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General DNS issues

In web browsers such as Safari or Chrome, there are several commonly observable DNS errors:

Common causes and resolutions

Section titled “Common causes and resolutions”

Below are the most common causes for DNS resolution errors along with suggested solutions.

Mistyped domain or subdomain

Section titled “Mistyped domain or subdomain”

Verify that the domain or subdomain was correctly spelled in the request URL.

Missing DNS records

Section titled “Missing DNS records”

Ensure that you have the necessary DNS records in the DNS app of your Cloudflare dashboard. This includes having the following records:

  • The zone apex (e.g., example.com) record.
  • Existing subdomains (www.example.com, blog.example.com) records.

DNSSEC was not disabled before the domain was added to Cloudflare

Section titled “DNSSEC was not disabled before the domain was added to Cloudflare”

DNS resolution failures occur if DNSSEC is not disabled at your domain provider before you add the domain to Cloudflare.

Nameservers no longer point to Cloudflare

Section titled “Nameservers no longer point to Cloudflare”

If you manage DNS records via the DNS app in Cloudflare's Dashboard and your domain stops pointing to Cloudflare's nameservers, DNS resolution will stop functioning.

This can occur if your domain registrar switches the nameservers for your domain to point to their default nameservers. To confirm if this is the problem, check whether your domain uses Cloudflare's nameservers.

Unresolved IP address

Section titled “Unresolved IP address”

In rare cases, the DNS resolver in the client requesting the URL might fail to resolve a DNS record to a valid IP address.

Reload the page after a short wait to note if the problem disappears. This issue is unrelated to Cloudflare, but using Cloudflare's DNS resolver may help. Contact your hosting provider for additional help with your current DNS resolver.