Clearing your DNS Cache

If when you log into your Web Watcher or Sonar portal and you see a message asking you to clear your DNS cache we ask that you do so on any computers which you use to access our websites, as well as any computers which you are monitoring.

There are a few ways to clear the cache on your computer.  The first and easiest is to simply reboot your computer.

If this isn’t an option for some reason there another way.  Click on the Start button, then click on Programs (or All Programs depending on how your computers is configured).  Then click on Accessories, and find the Command Prompt (it should look something like the picture below).

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 and you have the User Access Controls (UAC) enabled right click on Command Prompt and select the “Run as Administrator” option from the menu (see the image below).  After you do this the screen will go gay, and ask you to confirm that you want to do this. Click Yes or Confirm depending on which one you are presented with.

Now if you have Windows XP, or you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 without UAC enabled you won’t see the “Run as administrator” option.  In this case simply click on the Command Prompt item.

In either case at this point you should have a black box with a blinking cursor in it.  In the box type “ipconfig /flushdns” and press the enter or return key on your keyboard.  The window should look similar to the one shown below.

One you get to this point you can click on the Red X in the upper right hand corner of the Command Prompt window and the window will close.

At this point you can navigate back to the site that directed you here (you should be able to just close the window or tab) and click the refresh button in the web browser.  If the message has gone away and you are greeted with the normal login prompt then you are all done (don’t forget that if you are monitoring a different computer than the one you view the data on you’ll want to follow these instructions on that computer as well).  If that message is still there then you fall into one of a few categories.

1. You are a corporate customer and your company’s internal DNS Servers have our old IP Addresses cached.

2. You are at work, but a personal customer and your companies internal DNS Servers have our old IP Addresses cached.

3. Your Internet Service Provider has our old IP Addresses cached and they aren’t following the guidelines that we published for how long to keep our addresses in the cache.

If you fall into group #1 or #2 then talk with your systems administrator at your work and ask them to clear the DNS cache on your internal DNS Servers.

If you fall into group #3 then your Internet Service Provider will eventually clear the cache of our IP Addresses automatically.  We ll monitor which ISPs aren’t clearing the cache and contact them to ask that they do so.

If you’ve gotten to this point and you are still getting the warning about connecting to the old IP Address please feel free to click the link on that page to take you to the login screen.  These things will sort themselves out in the long run, we just want to give you the best experience on our websites possible.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact our Customer Support department through your normal support options and they will be happy to assist you as quickly as possible.