dns.getServers() incorrectly returns 127.0.0.1 when OS DNS is configured to 8.8.8.8 #62347

This was fixed in c-ares (c-ares/c-ares@8ba37af) but not yet released.

I can confirm this issue on Windows 11.

Environment:

Windows 11 24H2
Node.js v24.16.0
Also reproduced on v22.22.3

The global resolver reports:

require('dns').getServers()
['127.0.0.1']

and:

require('dns').resolve4('google.com', console.log)

fails with:

Error: queryA ECONNREFUSED google.com

However, a manually configured resolver works:

const dns = require('dns');

const r = new dns.Resolver();
r.setServers(['8.8.8.8']);

r.resolve4('google.com', console.log);

which successfully resolves the hostname.

dns.lookup() and nslookup also work correctly on the same machine.

Thanks for identifying the c-ares fix. I can confirm the behavior is still present in Node.js v24.16.0 and the latest version that is v23.6.0.

This issue is causing connecting to mongodb srv url using mongoose, if this is solved then I think relase of this bug fix would be great help.

Confirming I hit this exact symptom on a Windows 11 laptop — tested on both Node 24.x and Node 20.x, same behavior on both:

node -e "console.log(require('dns').getServers())"
// -> [ '127.0.0.1' ]

This was happening despite ipconfig /all and nslookup -type=SRV both showing the correct DNS servers (8.8.8.8 / 1.1.1.1), and mongodb+srv:// connections failing with querySrv ECONNREFUSED.

What fixed it was forcing the resolver explicitly via a preload script instead of relying on Node picking up the system DNS on its own:

// dns-fix.cjs
require('dns').setServers(['8.8.8.8', '1.1.1.1']);

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("NODE_OPTIONS", "--require C:\Tools\dns-fix.cjs", "Machine")

Two gotchas that cost extra time, in case they help someone else:

• The machine-wide env var change didn't take effect until a full PC restart — a fresh terminal window alone wasn't always enough.
• If you run from VS Code's integrated terminal, it can keep using a stale cached environment independently of the system-wide change. Needed this in VS Code's settings.json as well:

"terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
  "NODE_OPTIONS": "--require C:\\Tools\\dns-fix.cjs"
}

Hope this saves someone else some debugging time.