host utility gives malformed message packet

For the last few days this message appears at startup

"Network service discovery disabled
Your current network has a .local domain, which is not recommended and incompatible with the Avahi network service discovery. The service has been disabled."

the ubuntu forum thread at https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2353783
suggests running "host -t SOA local"

the output is as follows

:~$ host -t SOA local
;; Warning: Message parser reports malformed message packet.
local has no SOA record

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: host (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-33.36~16.04.1-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-33-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.18
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Sep 2 12:42:54 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-12-13 (262 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20170801)
SourcePackage: bind9
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2018-08-28 (5 days ago)