I never have to debug why my dhcp server isn't handing out ipv4 addresses or deal with conflicts, but if I did, it'd break mdns too. mdns is an extra moving part to deal with.
By debugging I mean just checking if you have not blocked broadcast packets at the firewall or some similar misconfiguration. I doubt it’s actual bugs when it doesn’t work. On your second point, it’s actually more resilient than DHCP because it works with IPv6 too.
Idk, just checked my LAN-connected Mac's arp tables now and none of the hostnames are there, even after I ping the multicast. Haven't messed with any settings.
Yeah they respond. `ping mdns.mcast.net`, shows responses from ip addresses I recognize on my LAN, `arp -a`, still no hostnames. Tried all the other suggestions online too. Tried on my Mac and Rpi, same network, just a single ethernet LAN.
Router is all default except that I port-forwarded something. Funny enough, it sees the hostnames. I'm guessing it's some problem with both my computers, but no real need to fix this because I memorized the addrs already.
I've had numerous issues with dhcp servers over the years and clients not understanding their responses. Acting like they never have issues is just burying your head in the sand. mDNS often works just fine on most common OSes, if you don't explicitly block them.