If Cloudflare cannot connect your server to your domain, your browser displays one of the 1xxx errors.
One possible message is Cloudflare Error 1016: Origin DNS Error:
What is Cloudflare Error 1016: Origin DNS Error?
“Cloudflare Error 1016: Origin DNS Error” means Cloudflare is not able to connect to your origin server as a result of a DNS issue. In other words, Cloudflare error 1016 indicates that the Cloudflare Anycast address cannot find the DNS record that should be specified in the DNS records section of your Cloudflare control panel.
An external domain that belongs in your control panel may be missing even when a Cloudflare A record or CNAME resolves correctly.
Cloudflare cannot find your IP because it does not belong to an Anycast route.
Want to skip the explanation? Click here for the fixes.
Why Can’t Cloudflare Get Your DNS Records Automatically?
Cloudflare can retrieve DNS records automatically, but you still need to enter your IP address or domain name in its dashboard.
Doing this helps your server handle uncached pages quickly. If the IP or DNS details cannot be found, skipping this step may cause problems with your website.
Your site also receives firewall protection from the Cloudflare DNS resolver.
Without a verified origin IP address or origin host names, the server cannot confirm that a connection is valid and secure.
The resulting 1016 error code warns you that your DNS records have a problem.
How To Fix Cloudflare Error 1016
- Make Sure Your IP Address And Domain Will Resolve
- Add Your Valid A or CNAME Record To Cloudflare
- Use Load Balancer To Create Fallback Pools
1. Make Sure Your IP Address And Domain Will Resolve
To resolve error 1016, check whether your host site’s IP address resolves through DNS and can connect.
Check each A record for your website and confirm that it points to a valid IP address.
Update the entries yourself, or ask Cloudflare support to create new ones.
If a CNAME record points to an external domain rather than an IP address, check that the target domain returns a DNS response.
Use command-line tools to make these checks:
dig subdomain.example.com
When a lookup fails, add +trace to get more detailed output explaining the DNS error:
dig +trace subdomain.example.com
After confirming that the domain is online and configured correctly, add @1.1.1.1 to check whether public resolvers receive a response from DNS providers:
dig @1.1.1.1 subdomain.example.com
To check whether the CNAME resolves, you can also use the Cloudflare DNS lookup tool.
2. Add Your Valid A or CNAME Record To Cloudflare
Once the site and your Cloudflare user account are configured correctly, check the CNAME record log again and add any missing records.
If you added the record through Cloudflare DNS and receive a response code such as NOERROR, NXDOMAIN or SERVFAIL, the cause lies with your host or DNS provider rather than your Cloudflare DNS configuration.
3. Use Load Balancer To Create Fallback Pools
DNS resolution can still fail when the configuration appears correct.
Hosting providers’ network clusters can be troublesome.
We frequently see one provider’s server cluster disrupt the next and cause performance problems for website domains.
The physical distance between servers also matters.
A server may be near the source of a visitor’s request or far away from it.
Incorrect server settings or unusually heavy traffic can cause occasional requests to be blocked or missed entirely.
Cloudflare Load Balancer tries to avoid overloaded servers, though DNS settings may still direct traffic to one.
Create a fallback pool to back up your main server pools. If all the main pools go down, the system uses the fallback pool’s IP instead.
When the primary pool is unreachable, the backup configuration is used as the first response.
