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#1445 - 08/15/05 07:41 AM MultiPing vs. Ping Plotter
Jimmy E. Frederiksen Offline


Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 24
This is perhaps more a question to Ping Plotter than MultiPing, but here's the deal.

In MultiPing I have an alert that gets fired every time one of my hosts has 1 sample above 1500 ms. That would equal a packet loss in most cases - wouldn't it?

But if I run a trace in Ping Plotter on a host that's having problems I can't see any errors? Only when I send the data to Ping Plotter.

The reason is that my ISP has asked me to send a Ping Plotter trace instead of the MultiPing logfile, so they're able to see the hops and times. But it's no fun sending them a trace where the errors can't be seen.

So is a setting or how do I get Ping Plotter to show the same as MultiPing?

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#1446 - 08/15/05 10:48 AM Re: MultiPing vs. Ping Plotter [Re: Jimmy E. Frederiksen]
Pete Ness Offline



Registered: 08/30/99
Posts: 1106
Loc: Boise, Idaho
The first thing to check is that you're actually going against the same target. You probably are, but we've had numerous situations where we're helping someone solve a problem like this, just to find out that there was some difference in the targets being traced / pinged.

Next, have a look at the packet type. MultiPing only supports ICMP packets - so in PingPlotter, you want to pick "ICMP Using Windows DLL (default)" as the packet type. Also, make sure your "Timeout speed" in PingPlotter matches your "Ping Timeout" in MultiPing and that your trace interval is the same.

If these are all the same and you still see different results between the two, try switching PingPlotter to ping the final destination only (View -> Ignore first hops -> Ping Final Hop Only). If that doesn't show any difference, then the only thing left is to change the packet type in PingPlotter to match MultiPing. If you get through all the above and still can't see a difference, let us know and we'll tell you how to do that.

Let us know how this goes. If you still can't get things working the same, then email your ini files (PingPlotter.ini for PIngPlotter, MultiPing.ini for ... well ... MultiPing) and we'll see if we can see anything else that might make them work differently.

- Pete

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#1447 - 08/16/05 02:50 AM Re: MultiPing vs. Ping Plotter [Re: Pete Ness]
Jimmy E. Frederiksen Offline


Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 24
I'm using the "Trace in PingPlotter" option in MultiPing, so I guess it would be the same target (IP-address). The default packet type is also chosen (I haven't really changed anything in the two programs), so it should be the same packet type for both. Also the timeout is set to 9999 ms.

Trace interval is set to 5 seconds and samples to include are 10. The # of times to trace is set to unlimited in PingPlotter. Is there a setting for this option in MultiPing?

I can try and ping the final destination only. Is that the same as "Send data to PingPlotter" (just wondering)? Because that showed the same errors yesterday as the ones in MultiPing. However, the problem is that my ISP want a logfile with all hops and times.

But I'll to monitor again today and get back to you! Again, thanks for this great support!

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#1448 - 08/16/05 12:54 PM Re: MultiPing vs. Ping Plotter [Re: Jimmy E. Frederiksen]
Pete Ness Offline



Registered: 08/30/99
Posts: 1106
Loc: Boise, Idaho
Sending the data to PingPlotter just moves the data over - it doesn't actually capture the route, which is what your ISP needs.

The discrepancy between MultiPing and PingPlotter is what I'm chasing down here (and the suggestion with going final destination only in PingPlotter). The data you collect that way won't be helpful to your ISP, though. Once we determine the difference between PingPlotter and MultiPing's data (ie: why MultiPing shows packet loss and PingPlotter doesn't), then we can try to get PingPlotter to show the same packet loss that MultiPing does.

A warning here, though. Make sure you're correlating packet loss in MultiPing back to a network disturbance of some kind. The fact that PingPlotter doesn't show packet loss is a warning sign that the packet loss shown in MultiPing might be just because of a router configured to drop certain types of packets - and that the network may be functioning just fine. What symptoms are you seeing?

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#1449 - 08/17/05 05:32 AM Re: MultiPing vs. Ping Plotter [Re: Pete Ness]
Jimmy E. Frederiksen Offline


Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 24
Pete, I think you might be right on the latter part. Since I've started using MultiPing and saw the "Packet loss" I've tried to do some preventive work by reporting this to our ISP. However they can't seen any errors most of the times. So I think that it might be related to what you've said about the router configuration and hence no problems has been reported by our customer.

But I'll see if I can narrow it down further and get back to you if there should be any difference in the two programs.

Thanks again!

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