The remote computer that was reached is not the one you specified

What's going on:
I've been noticing this issue a couple times lately - I try to open a Remote Desktop Connection to another computer that's

• on my company network
• was just turned on
• using the remote computer's name (e.g. 'ACME-001')

and I get the following error:

If I'm at the remote computer, I can connect to the original computer, so that's all working fine. If I had to guess, I'd say it is related to an outdated entry in a DNS cache somewhere, but I tried clearing my local DNS cache and it didn't help (> ipconfig /flushdns).

After a while (>10 minutes), it does fix itself and I can connect to the remote computer using the computer name, which seems to support the DNS cache theory.

Question:
Is there a way to establish a RDC to a computer in such a state as described above, without physically going to the remote computer? For instance, is there another DNS cache I can send a request to to update itself?

2 Answers

Ping it first by name, then connect by IP address.

EDIT: You can also try to use these below commands in order, to refresh DNS table:

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns

Despite what the error message says, if there have been no changes to the DNS or computer names, this is often a time synchronization problem (see relevant answers on ServerFault). Make sure the server's clock is properly synchronized, and that the client you connect from is within 5 minutes from the correct time. To connect despite the problem (e.g. to correct a configuration error on the server), simply do what is mentioned in the error message, i.e. connect using the IP address of the server.