A method is executed by a router for improved Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol and Neighbor Discovery (ND) protocol execution to avoid dropped data traffic caused by Media Access Control (MAC) address resolution for next hops of routes determined by the IS-IS protocol. An IS-IS adjacency is established between the router and a neighbor router over a link, where a MAC address for the neighbor router is received from the neighbor router. A routing information base (RIB) is updated to include the neighbor router as a next hop for at least one destination address by the IS-IS process. The MAC address of the neighbor router is provided to an ND process to update the RIB, a forwarding information base (FIB) or L2 forwarding table of at least one line card of the router to include the MAC address of the neighbor router in response to the providing of the MAC address to the ND process.