Windows

[Solved] One or More Network Protocols are Missing Error

Has it ever happened to you that you tried connecting to the internet, as usual, and discovered an error? It says something like “One or more network protocols are missing from this computer.” It gets you wondering as to what it means and how to get around it. Everyone tries to diagnose the problem in connecting to the internet and end up with the same error message. This problem usually arises due to the inconsistent windows socket registry API, also called as Winsock.

This API handles all the network related activities related to your specific machine, and also control the requests going in and out. Provided your internet is working fine, i.e., you can access the web on other devices but fail to connect on your PC, then it is a problem with this program. So here are 5 ways of fixing it. Note that these steps will work with all the versions of Windows OS out there, so as long as you are on some version of windows, you are good to go.

Table of Contents

How to Fix One or More Network Protocols are Missing

Attempt to disable IPv6

IPv6 is a fairly new kind of header format, an upgrade to the traditional IPv4. But unfortunately, some of the network service providers still do not fully support this protocol suite. So I think it is better to disable this header set until there is significant support available for it. Microsoft advises against that, but it’s our choice really!

Enter the Run command by pressing the Win+R keys.
Enter ncpa.cpl and press OK. It will open up network connections from your control panel.

Right click on whichever is your internet adapter and select properties.
Under the networks tab, find an option that says Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and unchecks the corresponding box.
Hit OK, which should disable IPv6 from your available network protocols.
If this could not be done for some reason, there is an alternate way to disable IPv6 from your system.

Open regedit by typing the same in the Run window.
Among the whole list of keys, go to this one HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\
Find DisableComponent and double-click on the same.
Set the value offset as OFF to disable IPv6 header.
Reboot your system and check that the values you just set are still there and have not been reset to the default value of 0, which means IPv6 is still active.

Reset Winsock

Resetting the Winsock API can sometimes fix this issue right up. To do that, follow these simple steps:

Run the command prompt as admin by searching for CMD and selecting Run as administrator in the right-click menu.
In the prompt that opens up, type the following command and hit enter: netsh Winsock reset

After it is done, reboot your system. See if the problem persists.
If this solves the problem, great! If not, try out the next method.

Restart the network adapters

Sometimes the problem is the improper functioning of the network adapter software on your system. So restarting those specific services should do the trick. Follow these steps to do so:

Enter the Run dialog box by pressing Win+R keys. Enter ncpa.cpl and click on the OK button.

Select your network adapter from the list. There may be more than one depending on how many LAN points your system is a part of.
Right click on your network adapter and choose the disable option. Then right-click on it again and select the enable option, which will be in the same spot as the disable option was earlier.
Now you have rebooted your network adapters. If it does not make any difference, reboot your system and try again. If it still does not work, then move on to the next method.

Reinstall the TCP/IP

Try and reinstall those protocols which allow you to access internet connection on your system. That way, the error of ‘one or more network protocols are missing’ won’t show. To do that:

Go back into Run and type ncpa.cpl again and hit OK.
Right click on your network adapter, and select properties this time.
Below the list of connections, you will see a button that says install. Click on it.

In the next window, select the protocol option and click on the Add button.
Select the option in the bottom right corner that says Have Disk. Paste the path C:\windows\inf in the path name of the prompt window that pops up.

Sometimes you may get an error which says group policies or something block something like Install. To rectify that, you will have to tinker around with the registry editor a little bit.

Type regedit in the Run window and hit enter key. Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\safer\codeidentifiers\0\Paths and select the ‘paths’ listed in the left menu pane. Right click on it and choose Delete in the menu.

Restart your system for safe measure and try to reinstall TCP/IP again using the above steps. It should work with those registries out of the way now.

Move the antivirus out of the way

Sometimes, your anti-virus software causes some problems to good software too. So I suggest you replace or repair the virus definition frequently.

Just update the thing as often as possible, or remove it if it is a freeware and you have other options. See if this fixes the driver issue you encountered.