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DNS_ERROR_NO_PACKET
Absence of a packet differs from a negative answer
DNS_ERROR_NO_PACKET reports that no DNS packet is available in the operation’s current path. It is not equivalent to a parsed response with zero matching records, and it does not expose an RCODE such as NXDOMAIN or SERVFAIL. Diagnostics should therefore start below record interpretation: transport completion, cancellation, local resolver behavior, and the API layer that expected a packet.
A packet capture is especially useful because it separates “nothing arrived” from “a response arrived but was discarded before the caller obtained it.” Transaction-ID mismatch, source validation, malformed content, timeout, cancellation, or a provider-specific path can all prevent a usable packet from reaching higher-level parsing.
What to inspect
- Record whether the query was synchronous or asynchronous and whether cancellation or timeout completed first.
- Capture UDP and TCP traffic for the exact server and name, including retries and fallback.
- Check for an accompanying lower-level Winsock or DNS status rather than manufacturing an RCODE.
- Keep this distinct from
DNS_INFO_NO_RECORDS, which means a response was processed but contained no matching records.
References
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