URL needs 2 attempts to get access.

When I remotely test a website I manage, the IE browser complains that it cannot be found and sends me to search.msn.co.uk. But then on either re-typing the URL or initiating a page refresh, the site mysteriously manages to be found and loaded.

The only thing between the web server and the internet is a Linux firewall, and I don't know what affect this is having on the situation.
On a number of occasions, I have done ping tests and used nslookup to check URL. These all work fine, but it's still the same problem every time, taking at least two access attempts before the site begins to load in the first new browser window.

Tell us your URL.

since resolvers won't wait forever a lookup might time-out. The nameservers however continue their search and when you try to resolve again the requested address might be stored in cache.
just an idea of what could be going on...

Mark

It ALL works fine now.

The problem was caused by the secondary DNS servers refusing to accept information from the primary, so it was left to answer all queries on its own, causing the time-outs.
Now the problem has been fixed on the secondary servers, they are now correctly resolving queries, and the URLs are accessible from any browser without having to ask twice.

Other strange details:
Configuration of the primary involved the creation of an access control list that only allowed AXFR requests only on certain IP addresses (specified secondary servers). But this had no immediate affect on zone information transfers.
The secondary servers actually had to be configured, by the company hosting them, to accept zone information on specific domain names. So I had to inform them of zones I wanted secondaried before it actually took place. Once this was done, I restarted the named daemon on the primary and checked, with NSLOOKUP, that each secondary had received the information.
I also checked the /var/log/messages for occurances of "Received NOTIFY answer from..." from each secondary that took place after a "Sent NOTIFY for...".