218184 - outdated IP address used

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 162871

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Mikel Ward]

When a host's IP address changes, Mozilla Firebird continues to use the old
IP address associated with the host.

This manifests itself with my home page which is hosted on a service with a
dynamic IP address.  If I have Firebird open for more than a few hours, I get
a "connection refused" dialog when attempting to view my home page, presumably
because my home page's IP address has changed, yet Firebird has not realized
this.

I suspect Mozilla must use a DNS cache, however it must be badly broken
because:
a) a long period (even 30 minutes or an hour) after the DNS record has been
   updated, Firebird still uses the old IP address
b) the A records for this host have a TTL of 60 seconds, so Mozilla should
   not be caching the records for this period anyway

I am not sure why Mozilla has a DNS cache at all (surely this should be
implemented in the operating system if at all), but perhaps I am just annoyed
that its (IMO buggy) behavior stops my home page from working.

An advanced/hidden user option to specify a lower TTL or to manually clear
the DNS cache is far from a satisfactory solution, if indeed these exist or
are to be proposed.  Host resolution should work correctly by default.

Comment 1

[Mikel Ward]

This appears to be the same issue as mentioned in bug 162871.

It sounds like it is going to be resolved for Mozilla 1.5 (despite
being targeted for Mozilla 1.6 :-/).  This will be most welcome!


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 162871 ***