How To Fix LAN Not Working on Minecraft Issue

Minecraft is a sandbox video game first released in 2011 that’s still very popular today. It is considered as the single best selling game of all time with more than 176 million copies sold. Estimates place that there are around 112 million active monthly players. You can play the game in single player mode or multiplayer mode via the internet or LAN. Playing the game via LAN is easy to setup however sometimes issues can occur. In this latest installment of our troubleshooting series we will show you how to fix LAN not working on Minecraft issue.

How To Fix LAN Not Working on Minecraft Issue

Before performing any of the recommended troubleshooting steps listed below its best to reboot your computer. This will refresh the windows 10 operating system and will usually fix most of the common issues caused by a software glitch.

There are several factors that can cause this particular problem ranging from the game being blocked by the Firewall to a network settings issue. Listed below are the steps you need to do to fix this problem.

To start a LAN game on Minecraft for Windows

  • Open Minecraft
  • Press Play
  • Create a new world or edit a current world by pressing the pen icon
  • Go to multiplayer and make sure that “Visible to LAN Players” is enabled
  • Start the world by choosing Create or Play

To start a LAN game on Minecraft Java Edition

  • Choose a host computer.
  • Launch the game and click “Single Player” and create a new world or open an existing one.
  • Inside that world, press the Esc key, then click the “Open to LAN” button.
  • Choose which game mode to set for the other players: survival is the default Minecraft, with life points and hunger, creative mode allows you to fly and place an infinite amount of blocks, and adventure mode is similar to survival, but players cannot place or destroy blocks. You can also choose whether or not to turn cheats (commands) off or on.

Make sure all players are connected to the same network

The first thing that you will need to do is to make sure that all computers are connected to the same network.  Even if you are connected to the same wireless router, the router might have a 2.4GHz and 5GHz network. Make sure all devices are on the same frequency.

Check if the LAN not working on Minecraft issue still occurs.

Make sure the Firewall is not blocking Minecraft

There’s a chance that the Windows Firewall is blocking the online components of Minecraft from running.

  • Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Then, type “control or control.exe“ and press Enter to open up Control Panel.
  • Inside Control Panel, use the search function to locate Windows Defender Firewall (Windows Firewall). Once you see it, click on Allow an app through Windows Firewall.
  • Inside the Allowed apps window, click on Change Settings and start scrolling down the list. You need to make sure that the boxes associated with one (or multiple) entries are checked: javaw.exe, Java(TM) Platform SE binary, Minecraft
  • Save the changes and launch Minecraft again

Check if the LAN not working on Minecraft issue still occurs.

Enable network discovery

  • Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box. Then, type “control” or “control.exe” and press Enter to open up the classic Control Panel window.
  • Click on Network and Internet and then click on Network and Sharing Center.
  • Inside the Network and Sharing Center screen, click on Change advanced sharing settings.
  • Expand the Private tab and make sure that the Turn on network discovery feature along with its associated checkbox. then, expand the Public tab and Turn on network discovery under Network discovery.
  • Once network discovery has been enabled, attempt to host/join the Minecraft session again.

Check if the LAN not working on Minecraft issue still occurs.

Try using Direct Connect

Direct Connect is a reliable way to establish a LAN connection. TRy using this and see if this will fix the problem.

  • Start Minecraft and launch a new world (Single Player > *YourWorld* > Play Selected World). When the world is loaded, go to Settings and click on Open to LAN.  Then, establish the server preferences and hit Start LAN World.
  • When the game is opened to LAN, you will see some text in the bottom-left portion of the screen (“Local game hosted on port XXXXX“). Copy the port number on a piece of paper.
  • Press Windows key + R to open up a Run dialog box.
  • Type “cmd” and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open up an elevated Command Prompt.
  • Inside the Elevated Command Prompt, type ipconfig then press enter. This will show you the ip address of the host computer.
  • Take the information that you previously fetched (IP address + Port number) and move to the computer that is trying to join the LAN party.
  • Go to Multiplayer > Direct Connect. Then, inside the Server Address box, type the IP address and the port number.
  • Click on Join server to join the LAN hosted session.

Check if the LAN not working on Minecraft issue still occurs.

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