[GH-ISSUE #4332] DNS resolution intermittent failure on macOS 15.5 with NetBird VPN #9139

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opened 2026-08-05 01:21:00 -04:00 by saavagebueno · 2 comments
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Originally created by @sebastian0107 on GitHub (Aug 12, 2025).
Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/4332

I'm using NetBird VPN on a MacBook Pro with Apple M4 chip running macOS 15.5. I’ve tested both the latest NetBird version and some older releases.

After connecting to the VPN, everything works fine for a few minutes, but then DNS resolution fails intermittently — I cannot access protected/internal pages. After some time, DNS starts resolving again without any manual intervention.

Steps to reproduce:

Connect to VPN using NetBird.

Access protected/internal pages.

Wait a few minutes and observe DNS failures.

After some time, DNS resolution recovers on its own.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to fix or debug this?

Originally created by @sebastian0107 on GitHub (Aug 12, 2025). Original GitHub issue: https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/4332 I'm using NetBird VPN on a MacBook Pro with Apple M4 chip running macOS 15.5. I’ve tested both the latest NetBird version and some older releases. After connecting to the VPN, everything works fine for a few minutes, but then DNS resolution fails intermittently — I cannot access protected/internal pages. After some time, DNS starts resolving again without any manual intervention. Steps to reproduce: Connect to VPN using NetBird. Access protected/internal pages. Wait a few minutes and observe DNS failures. After some time, DNS resolution recovers on its own. Any ideas or suggestions on how to fix or debug this?
saavagebueno added the triage-needed label 2026-08-05 01:21:00 -04:00
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@Willenborx commented on GitHub (Feb 26, 2026):

What's the DNS name failing (or are all failing? Or only internal? Timing out?) and would you mind to share the output of
scutil --dns? it

<!-- gh-comment-id:3964287848 --> @Willenborx commented on GitHub (Feb 26, 2026): What's the DNS name failing (or are all failing? Or only internal? Timing out?) and would you mind to share the output of `scutil --dns`? it
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@Willenborx commented on GitHub (Feb 28, 2026):

Just for information if anyone else faces the very special issue I faced when using Netbird and a specific DNS for my internal domain:

Symptoms were: All OSes worked fine (Linux, Windows, Android, iOS, iPadOS), but macOS didn't. I had the issue that nslookup host.mydomain.internal would resolve the name while ping host.mydomain.internal would give me a name resolution error.

My environment: My issue occured when using Netbird from inside my LAN. Starting with netbird, I decided to not use the concept of LAN and VPN anymore in favour of "VPN only"., so I need netbird to access my own stuff at home. The beauty of this is that it doesn't matter now if I am at home or not, the system will always behave the same.

The issue was that my DHCP server still distributed my local domain along with the IP address. All other OSes seem to prefer the VPN DNS except for macOS. I found this using scutil --dns When I replaced the domain with something else it started working right away. There were mutliple resolvers for my local domain and macOS selected the wrong one.

I don't know if the intermittent failure of DNS might be a similar issue.

Versions: macOS 26.3, netbird 0.65

<!-- gh-comment-id:3976619429 --> @Willenborx commented on GitHub (Feb 28, 2026): Just for information if anyone else faces the very special issue I faced when using Netbird and a specific DNS for my internal domain: Symptoms were: All OSes worked fine (Linux, Windows, Android, iOS, iPadOS), but macOS didn't. I had the issue that `nslookup host.mydomain.internal` would resolve the name while `ping host.mydomain.internal` would give me a name resolution error. My environment: My issue occured when using Netbird from inside my LAN. Starting with netbird, I decided to not use the concept of LAN and VPN anymore in favour of "VPN only"., so I need netbird to access my own stuff at home. The beauty of this is that it doesn't matter now if I am at home or not, the system will always behave the same. The issue was that my DHCP server still distributed my local domain along with the IP address. All other OSes seem to prefer the VPN DNS except for macOS. I found this using `scutil --dns` When I replaced the domain with something else it started working right away. There were mutliple resolvers for my local domain and macOS selected the wrong one. I don't know if the intermittent failure of DNS might be a similar issue. Versions: macOS 26.3, netbird 0.65
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Reference: DYNR/netbird#9139