Ethernet connection disappeared

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

Provide us with the below details for better clarity on the issue.

1. Are you using an Administrator account?

2. Have you made any recent changes on your computer prior to this issue?

3. Are all updates installed on your computer?

I would suggest you to download all available updates. Also update the motherboard chipset from the manufacturer’s website on your system and restart to check if it helps. 

Get back to us with the above details so that we can assist you further to resolve the issue. 

As you can see, it's just not there.

Make sure that your Device Manager is elevated; e.g. start it from an Administrator Command Prompt by entering  devmgmt.msc.  And then once it is open use the View, Show hidden... command.  Then open the problem device(s).  Maybe it is there but in a broken state?

Another diagnostic which may be relevant is a PowerShell command which can also show hidden devices.

Then if you had a pattern which matched one of them you could request all its details in a list:

FWIW I think it is interesting that you have your Bluetooth PAN there but disabled.  E.g. I don't see mine there, probably because I have set Bluetooth Off in Manage Bluetooth devices and in Device Manager it only shows when I use the Show hidden... command where it is not disabled.

Do you use Bluetooth for anything else?  It might be worthwhile disabling it the same way that I have in case it changes something else unexpectedly.

Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
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Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

Provide us with the below details for better clarity on the issue.

1. Are you using an Administrator account?

2. Have you made any recent changes on your computer prior to this issue?

3. Are all updates installed on your computer?

I would suggest you to download all available updates. Also update the motherboard chipset from the manufacturer’s website on your system and restart to check if it helps. 

Get back to us with the above details so that we can assist you further to resolve the issue. 

Thanks for your response!

My account is the only one on this computer, so I assume this is an Administrator account. The only changes that I made, that were the same that caused the issue on my laptop, was uninstalling the network adapter through device manager, and after that letting it reinstall by itself again. I allow my computer to install all updates whenever they come available, and I last checked yesterday, at that moment I was totally up to date. I also have the latest drivers for my motherboard installed.

Thanks, I hope this information helps!

Jari

As you can see, it's just not there.

Make sure that your Device Manager is elevated; e.g. start it from an Administrator Command Prompt by entering  devmgmt.msc.  And then once it is open use the View, Show hidden... command.  Then open the problem device(s).  Maybe it is there but in a broken state?

Another diagnostic which may be relevant is a PowerShell command which can also show hidden devices.

PS>Get-NetAdapter -IncludeHidden

Then if you had a pattern which matched one of them you could request all its details in a list:

PS>Get-NetAdapter Eth* | fl *

FWIW I think it is interesting that you have your Bluetooth PAN there but disabled.  E.g. I don't see mine there, probably because I have set Bluetooth Off in Manage Bluetooth devices and in Device Manager it only shows when I use the Show hidden... command where it is not disabled.

Do you use Bluetooth for anything else?  It might be worthwhile disabling it the same way that I have in case it changes something else unexpectedly.

Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

Thank you for the information Robert!

I tried the things you said, the power shell command, running the device manager in elevated mode, but it all seems to lead to a dead end.

Here's what I came up with

I also enabled my Bluetooth. I disabled it because I don't normally use Bluetooth, so I disabled it there. It's just so strange that it disappears like this..

Thanks for this anyway, I'll be sure to keep these things in mind for future troubleshooting!

Jari

Hi everyone

After some searching around, I found that someone had sort of the same issue, which he said was caused by his Kaspersky antivirus. Since I'm also a Kaspersky user I thought hey, why not? And decided that it wasn't a bad idea to give it a try. After I removed Kaspersky, I rebooted my system and noticed the wired connection icon appear in my login screen. I quickly logged in, and checked my Network Connections. As if it was never gone, the Ethernet connection was staring me right in the face, and it was already connected to the Internet!

To anyone else stumbling across this post who has a similar issue, this is how I fixed it. Just removed my antivirus, rebooted, and verified that my connection was operational again. After that, don't forget to install your antivirus software again ;-)

Thanks for taking a look at my issue, it's nice to know there's a community out here to help!

Jari