What does Windows error code 11002 (WSATRY_AGAIN) mean?

 
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WSAHOST_NOT_FOUND WSANO_RECOVERY

WSATRY_AGAIN

WSATRY_AGAIN represents a temporary name-resolution failure. The legacy Winsock resolver uses it for a nonauthoritative lookup failure or server failure, so it differs from an authoritative “name does not exist” result. The name may be valid even though the resolver could not obtain a usable answer at that moment.

Why a retry can be appropriate

Resolver reachability, overloaded recursive servers, upstream failures, transient DNSSEC or forwarding problems, and short-lived network interruptions can all produce a failure that changes without modifying the hostname. A retry still needs backoff and a limit: tight loops amplify resolver load and can turn a localized DNS incident into an application outage.

What to collect

  • The FQDN after suffix processing, requested record type, resolver address, timeout, and exact DNS response or timeout condition.
  • Whether other clients using the same resolver reproduce the failure.
  • Cache behavior: unlike NXDOMAIN-style negative answers, temporary server failures should not be treated as proof that the name is absent.

Microsoft: gethostbyname results · IETF: DNS response codes · IETF: negative caching


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