I have been having this strange issue for more than a couple weeks now:
Android 12, 12L, 13 Preview devices (emulator & physical) don't resolve local DNS anymore. I started noticing this issue in my android app. Any url or API with a domain name ending with '.local' return with an unknownHostException. Then, I even tried opening the url (i.e: mysite.itsys.local) using the chrome browser on the Android device and it gives errors like: "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN" and "DNS_PROBE_STARTED".
The same url works fine on Android 8, 9, 10, 11, even some Android 12 devices with OS build before December 2021.
I noticed that any Android 12, 12L, 13 Preview devices I have tested with OS build after December 2021 do not resolve local DNS anymore.
What can really be going on in those latest Android 12 and above versions that is preventing them from loading urls that include '.local' in the domain name?
Looks like it is actually the opposite: Starting with Android 12, Android for the first time actually resolves .local domains correctly: They are reserved for mDNS/zeroconf domain resolution according to RFC6762 and must be resolved by the link-local multicast address 224.0.0.251. It is forbidden to use this kind of domain name for none-mDNS addresses.
If you want to have local domain names which are not mDNS based, you have to use a different ending like .intranet to avoid a collision with mDNS addresses.