timeouts using forwarder directive

[Ashwin Kotian]

Hi,

I'm running a SPLIT-DNS server on a Redhat Linux 7.1 box on a single interface using IP aliases. I'm using BIND 9.1.0-10 for named services.
I'm using the forwarder directive on my internal name server & am forwarding non-local queries to my external name server.My external name 
server queries & resolves other hostnames & nameservers flawlessly without much delay but my internal name server (or maybe my client) very
often times out on the first attempt of the query. That is when I use dig or nslookup to resolve any non-local name/address using my 
internal nameserver, it does forward queries to the external nameserver (I see it in the logs), but mostly on the 1st attempt of the query, 
I get timeouts from the internal nameserver. When I do the same query again on the internal nameserver, it is now able to resolve the name 
on the 2nd attempt. However when I comment out the forwarder directive & use the root hints on the internal name server, the queries take no
time to resolve. What could be the problem with this long delay or timeouts on 1st attempts in the case of the internal nameserver 
forwarding non-local queries to the external name server.

Also on a second note, everytime I start/restart the named services, I see occurrances of the following error message:

notify failed: not authoritative for notify zone (REFUSED)

I have the notify directive value as "yes" on both my internal & external nameservers. Also all the zones (internal & external) are using the
 same NS record ns.hercules.com with one difference. For the "hercules.com" zone on internal nameserver, ns1 has an internal IP address entry
 whereas on the "hercules.com" zone on the external nameserver, ns1 has an external IP address entry.
Any suggestions/solutions ? I'd really appreciate any help in this regard.

Thanks,

Ashwin.