10808 Port Already in Use: Find the Conflicting Process and Change the v2rayN Local Port

What the port conflict error looks like

After v2rayN starts, the core listens on two local ports: 10808 for HTTP proxy and 10809 for SOCKS5 proxy. These are the default ports for many proxy tools on Windows, so conflicts are fairly common.

When a port is occupied, the core doesn't silently skip it—it throws an error and stops listening. The error appears in the log area at the bottom of the v2rayN main window, usually in one of these two forms.

Understanding the port mapping helps you quickly identify where the problem is. v2rayN's default local port allocation is shown in the table below.

Besides v2rayN itself, other proxy software may also listen on 10808. Game accelerators, enterprise intranet proxy tools, or even leftover processes from an older v2rayN version can cause the same conflict. So when you see the error, don't rush to change v2rayN's config—first confirm who's occupying the port.

Use netstat to find the process occupying 10808

When you hit a port conflict, the first step isn't to change the port—it's to find out who's using it. Two built-in Windows commands are enough, no extra tools needed. netstat lists port usage, and tasklist shows the process name for a given PID.

1. Open Command Prompt

   Press Win + R, type cmd, and press Enter to open Command Prompt.

2. Run netstat

   Type netstat -ano | findstr :10808 and note the PID in the last column.

3. Check the process name

   Type tasklist /fi "pid eq <PID>" to confirm which program is using the port.

4. Kill the conflicting process

   After confirming it's not a critical system process, run taskkill /pid <PID> /f.

Here's a typical netstat output example. PID 8732 is occupying both 10808 and 10809, meaning this process has bound v2rayN's default port pair. If findstr returns only one line, only one port is occupied and the other is still free.

netstat -ano | findstr :10808
  TCP    127.0.0.1:10808    0.0.0.0:0    LISTENING    8732
  TCP    127.0.0.1:10809    0.0.0.0:0    LISTENING    8732

tasklist /fi "pid eq 8732"
  Image Name                     PID  Session Name        Session#        Mem Usage
  ========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
  v2rayN.exe                    8732 Console                    1     24,580 K

If the PID in the netstat output corresponds to System (4) or svchost.exe, don't kill it directly—those are system processes. In that case, the safer approach is to switch to a different port rather than force-killing a system process.

Three ways to resolve the conflict

Once you've identified the occupying process, you have three options. They address different levels of the problem and suit different scenarios. The flow chain below shows the decision path, then we'll go through each option.

Option 1: Kill the occupying process (temporary)

If the process using 10808 is a proxy tool you recognize or an old v2rayN version, killing it is the fastest fix. taskkill /pid <PID> /f releases the port immediately, but the process may start again on next boot. This option suits you when you just want to restore internet access quickly and don't plan to change the config long-term.

Option 2: Change v2rayN's local port (recommended)

In Parameter Settings, change the HTTP port to 10810 and the SOCKS port to 10811. This change persists and avoids the port range most software uses by default. Although 10810/10811 are also in the common port range, as local proxy ports they're far less likely to conflict than 10808.

Option 3: Disable the conflicting program's auto-start (root fix)

If the conflicting program is an old tool you no longer use, disabling its startup entry in Task Manager's Startup tab is more convenient than killing the process every time. Open Task Manager, switch to the Startup tab, find the program, right-click it, and select Disable.

Change v2rayN's local port and sync the browser proxy

Changing the port is the recommended approach, but if you only change v2rayN and not the browser, the browser will still send requests to 10808 and connections will fail. Follow the steps below in order to ensure the proxy chain is complete.

1. Open Parameter Settings

   In the v2rayN main window, click Settings → Parameter Settings, then switch to the Local Listening tab.

2. Change the local ports

   Change the HTTP proxy port from 10808 to 10810, and the SOCKS proxy port from 10809 to 10811.

3. Save and restart the core

   Click OK to save, then click Restart Core in the main window to make the new ports take effect.

4. Sync the browser proxy

   In your browser proxy extension (e.g., SwitchyOmega), change the HTTP and SOCKS proxy ports to 10810/10811.

If you're using the system proxy instead of a browser extension, after changing the port you also need to update the HTTP proxy address and port in Windows Settings → Network & Internet → Proxy to 127.0.0.1:10810. v2rayN's Parameter Settings has an Auto Configure System Proxy option—checking it lets the client update it for you automatically.

Verification and prevention after a port conflict

After changing the port, first use netstat to confirm the new port is listening, then open a browser and visit ip.sb or ipinfo.io to check whether the exit IP has changed to the node's location. If both checks pass, the port switch was successful.

To prevent port conflicts, you can take two approaches: remove old proxy tools you no longer use from auto-start, and set v2rayN's local ports to 10810/10811 to avoid the 10808 that other software tends to use. Once the ports are fixed, even if a conflict occurs later, you can easily tell from the error message which process is causing trouble.

If you still get errors after changing the port, check whether multiple v2rayN instances are running at the same time. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, search for v2rayN on the Processes tab, end all extra instances, keep only one, and restart the core.