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League of Legends DNS: Fixing Connection Issues

1 min read

League of Legends cover image

Swapping your DNS server is a standard fix for launcher errors and lag that have nothing to do with your actual bandwidth. Here is how and why.

Swapping your League of Legends DNS server is a standard fix for connection issues — launcher errors, patcher failures, or lag despite a fine connection elsewhere.

Why DNS matters here

Your ISP's default DNS resolves Riot's domains to an address, and if that resolution is slow or unreliable, everything downstream — patching, matchmaking, the client — inherits the problem, even though your bandwidth is fine.

How to change it

  1. Open your network adapter settings (Control Panel on Windows, Network preferences on Mac).
  2. Find the DNS entry for your active connection.
  3. Replace it with a public resolver: Google's 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4, or Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 / 1.0.0.1.
  4. Flush your local DNS cache (ipconfig /flushdns on Windows) and restart.

When this won't help

DNS swaps fix resolution and routing issues, not server-side outages or Vanguard-related launch failures — if Vanguard is blocking the launch, changing DNS does nothing.

A quick way to check first

Confirm the problem is DNS by trying to reach the Riot site itself. If that is slow too, the swap is worth trying; if only the game lags, look at Vanguard and firewall exceptions instead.