How to fix NordVPN connection problems

For the most part, you shouldn’t experience any problems using the NordVPN Windows app, or any of the other apps. But if you are having issues connecting to servers it could be a problem with your account, the settings within the app, the actual server in question or something awry with the network settings on your laptop or PC.

Before trying any of the more in-depth fixes, there are some quick ways to discover where the issue lies by a process of elimination.

1. Try connecting to a few different servers. If you can’t connect to any, try the NordVPN app on a different device, such as your phone. If the connection works fine on that, the problem is with your first device or computer.
2. If you still can’t connect, the issue could be your network or a problem with your NordVPN account.
3. Another quick solution if you can’t access another device is to log out of your account (within the app) and then log back in.
4. No joy? Uninstall the app, reinstall it and log back in. If even that doesn’t work, temporarily disable and antivirus and / or firewall on your PC or laptop and see if that’s blocking the connection.
5. Finally, you can select a different connection method within the app to see if that makes any different. The connection options will vary depending upon the device you’re using, but if you head into Settings and click on ‘Show advanced settings’ you should find the heading ‘Protocol’. Pick a different one to whatever is currently selected and try connecting again.

If none of this works, the follow our advice below in order.

Account settings

Log into your NordVPN account and make sure that your account status is ‘Active’ and that your last payment was successful.

If you can verify both of those things, it isn’t an account issue. However, if there is a problem here, you can contact customer support and get it resolved. If you need to subscribe again, click here.

App settings

Open the Windows app and click on Settings at the top. Scroll down and click on Show advanced settings.

Scroll down again and click on Run Diagnostics Tool.  A new window will open in which you should click Reset app.

This will restore all the default settings, and you can try again to connect to one of NordVPN’s servers.

Control Panel Network settings

If that doesn’t work, then try disabling and re-enabling the NordVPN network adapter. Open Control Panel, and that’s the old-style one if you’re running Windows 10.

Go to > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Centre > Change adapter settings.

Here you’ll see a list of all the network adapters, including virtual ones such as the TAP NordVPN Windows Adapter.

Simply right click on it and choose Disable.

After a few seconds you can double-click on the disabled adapter to re-enable it. Now you can try to connect to a server again.

Command prompt

If the ‘turn it off, turn it on again’ trick doesn’t work, then you can run a few commands to reset your Windows network settings.

From the Start menu, find the Run app. In the text box type cmd and press Enter. In Windows 10 you can type cmd in the search box, or PowerShell. Both will have the same effect.

Now type the following commands in turn, pressing Enter after each one. If you’re prompted to restart your computer, just keep entering the commands and restart it after they have all been run.

ipconfig /release

ipconfig /flushdns

ipconfig /renew

netsh winsock reset

netsh interface ipv4 reset

netsh interface ipv6 reset

netsh winsock reset catalog

netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log

netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log

Restart your computer and hopefully your connection problems will be a thing of the past. If you’re finding that the connection speed is slow, here’s how to speed up NordVPN.