ENOTFOUND node network ai_generated true

Error: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND hostname

ID: node/node-dns-resolution-failed

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
88%Fix Rate
90%Confidence
50Evidence
2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
20 active — — —

Root Cause

DNS lookup failed for the target hostname. The system resolver cannot translate the domain name to an IP address.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 90% success Verify the hostname is correct and the DNS server is reachable 
    Run 'nslookup hostname' or 'dig hostname' to confirm DNS resolution works at the OS level

    Sources: https://nodejs.org/api/dns.html

  2. 85% success Use dns.setServers() to specify custom DNS servers 
    const dns = require('dns'); dns.setServers(['8.8.8.8', '8.8.4.4']); before making requests

    Sources: https://nodejs.org/api/dns.html#dnssetserversservers

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Retrying the request in a tight loop without backoff 75% fail

    DNS failures are often transient but require time to recover; flooding the resolver makes it worse

  2. Hardcoding IP addresses to bypass DNS 70% fail

    IP addresses change over time, especially for cloud services; breaks when infrastructure rotates

Error Chain

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Frequently confused with: