I also ran into a long stall when Test::WWW::Mechanize tests t/back_ok.t ............. 2/11

Kent Fredric figured it out at http://code.google.com/p/www-mechanize/issues/detail?id=157

He wrote:

This will also occur if you have the following setup.

1. A dns record with a wildcard in it ie: *.foo.bar => 192.157.1.1
2. A default DNS search of 'foo.bar'

In this configuration, non-fully-qualified domains result in a fallback, so wango.nonexistent.xx-only-testing expands as wango.nonexistent.xx-only-testing.foo.bar ,which then matches the wildcard record, resolving the IP.

The solution is straightforward, but little known. All one has to do is put a '.' at the right hand end of the domain name to mark it a "fully qualified" so that search path resolution doesn't happen.

His analysis was correct. The wildcard subdomain was causing the problem. His patch worked for me and all tests now pass.