New Hosts file entries not working

My Hosts file has entries for some addresses that I need to ping often.
Eg
192.168.1.27 pi400

I have tried to add some more entries for other machines on my local area network

eg
192.168.1.21 samsungs8
192.168.1.64 armx6

but the new entries are not working:
ping armx6
gives a message: no address associated with name

I have tried restarting in case the Hosts is cached at startup bu to no avail. Could anyone help?

ARMX6 RISC OS version 5.29 (02 Nov 2020)

Does ping pi400 still work ? Is it just the new entries which are failing ?

If that’s the case, then the only thing that springs to mind is, have the entries been put in correctly.
That is ip address then a single ‘tab’ space then the name.

If you’ve just spaced it by eye so to speak with the space bar, then this could be the issue. It will look ok, but not work.

On both my RO 4.39 and 5.29 setup, any number of spaces and/or tabs between the items in the entries works, so I doubt that’s the problem.

It could however be caused by whitespace before the IP address (although that seems to cause a hang rather than a message about an unknown host).

“IP whitespace netbiosname” is the format so all should be well – thinking: unless you have a non-printing character in the “whitespace” perhaps.
Names must start with an alphabetic character (not number) IIRC (and contain only alphanumeric characters)

Actually, anything that makes up a valid hostname works (on RISC OS and Linux – no idea about the rest). I.e. starting with a digit is fine, as is containing (but not starting with) dots and dashes.

Progress report, thanks to everyone who responded.

The problem is partially resolved:

After deleting the Hosts file:
Internet.files.Hosts
and rebooting I found that
ping localhost
ping pi400
still worked.

So, Resolver must be getting the Hosts mapping from somewhere else.
Either a persistent cache file or an alternative Hosts.
It turned out to be the latter.
A search using !Locate disclosed a file:
…OBSD.files.hosts
with entries for localhost and pi400

The problem is what to do about it.
I don’t remember installing !OBSD, it has no documentation and I don’t know what uses it.
It lives in Boot:Resources and as it is seen after !Internet I assume it has grabbed the Hosts file path.

Unpopular opinion – I prefer to restart every so often (about yearly) with a completely fresh system and only add bits to it that I’m sure I want. To begin with, anyway.

A search using !Locate disclosed a file:
…OBSD.files.hosts
with entries for localhost and pi400
The problem is what to do about it.
I don’t remember installing !OBSD, it has no documentation and I don’t know what uses it.
It lives in Boot:Resources and as it is seen after !Internet I assume it has grabbed the Hosts file path.

I think you will find that it is part of the new beta version of the internet stack, supplied by RComp.

I prefer to restart every so often (about yearly) with a completely fresh system

What, everything?

I got myself a new phone (a Mi10T) at the beginning of December. People reading my blog might wonder why I don’t talk about it much, or review any of its functions.

The simple answer is that I’m dreading switching over to a new phone. My S9 has been by my side for three years. I have the playlists set up as I like, apps are where I want them, remembered passwords are on the device (and not in The Cloud), blah blah blah.

So the Mi10T? Might be amazing at 5G (is that even a thing out here in the middle of nowhere?) but to be honest I mostly use it for Netflix and taking videos right now.

Maybe one day I’ll migrate over. I have moved a few things across, but not enough to warrant switching SIMs.

Plus, Google have broken some useful behaviours. I cannot use Blackbox call recorder any more as now it’s just complicated getting a non-rooted phone to record calls. MIUI can do it, but I think it’s only the Chinese version that does. Call recording is important to me for two reasons. Firstly, it allows me to go back and review what was actually said (useful if you aren’t speaking in native language), and secondly I have in the past had people tell me something, deny it, and then pull the “you are English, you didn’t understand” crap. A recording can set that straight. Whether it’s legal or not, I don’t care. Pretty much everywhere I call these days announces “your call may be recorded for staff training purposes” (which actually means “your call is recorded so if you get nasty with the hapless operator, we’ll get the cops involved”). So I’m recording too. I tend to say this out loud, in both languages, as the auto-bot is telling me about their recording. If nobody’s listening, not my problem. ;-)

The second thing Google has broken is their own Translate tool. Previously it was possible to have a little Tap To Translate thing pop up when stuff was copied to the clipboard. But, oh no, it’s just bad form having apps directly fiddle with the clipboard. So now you have to be constantly spammed by the Tap to Translate function. Either by having a constant message in the notifications (to turn the button on and off) or by having that floating icon always on the screen.
All I can surmise is that the people who make these decisions clearly don’t work in multiple languages, so don’t understand that sometimes exceptions to the rule are necessary. They’ve taken a simple one-tap-to-Translate and turned it into a mess where it’s often just simpler to go to Translate itself (the app) and paste in the text manually.
Idiots.

No, I don’t like changing phones. Or OSes. Change is a problem, and it’s rarely for the better. Just look at “Improved New Recipe” on your favourite ready meal. That’s never a reason to rejoice. In one case recently (Marie Poulet Pesto) it was actually a change that made me ill to the point where I won’t touch the thing any more. The change? Adding some spices and bits of red pepper. I ate the meal twice, two different batches, from two different supermarkets to rule out contamination. I got badly ill both times. My theory is that the peppers might have been sprayed with something that my insides really don’t like. Either way, no more garlic chicken. :-(

Yeah, change is bad.

What, everything?

Yeah, easy enough on the ARM systems for me. Park all the old stuff and reinstate individual components carefully. At least it’s not the bad old days when having been developing for a month or two the DOS filesystem really did need a reformat/reinstall.

no more garlic chicken

Boo hoo!

Plus, Google have broken some useful behaviours.

Like the ability to accept a CA certificate (or not in the case of Android 11)
Whether the sudden interest in securing communication with a typical enterprise Wi-Fi setup has any connection with Google having setup as a CA is an interesting question.

Either way, no more garlic chicken. :-(

Unless you get hold a set of ingredients and make up batches of your own

I think you will find that it is part of the new beta version of the internet stack, supplied by RComp.

Thanks for spotting that Chris. I have reread the release email and it all makes perfect sense.
The email also asked for no discussion in a public forum. So apologies for this thread – note to RComp, had there been a readme in the release this would not have happened.