Many of you might or might not have come across this message of “Windows has detected an IP address conflict.” At first glance of this particular message, you’d probably be intimidated and be thinking it’s something serious has happened to my device, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s very quickly resolvable, and you would be up and working in no time. 

What Exactly Is An Ip Address, And What Does It Do?

When the alarming message “windows have detected an IP address conflict” pops up, you guys might be thinking, what exactly is an IP address, and how does this bother me anyway?

This particular term “IP address” might be an alien term for many, but well, lucky for you, we are here to explain this in the most straightforward words possible. 

The abbreviation IP expands to “Internet Protocol,” IP address is a code which is assigned to your device which is connected to the internet; now, this IP address is a crucial element of your device as with the help of it only the internet or server can navigate towards your device to send information that you will be needing. 

Consider you have received an email in which a file is present. To read the file, you will have to download it now. As you click the download button, the internet or the server will ask which address it needs to be downloaded, and that is when the IP address is accessed, which is assigned to your device, and the file is downloaded onto your respective device.

Understanding The Ip Address Error Problem

You’ve been notified that there’s a problem with the IP address but now what does that exactly mean? Now consider you ordered yourself a pizza and gave your address to be delivered, but the pizza never got paid; you called the pizza store to ask about it. They replied that there were two same addresses, so the delivery got canceled because they didn’t know where to deliver the pizza.

Now even on your device, something similar to this happens. Most IP addresses are not static, which means the IP addresses a machine changes from time to time. These IP addresses usually change for a particular device at an interval of 7 days, while many IP addresses are renewed. Some also get expired. You can learn more from 192.168.1.7 for IP address related issues.

Now, this is when the role of DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) kicks in. Your internet provider uses DHCP, and DHCP has a particular assigned storage of IP addresses to be transferred to the devices. The assignment of IP addresses usually takes a fraction second, but this process isn’t so efficient. 

When your device informs you of an IP address conflict, it tells you that another machine on the network has the same IP address that it wants to use. In this case, your computer will deny your entry to the Internet because doing so would cause chaos where you and others’ device data with the same IP address are supposed to go. Similar to the pizza delivery example.

What Causes The Ip Address Error Problem?

There could be various explanations to assess the IP address error problem. Some of them might be;

– The user might have put their device to sleep where the DHCP assumes the device has been shut down and the device no more needs the IP address it holds, and there might be another device which needs a new IP address, so the DHCP assigns the IP address of the device which is on sleep to the device which requires a unique IP address, now if the device which was put to sleep is woken up to connect to the internet, it would lead to an IP error

– Sometimes, a system administrator can assign two same IP addresses to two different devices. This a classic human error. 

– If DHCP is not functioning correctly, the assigning of IP addresses to different devices might go wrong.

– There are some instances that the DHCP runs out of IP addresses to be assigned.

How To Fix The Ip Address Error Problem With Five Easy Methods

Fixing the IP address error problem is hardly any inconvenience; it can be resolved with these methods mentioned below;

● Do nothing, just wait.

Most of the devices we use have a non-static IP address, eventually now or sometime late, the IP address will be assigned pretty quickly, and you can use the internet.

● Restarting the computer.

With various problems on your computer and if you don’t have any technical knowledge, you might think to restart the computer, and in this case, that remedy will work like magic.

● Follow these steps.

According to Microsoft, there a few steps that could help, so follow these steps.

– Click start and find run.

– Type “cmd” and click enter; you will have a command prompt opened up.

– Now, type “ipconfig /release” and press enter.

– Now, type “ipconfig /renew” and press enter.

– Now type “exit” and press enter so you’ll exit the tab

This should fix the problem.

● Restart router 

This type of deep root reboot; will disconnect the DHCP device and then reconnect, which will assign a new IP address leaving no errors.

● Check internet connectivity.

Sometimes the internet operator will have DHCP problems; if this is the case, you might consider changing the internet provider but keep this as your last resort.