Windows update intended to resolve this seems unlikely.

Should I switch to using a non-native service such as Bonjour? Those seem to be blocked by Windows just as much as its native implementation, from what I've been reading on other questions.

UPDATE: I've given up on solving this for now. What I specifically wanted to avoid was the workaround of maintaining a hosts file of static IPs, but that's what I ended up having to do after even attempting to disable native mDNS and use Bonjour (I tried both directly installing it and via iTunes). It may be that these solutions are somehow incompatible with Home edition.

It remains unclear what changed in the last week which suddenly caused the issue. Nothing changed with my network or the various devices that I'm attempting to connect to from Windows (they remain accessible from non-Windows systems).

Also, for hostfile usage, I'm avoiding the .local pattern so that I can continue to monitor the situation. I'll update this question should anything change (either improvements or just not working at all even on boot-up).

UPDATE 2: after another 10 days (2023-03-22), I suddenly noticed that .local domains were working again and not just immediately after rebooting. This was definitely not the case a few days ago, even after the KB5023696 14th March update (the KB5023773 update from 21st Mar hasn't installed yet).

Emmett Pickerel
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  • Has something changed yesterday in your local network, in hardware or software? How many computers/devices are involved? – harrymc Mar 10 '23 at 17:58
  • @harrymc Thanks for commenting, since you're a primary helper on the two questions I linked! No changes to network. I do use an Eero (no updates I've seen recently), but the mesh isn't likely an issue since it works initially (and the PC is connected to the same base station as at least some of the devices I'm trying to reach). I count 19 total devices on my network presently, but I access around 5-6 via mDNS. All .local domains work well when accessing elsewhere than from windows (and from within Windows until a few minutes after a reboot). – Emmett Pickerel Mar 10 '23 at 19:00
  • The problem seems localized to the Windows computer. Has there been any Windows update yesterday? If you have System Restore enabled, try rolling back to before yesterday. – harrymc Mar 10 '23 at 19:40
  • There wasn't one yesterday (last was two Quality updates to 21H2 on the 14th Feb). I did the 22H2 update today, and my System Restore's only option appears to be for right before that update today. – Emmett Pickerel Mar 10 '23 at 19:50
  • This reduces the possibility for eliminating Windows as the culprit. If the problem appeared before the 22H2 update, there's no point in suggesting to uninstall it, which is anyway not an easy or safe operation. If IPv6 is enabled on the network, try disabling it to see if this makes a difference. – harrymc Mar 10 '23 at 20:05
  • Installing Bonjour is another elimination you can do. Install the [Bonjour SDK for Windows](https://developer.apple.com/bonjour/). See advice on [Windows 10 Bonjour Program PC Guide](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-is-bonjour-on-my-computer/) for install and uninstall. – harrymc Mar 10 '23 at 20:14
  • No change after disabling IPv6 on Eero. Tomorrow I'll look into installing Bonjour, and will update this with my progress, good or bad (hopefully good!) Thanks! Also, I don't actually use this machine for much more than games or CAD, so reinstalling windows from scratch (or at least using its reset option) is probably more of an option for me than most if it's something you'd want to go that far to troubleshoot. – Emmett Pickerel Mar 10 '23 at 20:27
  • @harrymc No good after installing Bonjour 3. I'd previously added the registry entry in \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DNSClient as described [here](https://superuser.com/questions/491747/how-can-i-resolve-local-addresses-in-windows), but removed it after an initial test with Bonjour. No change, although I did get upwards of 5 minutes before .local domains stopped resolving. Oh, and I have Windows Home, so unfortunately some of the tools mentioned in fixes (gpedit) aren't immediately available. – Emmett Pickerel Mar 11 '23 at 15:59
  • You could use for Home the [Policy Plus](https://github.com/Fleex255/PolicyPlus) Group Policy Editor. – harrymc Mar 11 '23 at 16:05
  • After trying that tool and looking at the XML policies it downloaded, it looks like the "Turn off Multicast Name Resolution" policy only toggles the EnableMulticast registry setting. I added that back into my registry, but still don't yet have a path forward. – Emmett Pickerel Mar 11 '23 at 16:48
  • Just fishing : Test Windows integrity by running the commands [Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth](https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/7808-use-dism-repair-windows-10-image.html) and then [sfc /scannow](https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2895-run-sfc-command-windows-10-a.html). – harrymc Mar 11 '23 at 16:51
  • DISM ran without issue, but sfc did come up with a large list of things that it fixed. Nothing in the log specifically mentioning DNS. Running either again results in no errors. No change in behaviour, but I did notice one thing: in the registry, EnableMulticast often reverts to a 1. Sometimes immediately (clicking to another key and back to DNSClient) and sometimes after a while. Even while it's set to 0, however, .local does not resolve. – Emmett Pickerel Mar 11 '23 at 17:51
  • SFC is a good checking program but can only do small fixes. To put everything in a correct state requires a [Repair Install](https://www.elevenforum.com/t/repair-install-windows-11-with-an-in-place-upgrade.418/). I don't know what went wrong, but this might fix it, if the 22H2 upgrade went bad. It's basically equivalent to doing again the upgrade. – harrymc Mar 11 '23 at 18:15
  • I did a full repair install (keeping my files and programmes), however there is no change: resolving a .local host works for a couple of minutes after restart, then stops. Thank you so much for all the debugging advice, I really appreciate it! I think I'm going to resort to a hosts file workaround for now. – Emmett Pickerel Mar 11 '23 at 21:06
  • The hosts file will certainly solve it, and with less work than any other advice that I could come up with ... – harrymc Mar 11 '23 at 21:10

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