Querying root domain returns localhost

Thanks in advance! Any nudges in the right direction will be appreciated.

My root domain hosted by porkbun and aliased to duckdns.org is not resolving through pihole. However the root domain resolves correctly by the upstream server, in the examples below that is 9.9.9.9.

Expected Behaviour:

Querying a root domain returns localhost instead of the correct IP address. However expect to see a public IP address

nslookup ROOT_DOMAIN
Server:		127.0.0.53
Address:	127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	ROOT_DOMAIN
Address: CORRECT ADDRESS

Actual Behaviour:

Pihole returning localhost.

nslookup ROOT_DOMAIN
Server:		127.0.0.53
Address:	127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	ROOT_DOMAIN
Address: 127.0.0.1

Querying ROOT_DOMAIN directly to upstream DNS server works as expected.

nslookup ROOT_DOMAIN 9.9.9.9
Server:		9.9.9.9
Address:	9.9.9.9#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	ROOT_DOMAIN
Address: CORRECT ADDRESS

Querying SUBDOMAIN of the ROOT_DOMAIN works as expected.

nslookup SUBDOMAIN.ROOT_DOMAIN
Server:		127.0.0.53
Address:	127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
SUBDOMAIN.ROOT_DOMAIN	canonical name = SUBDOMAIN.duckdns.org.
Name:	SUBDOMAIN.duckdns.org
Address: CORRECT ADDRESS

OS: ubuntu 24.04 / ubuntu 24.10

As shown above, ROOT_DOMAIN is an ALIAS record via porkbun
ALIAS record points to duckdns A record subdomain

nslookup SUBDOMAIN.duckdns.org
Server:		127.0.0.53
Address:	127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	SUBDOMAIN.duckdns.org
Address: CORRECT ADDRESS

nslookup SUBDOMAIN.duckdns.org 9.9.9.9
Server:		9.9.9.9
Address:	9.9.9.9#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	SUBDOMAIN.duckdns.org
Address: CORRECT ADDRESS

Debug Token

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/XOamGoMT/

Cheers
-- iaco

Edits: substitute ROOT_DOMAIN add DEBUG token, clarified Actual Behavior

Please upload a debug log and post just the token URL that is generated after the log is uploaded by running the following command from the Pi-hole host terminal:

pihole -d

or if you run your Pi-hole as a Docker container:

docker exec -it <pihole-container-name-or-id> pihole -d

where you substitute <pihole-container-name-or-id> as required.

This is entirely on my end. Friendly PSA, always check your local config files. I had a bad entry hiding in /etc/hosts.

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