Page Cannot Be Displayed Error (DNS resolution issue)

You may occassionally encounter a "Page Cannot Be Displayed" error on your browser. There are many possible causes for such an error such as no internet access, modem errors or server errors. However, the most common cause is due to a DNS error on the part of your ISP.

In the simplest terms, a Domain Name Server converts a domain name into the equivalent IP address that can be understood by a computer. You can compare it to your cellphone phone book. It would be almost impossible to memorize all your contacts if you had to remember their cellphone numbers. So you assign names associated with the cellphone numbers. So when you need to call someone, you just type in his/her name and the person's cellphone number comes up. DNS works in a similar way.

So every time you type a domain name into your browser, it sends a request to the DNS at your ISP and the domain name gets translated into the equivalent IP address so that the web pages you requested gets displayed on your computer. However, millions if not billions of requests get processed everyday. If your ISP's DNS gets overworked due to network traffic, some requests may not get processed or time out due to the huge server load, so the DNS at your ISP cannot resolve the domain name request. Thus there is a DNS resolution error and why sometimes you get the "Page Cannot be Displayed" error.

One simple way to test this is by accessing the same site by using another ISP. If you can view the site with a different ISP, then there is most likely a DNS resolution issue with your other ISP. One other way to test is by directly typing in the IP address of the site you want (if you know it). If it displays, then this points to another DNS issue with your ISP.

Fortunately, there is a workaround that is explained in detail here.