# HELP:"Resolving Host" Delay with Mozilla Firebird

## Master One

No idea, what this could mean, but the nameserver is correctly entered in /etc/resolv.conf and shell commands like ping or wget do not have any problems, but when using the newly installed Firebird under Fluxbox, it takes ages to get a web-site to show up.

After entering an URL, it takes up to 15 seconds to resolve the host, so before the transfer of the data beginns.

Anyone can tell me, what's going wrong here and how to solve this problem ???

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## Sven Vermeulen

If you surf to IP-addresses instead of names, does that speed-up things? For instance http://195.66.242.4.

BTW, this isn't the correct forum for this kind of stuff.

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## Master One

@Sven Vermeulen

Thank's for the quick response. I am still stitting here searching for a sollution.

Yes, using an IP instead is no problem, site comes up in notime (having a 2.3Mbit connection here).

So it is only the resolving host, e.g. DNS problem. But this is only when using Mozilla Firebird, not when trying something like ping genoo.org in xterm.

As I assume a problem with my gentoo installation (I never saw any settings for a DNS matter in browser preferences), this may be the right forum.

If it would be any problem witth the resolv.conf or hosts file, all programms would be effected, so I have no clue where to search for a sollution.

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## Sven Vermeulen

Verify that your hostname (i.e. the one in /etc/hostname) is also mentioned in /etc/hosts. If that is the case, then I'm out of options, perhaps just a FireBird issue?

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## masseya

Moving from Installing Gentoo.

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## Master One

So, did some more testing. It is really pretty strange.

hostname and hosts are OK.

I installed lynx, and it comes like hell (of course nothing to work with, web without graphic isn't really web).

I changed the nameserver in resolv.conf. At first I had the IP address of my vigor router entered, which is forwarding DNS requests to the ISP DNS, now I entered the ISP DNS directly.

Seems to be working now OK, also I do not understand the difference (I have configured my WinXP computers also like this, so with the routers IP, and it never did such strange behavor with delaying the host resolving). I tried several test with various websites, sometimes it is still slow on resolving the host.

Maybe someone has any idea about this matter, or maybe a hint how to speed this up.

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## PetDude

I have no solution for you, only comiseration.  I have been struggling with this issue for about two weeks with no solution to date.

As you describe, the problem is only with Firebird.  However, it should be noted that Firebird does not have this problem on RedHat, Mandrake, Slackware or WINXP on the same box.  And it should be noted that the problem does not exist with Konquorer on the same box.

What I have been able to discover is the problem only exists when the address in Resolve.conf for the DNS server is on the local network.  In your case the Draytek router.  In my case I have tried both a DNS server on our local net, and djbdns dnscache on the localhost.  It matters not.  Unless the address in resolve.conf is external to the network, the problem exists.  As soon as an external DNS server is used the problem vanishes.

This is not working for me because we are using a satellite connection and DNS resolution over a 1000ms latency connection is not pretty, hence the local DNS.  In fact my whole reason for using Firebird is to take advantage of being able to increase the maximum connections per server which I can't do in Konqueror, in order to compensate for high latency.  When the max connections are raised in concert with a local DNS, the thing is actually quite good.  But so far the Firebird/Gentoo combination is a no-go due to this issue.

By the way, I have found no mention of this issue on the Firebird site so I'm beginning to believe this is a uniqe problem with Firebird on Gentoo.

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## Master One

Thank's PetDude. It's really bad. As you mentioned, putting external DNS caches into resolv.conf, helps, but is still not satisfying. In the meantime I also have djbdns running here as external forwarding cache, which is working very fine for all the other hosts, but not for Firebird on Gentoo.

Unless someone can come up with a sollution for that issue, I will have to swap to another browser, also I like Firebird very much...   :Sad: 

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## Merseault

I am also having this problem with both firebird and regular Mozilla browser. Putting external DNS names in /etc/resolv.conf doesnt help the problem. I also read somewhere that it can be caused by webservers not responding as per RFC to IPV6 requests, so i recompiled the kernel without IPV6 support ; this did not help the problem.  For now i am going through my schools web proxy, but this solution is less than satisfactory.

-adam

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## funkmankey

have also been noticing this sometimes but not always; currently phoenix 0.6.1 on my desktop, resolv.conf points to fileserver which is running a djbdns cache.

as someone mentioned, anything other than mozilla goes like hell but the browser will sit there and pretend it can't find anything. I also saw this behavior in previous versions (and it's one of the reasons I hoped installing a dnscache would help...).

searching on the mozillazine.org forums shows some other people with the same issue, but I could not find any sort of resolution.

searching bugzilla for "resolving" against browser+firebird yields some interesting results, this one maybe

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146769

and there are also rather a LOT of closed bugs regarding dns resolving, seems like this is a problematic area yeesh. 

in the abovementioned bug (and in a few others), people suggest making a new profile and getting rid of the old one (a common response to mojira issues, I know, hehe). well, I have kept my profile since earlier versions of 0.6 and possibly even 0.5, so it's probably not a bad idea to try and see....although I've no idea how it could help in this case.

and if you want fast, there's always

```
links -g
```

...!

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## mingotta

May I join the unlucky club?

I have the same problem.

By the way, do you get your IP address dynamically or it is static? Mine is dynamic.

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## redskn3

I guess I have the same problem with both Mozilla and Firebird...Opera runs very fast. I am using static I.P. and nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf.

Is this common to Gentoo, I don't have it anywhere else?

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## Master One

Pretty strange, it is indeed a general problem, but no sollution has been found yet?

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## mlsfit138

I have nothing positive to contribute, just another one of the unlucky.  Maybe if we keep up activity in this thread, someone who knows something about it might take notice.    :Confused: 

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## SkizoidMan

 *Master One wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Unless someone can come up with a sollution for that issue, I will have to swap to another browser, also I like Firebird very much...  

 

Hi Master,

You haven't IPv6 support enabled, have you?

Can you run tethereal on your ethernet interface, filtering with "port domain"?

This will tell you what Mozilla is really doing.

SM.

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## mlsfit138

it seems that the new version (.70) has the same problem  :Sad: 

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## aethyr

I've never seen this topic before, but I'd like to think that in the almost-six-months that this topic has existed, that someone has taken the time to file a bug on Gentoo's bugzilla.

However, searching Gentoo's bugzilla seemed to yield nothing.

Which leaves me with this piece of advice to anyone having this problem:

File a bug @ https://bugs.gentoo.org

For future reference: most developers don't browse the forums, so if you want someone to take notice, you should probably file a bug.

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## funkmankey

it's not a gentoo bug; it does not belong on gentoo's bugzilla.

in any case, I've not seen it happen once after I upgraded to 0.7. as mentioned earlier in the thread, this was certainly a known issue in the mozilla community, and it appears to have been fixed.

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## mlsfit138

 *PetDude wrote:*   

> 
> 
> As you describe, the problem is only with Firebird.  However, it should be noted that Firebird does not have this problem on RedHat, Mandrake, Slackware or WINXP on the same box.  And it should be noted that the problem does not exist with Konquorer on the same box.
> 
> By the way, I have found no mention of this issue on the Firebird site so I'm beginning to believe this is a uniqe problem with Firebird on Gentoo.

 

funkamankey: I think that it is a gentoo bug.  Other OS's do not have this problem with the same software.

I also updated to .7, and still have the same problem.

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## UberLord

A common problem here is that applications have been compiled using the ipv6 flag but the kernel doesn't have any ipv6 support compiled in. This can cause slow DNS is a few applications in my experience.

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## mlsfit138

My kernel has support for ipv6, same problem still...

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## pran

Does turning on nscd help at all?  I think I had the same problem and turning on nscd seems to have made it better.  Of course, it's only been 20 minutes since I turned it on so it might still be there.

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## mlsfit138

I accidently solved my problem by installing privoxy!

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## warder

I had the exact same problem... It turned out to be indeed ipv6. Had it compiled as module in both kernel 2.4 and 2.6. Here comes the weird part - mozilla and firebird both work fine in 2.4 but it did take forever resolving in 2.6. Removed the ipv6 support (even though compiled as module) from kernel and recompiled and it works fine now. This stuff totally beats me.... And trying ipv6 resolution before ipv4 doesn't make much sense if you ask me...

P.S. And btw isn't there an option somewhere (gentoo specific or not) to tell it which protocol version to try first?

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## moby dick

Long time since the last post   :Embarassed: 

But the same error occured to me just now.

Untill the previous week (or at last the week before that) I had no problems with mozilla, ipv6, dns and ping at all.  :Very Happy: 

But suddenly - I can't recall doing anything concerning this - my mozilla gave up rosolving hostnames. Ping also denied me to ping (and resolve) hostnames outside my LAN.  :Evil or Very Mad: 

I read the posting in this forum and changed the nameserver in resolv.conf from my local router to an external DNS server. And suddenly everything was good again.  :Razz: 

The only thing I changed in the last week is to move the kernel from linux-2.4.22_pre2-gss to linux-2.4.23_pre8-gss. I migratet all options and compiled the new kernel with exact the same setting than the old one, i.e. I left the ipv6 support completely out of my kernel.   :Wink: 

 :Question:  has anyone made the same experience with a kernel-change  :Question: 

Bye

M.

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