java.net.UnknownHostException: Invalid hostname for server: local

What are the steps I should take to solve the error:

java.net.UnknownHostException: Invalid hostname for server: local

I added the new virtual host name at Android emulator but the result returns to

 java.net.UnknownHostException virtualhostname at 
  java.net.InetAddress.lookUpHostByName(InetAddress.java:506)

When I type my virtualhost URL on my PC, it works on display. Then again, when I ran on Emulator and check on Logcat, I couldn't be able to read or check the HTTP status if 200, 202, or an error code number. It simply returned to UnknownHostException

I was having the same issue on my mac. I found the issue when I pinged my $HOSTNAME from terminal and it returned ping: cannot resolve myHostName: Unknown host.

To resolve:

1. Do echo $HOSTNAME on your terminal.
2. Whatever hostname it shows (lets say myHostName), try to ping it : ping myHostName. If it returns ping: cannot resolve myHostName: Unknown host then add an entry into your /etc/hosts file.

3. For that edit /etc/hosts file and add following:

   127.0.0.1 myHostName

Hope it helps.

What the exception is really saying is that there is no known server with the name "local". My guess is that you're trying to connect to your local computer. Try with the hostname "localhost" instead, or perhaps 127.0.0.1 or ::1 (the last one is IPv6).

From the javadocs:

Thrown to indicate that the IP address of a host could not be determined.

127.0.0.1or ::1 or "localhost" should always be the loopback interface, so if that doesn't work I'd be really surprised.

If there really is a server called "local" on your network - examine your DNS settings or add it to your hosts file.

java.net.UnknownHostException: Host is unresolved:

Thrown to indicate that the IP address of a host could not be determined.

This exception is also raised when you are connected to a valid wifi but router does not receive the internet. Its very easy to reproduce this:

1. Connect to a valid wifi
2. Now remove the cable from the router while router is pluged-in

You will observe this error!!

You can't really solve this, You can only notify the user gracefully. (something like - "Unable to make a connection")

This is not specific to the question, but this question showed up when I was Googling for the mentioned UnknownHostException, and the fix is not found anywhere else so I thought I'd add an answer here.

The exception that was continuously received was:

java.net.UnknownHostException:  google.com
    at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:184)
    at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
    at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:589)
    at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:538)
    at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:434)
    at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:211)
    ... 

No matter how I tried to connect to any valid host, printing it in the terminal would not help either. Everything was right.

The Solution

Not calling trim() for the host string which contained whitespace. In writing a proxy server the host was obtained from HTTP headers with the use of split(":") by semicolons for the HOST header. This left whitespace, and causes the UnknownHostException as a host with whitespace is not a valid host. Doing a host = host.trim() on the String host solved the ambiguous issue.