How to Fix “Resolving Host” Issue in Google Chrome

Recently, while browsing the net I noticed that my sites were either loading slowly or not loading at all. Error messages like Web page is not available and page cannot be displayed had become common.


I used to keep refreshing the websites till it used to load. I kept ignoring this issue, thinking it to be a network issue.

I use Google Chrome mostly as I find it to be the fastest on my PC as compared to other browsers. On observation I realized that Chrome used to show “resolving host” in its status bar whenever I used to enter a web address. The resolving host flashed every time, and soon I realized that was the reason for the delay in site loads.

Why does Chrome show the resolving host message?

The technical reason for this issue is that the DNS servers configured by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) takes long time to find a mapping IP address for the host name you entered like http://www.example.com. This is probably due to change in ISP or change in DNS settings by your ISP. Sometimes the DNS cache stored in your local computer or Chrome browser may also cause delay in finding the correct IP address of the site. Directly opening the IP address in browser’s address bar will skip the entire resolving host process.

Since it is practically not possible to remember IP addresses of all the sites and one site may have multiple IP addresses or one IP is assigned to multiple site in shared hosting scenario, it is necessary to solve the issue. Here is the list of possible solutions for fixing the resolving host issue. (Network setting changes are explained for Windows users, the same can be followed in Mac with appropriate changes).

How to Fix Resolving Host Issue?

Depending on the root cause of the issue one of the below solutions should fix the resolving host issue:

The first solution fixes the issue is most cases.

Step by step guide to change your DNS servers:

(I use Windows 7, so instructions are based on that it would be similar for most Windows versions)

Step 1: Open Control Panel from your start menu and go to Network and sharing Center

Step 2: Click on change adapter settings.


Step 3: Double click on the internet connection that you use. (eg: Local area connection, Wireless etc.). The network connection status window will open. Here you need to check your connection type. Refer image below. It would mostly be IPv4 Connectivity.

Step 4: Click on properties below. A window like below will pop up

 

Step 5: Click on Internet Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and then click on properties to open a window like below;

Step 6: Since all your internet activities will be routed through the DNS servers entered here, only use known and reliable server addresses and avoid using unknown free server details for security reasons. Here we used the IPv4 addresses of Google’s public DNS server details for Preferred DNS server as 8.8.8.8 and Alternate DNS server as 8.8.4.4 as shown in the picture above.

(In case of IPv6 use preferred server as 2001:4860:4860 :: 8888 and alternate server as 2001:4860:4860 :: 8844.)

Once you entered the server details click “OK” to close the window. Close all your Chrome browser windows and reopen the browser. Now try opening your website which should open fast without showing any “Resolving host” messages in the status bar. All the sites will be loaded comparatively faster than before and you can open the sites properly in Firefox and Internet explorer also.

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