DNS Error when I'm downloading?

[Aegis]

I get DNS errors from my browser while I have an active download. It's weird. Never happened before, and it's started today. The download works perfectly fine, downloading at normal speeds, I just can't open anything on any browser window. (Tried Chrome, Mozilla and Opera) Does anyone know about this issue?

[dirrtymartini]

Rule out stupid browser tricks. Open up a Command Prompt and try pinging something (e.g. yahoo.com) and see if the name resolves. If It does, that tells you something stupid is happening with your browsers. If it doesn't, you have DNS issues (can't reach them, they aren't accepting your queries, etc.) If your DNS servers aren't working, try others -- like Google or Norton DNS. (both are free)

[Aegis]

Oprindeligt skrevet af dirrtygsharp:

Rule out stupid browser tricks. Open up a Command Prompt and try pinging something (e.g. yahoo.com) and see if the name resolves. If It does, that tells you something stupid is happening with your browsers. If it doesn't, you have DNS issues (can't reach them, they aren't accepting your queries, etc.) If your DNS servers aren't working, try others -- like Google or Norton DNS. (both are free)

Thanks for the reply. The ping goes through, but the response time is pretty high. I don't know what's causing this.

[dirrtymartini]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Dion:

Oprindeligt skrevet af dirrtygsharp:

Rule out stupid browser tricks. Open up a Command Prompt and try pinging something (e.g. yahoo.com) and see if the name resolves. If It does, that tells you something stupid is happening with your browsers. If it doesn't, you have DNS issues (can't reach them, they aren't accepting your queries, etc.) If your DNS servers aren't working, try others -- like Google or Norton DNS. (both are free)

Thanks for the reply. The ping goes through, but the response time is pretty high. I don't know what's causing this.

Ok, so your DNS client is working but either your DNS servers or your Internet connection is slow. Try changing your DNS servers to either Google or Norton and running the same test. That should rule out DNS servers.

EDIT: added "client"

[Aegis]

Alright, changed to Google and it's working fine now. Thanks, guys! It's just weird that this even happened.

[froidianslip]

I had the same problem, and even though changing DNS servers works (for awhile), there is no good reason for the Steam client to nuke my network hard enough to make DNS stop working. It even took out my XBox trying to get to the Internet. I started looking deeper into the problem and found that the Steam client opens and uses dozens of connections to various IP addresses at the same time when. Insane.

In the end I took a different approach. I throttled my Steam download speed to 2MB/s- a setting found in Settings -> Downloads (using my original DNS entries) and everything appears to work dandy.

IMHO, the Steam client is terrible neighbor to other programs that need the Internet on your computer.