strange connection problem.

I have a development site ( FreeBSD 10.1 and Postgres 9.3 ) where I can connect to the database via psql or pgadminIII both locally and remotely.
However, all of the local apps ( 3 different ones ) that would connect to it are failing to connect.

I see no error events in the messages/postgres log files related to bad attempts.
I suspect something with name resolution,
The hosts, hosts.conf and resolv.conf files are set to resolv first via the hosts file
And the hostname and localhost are properly defined there.

The site installation did have some initial DNS setup issues. However this command works fine locally.
"psql -U <role> -h <hostname> database.
i.e. name resolution works locally fine for psql.

The problem does not go away on shutting down and starting up the system ( Virtual Machine )

Is there anything on the postgres side that might explain this situation ?

Will likely re-install and see if the problem goes away. ( build of the day problem ? )
It is an interesting puzzle at the moment.

Thanks

Dave