Incorrect DNS Names

I really appreciate the new and improved Glasswire 2.0.123. Many of the annoying problems of the past couple of years have been fixed and it is really fun to use, informative and visually attractive. One thing continues being annoying however. Often, on the Things tab, the DNS name of a device is shown incorrectly in the device column, despite repeated efforts to manually rescan the devices. For example, in the case of my Kindle Fire, the DNS name displayed is not the name I have given to the device in its device settings. Instead, it is often identified as the IP address it was assigned by my router or by a generic (hard-coded?) device name. Sometimes, it is even identified by a different DNS name that might have been previously associated with its current IP address during a different session. Is there some way I can edit the DNS name that is associated with the device’s MAC address in the firewall or in GW? I have had some limited luck associating a DNS name with an IP address in the system’s hosts file but since the system uses DHCP to assign IP addresses, that method only works sometimes for fixed IP addresses. Thanks for any advice or insight.

@csdfg2

I will ask our team why this happens and what they recommend. Sorry for the problem. I posted this in our internal support system and I have not heard back yet.

If you ping the devices from your PC and then restart GlassWire and scan again does it solve it?

@csdfg2

Please try flushing your DNS, then try another scan.

  1. Press the Windows Key or hover your mouse over the bottom left corner and click the Windows Icon
  2. Begin typing Command Prompt
  3. Right-click the application and select Run as Administrator

Run the following command in the command line and hit enter ipconfig /flushdns

Thanks for the pointers. I tried all the recommended steps. When I Ping the Kindle’s device name, it “cannot be resolved.” But when I Ping the Kindle’s IP address, that succeeds. The device that shows up on the Things tab Device list is the IP address of the Kindle and not the Kindle’s “device name” that I assigned to it in the Kindle settings. I have the “DNS” button selected on the upper right of the screen when doing this. I might add that if I assign a fixed IP address to the Kindle in the router and then associate the Kindle’s device name with its fixed IP address in the network’s hosts file, then the device name I have given the Kindle displays correctly in GW and can be successfully Pinged. But since I use DHCP to assign network IP addresses, there could be times when the Kindle is assigned an IP address that is not associated with its device name in the hosts file. Any further thoughts about that? Thanks.

Regarding the DNS Names issue, the latest version of GW (2.1.137) seems to be working well. It has been quite some time since I noticed any of my “Things” having previously-registered or otherwise incorrect DNS names, or just an IP address instead of a DNS name. The reported IP addresses have all been correct as well. Thank you.

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I’m glad it’s working. Thanks for your detailed report so we could fix it.
:cowboy_hat_face:

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