Apple Mail and Safari lose connection to internet, but Firefox does not

[SisterRay]

I have an intermittent problem.

Some times I will be using my MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) and Safari will lose the ability to reach the internet. At the same time, so will Apple Mail

However if I then use Firefox or Chrome, or another application like Twitter, they will be able to connect to the internet.

The only way to rectify it is to reboot. However on shutdown it just hangs and I have to manually power if off. I cannot see anything obvious in the console logs

I have read about creating new Network Location, but that did not work. It's been happening for about 6 months, I don't remember it doing it before Catalina.

Any ideas? It's a pain, so any help will be appreciated

 

[BrianBaughn]

DNS issues can do weird things that sometimes don't make sense. Have you tried setting manually to a public DNS service?

 

[SisterRay]

Hi Brian, thanks for responding.
Yes I already use opendns using 208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I suggest you try with two different DNS servers:

1.1.1.1 CloudFlare
9.9.9.9 Quad9 (IBM cybersecurity project, blocks known malware host addresses)

 

[SisterRay]

I suggest you try with two different DNS servers:

1.1.1.1 CloudFlare
9.9.9.9 Quad9 (IBM cybersecurity project, blocks known malware host addresses)

Thanks for the response, I’ll give it a go.
Forgive my ignorance, but why would DNS cause this problem, wouldn’t this affect all applications on my Mac attempting to access the Internet. Also why would the loss of internet access stop the Mac shutting down?

 

[BrianBaughn]

If that doesn't work, try creating a test user account and seeing if the issue persists between two user accounts…to narrow down the location of the issue. If both user accounts experience the same difficulties I'd say it's time to reinstall your version of macOS over your current installation…retaining all your apps, documents and so on.

 

[SisterRay]

If that doesn't work, try creating a test user account and seeing if the issue persists between two user accounts…to narrow down the location of the issue. If both user accounts experience the same difficulties I'd say it's time to reinstall your version of macOS over your current installation…retaining all your apps, documents and so on.

Thanks Brian. I think I might reinstall MacOS over the weekend. Just to check, to do the reinstall (and not use any files) I go into recovery mode and select re-install. Is that correct? I'll back up beforehand

 

[BrianBaughn]

Yes. Here's the support page for that. You want the Command-R version.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can use macOS Recovery, your computer's built-in recovery system, to reinstall the Mac operating system. Reinstalling macOS doesn't remove your personal data.

support.apple.com

 

[SisterRay]

Cheers

 

[SisterRay]

Yes. Here's the support page for that. You want the Command-R version.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can use macOS Recovery, your computer's built-in recovery system, to reinstall the Mac operating system. Reinstalling macOS doesn't remove your personal data.

support.apple.com

I have now set different DNS addresses and reinstalled MacOS. I'll give it a few days to see if it is fixed

 

[SisterRay]

So far so good.
[automerge]1592067411[/automerge]
I swear I just wrote that that last post, then the next web page I navigated to it happened again. I just don't know what the problem is. Has anyone got any ideas?

 

[SisterRay]

I have had no problems since I upgrade to the latest version of macOS Catalina 10.15.7
I'm hoping this lasts