Why did DNS break after promoting a domain controller?
Promoting a backup domain controller to primary causes all DNS entries to disappear on the PDC, resulting in a complete failure of name resolution. Network traffic mysteriously fails to hit the second DNS server during this transition, leaving administrators confused.
Overview
People affected2 accounts across 1 forum
Workarounds found4 items attempted
Community agreement3 total upvotes
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
4 items+ Contribute
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Manually changing the DNS server order on specific machines, workstations, and the firewall.Did this help you?
- 2Checking DHCP scopes and static addresses to ensure no clients point to the serverDid this help you?
- 3Running health checks and dcdiagDid this help you?
- 4Forcefully removing the server and cleaning up metadataDid this help you?
Tried another approach not listed above?+ Share your workaround ↑
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Why does DNS stop working across the domain after an update?
- 2KB5124008 breaking domain trust?
- 4Moving a virtual domain controller without a USN rollback
- 5Why are websites and APIs suddenly unreachable?
- 2Why do DNS changes take up to 48 hours to propagate?
- 3Why does our website only work with its internal IP?