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WININET_E_CANNOT_CONNECT
WININET_E_CANNOT_CONNECT means that WinINet could not establish a connection to the server. It is broader than a DNS failure: the name may have resolved, but the selected network path, proxy, endpoint, firewall, TLS path, or remote listener did not yield a usable connection.
How to narrow it down
- Log the resolved address, target port, proxy decision, and whether the error occurred before or after a secure request was opened.
- Test the same URL with the same user and proxy configuration, not only from an administrator shell or a different host.
- Separate inability to reach a proxy from inability to reach the origin server through that proxy.
Retry carefully
Retry only according to the idempotency of the request and with bounded backoff. Reusing a partly initialized request handle after a failed connection attempt can obscure the original failure.
Microsoft: WinINet error messages · Microsoft: InternetConnect
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