So, comment #5 is somehow invalid, I got the whole story on why it started to work again: Schiggn (comment #4) contacted some Freenode staff, and they changed the DNS records to expose less addresses. This indeed proved to workaround the issue.
-- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to systemd in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1665394 Title: DNS resolution of irc.freenode.net or chat.freenode.net fails Status in systemd package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: I am running Ubuntu 16.10 (from a base install upgraded several times), with proposed-updates enabled. Recently, I started having problems where I am unable to resolve irc.freenode.net. This is unrelated to the networks. I have been able to confirm that systemd-resolved is able to perform the name resolution. Yet, getaddrinfo() call returns -EAI_AGAIN error. This can be reproduced using getent: > $ getent ahosts irc.freenode.net > $ While testing v4 or v6 directly returns something valid: > $ getent ahostsv4 irc.freenode.net > 38.229.70.22 STREAM chat.freenode.net > 38.229.70.22 DGRAM > 38.229.70.22 RAW > 130.239.18.119 STREAM > 130.239.18.119 DGRAM > 130.239.18.119 RAW [...] > $ > $ getent ahostsv6 irc.freenode.net > 2001:5a0:3604:1:64:86:243:181 STREAM chat.freenode.net > 2001:5a0:3604:1:64:86:243:181 DGRAM > 2001:5a0:3604:1:64:86:243:181 RAW > 2001:6b0:e:2a18::118 STREAM > 2001:6b0:e:2a18::118 DGRAM > 2001:6b0:e:2a18::118 RAW [...] > $ dpkg.log shows there has been some upgrade of systemd recently, though I cannot tell for sure if that directly relates to the problem, I do use suspend-to-ram a lot and reboot not that often. > $ lsb_release -a > LSB Version: core-9.20160110ubuntu5-amd64:core-9.20160110ubuntu5-noarch:printing-9.20160110ubuntu5-amd64:printing-9.20160110ubuntu5-noarch:security-9.20160110ubuntu5-amd64:security-9.20160110ubuntu5-noarch > Distributor ID: Ubuntu > Description: Ubuntu 16.10 > Release: 16.10 > Codename: yakkety To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/+bug/1665394/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp