I have these sample sets and I'm trying to determine what is going on here. Can someone help me interpret them?

I'm seeing packet loss well before the endpoint, and I'm not sure if this is the primary issue.

Adding a little background-

This trace is from a school using an online test to our testing servers (which we do not own). The school is reporting repeated problems indicative of a drop or interruption in connection. I believe that there is not an issue on our end (the testing end) due to no dropped packets at our end.I don't see any clear pattern here of what could be causing the dropped connections (I am suspecting filtering on their end) so I am not sure what our next steps should be to assist them in resolving this issue.

Hello,

Thanks for writing in!

I've taken a look over the .pp2 files you've got here (thanks for attaching those!) - and I don't see anything in your data that would be indicative of a potential network problem. The 100% packet loss you're seeing in the earlier hops (#5-#8) isn't necessarily anything to worry about; as it's not following through the rest of your route to the final destination. If you're interested, we cover this topic in a bit more detail in one of our knowledge base articles:

http://www.nessoft.com/kb/5

A few questions, and some suggestions here:

Was this data collected in PingPlotter during a period where you were actively experiencing issues (such as the drops or interruptions you mentioned)? If so - then you can probably rule out any connectivity issues between you and your test servers as being your issue. The data you've provided looks great as far as I can see - you've got a solid latency and no packet loss at the final destination (which is about as much as anyone could as for in a good connection).

If this data was by chance collected when you *weren't* experiencing any performance issues - then I'd recommend some additional testing. Ideally, you'll want to be running PingPlotter during a period where issues are present (as well as when they aren't - so you have a way to compare "good vs bad" times). If this does happen to be the case - we've got an article that goes over some strategies for long term monitoring that may be helpful here:

http://www.nessoft.com/kb/44

As I'm sure you know (and as we elaborate on in our Network Nirvana guide, which you can see here: http://www.pingplotter.com/netnirvana), the goal of troubleshooting is to effectively narrow down what your culprit may be by eliminating as many variables as possible. Were these results taken from a machine that was experiencing problems? If not - I'd recommend that you either run a trace from one of the machines that is experiencing issues - *or* run a trace to one (or more) of the machines in question. Doing this may help shed some light as to if this could possibly be an internal network problem (maybe some wiring thats gone bad, or possibly some wireless connection problems).

You could also bring MultiPing into your troubleshooting efforts (the program has a free 30 day trial, which *should* give you a good amount of time to do some testing). MultiPing has the ability to add a range of IP addresses - so you could set it up to monitor a number of different computers that have been experiencing these issues - all while PingPlotter is tracing to your test server. With a setup such as this you, if someone reports that they're experiencing a drop or interruption - you can easily check the connection to your test server with PingPlotter, and then also use MultiPing to see if their machine specifically is experiencing connection issues (which, again, can potentially help you narrow down where the problem is originating from).

Hopefully this helps out. Please let us know where this leaves you - as we're always curious as to how cases such as yours turn out!

If you should find yourself with any questions, or needing any other guidance - please don't hesitate to let us know.

Best wishes.

-Gary

Hi Gary,

from the topic. I would like to ask for help since I am new to ping plotter.

We recently upgraded from free to standard version. I lost the graft preference that I used to see in free edition. From pulse graft it becomes linear graft. I want my pulse graft back.

Also, is there a way to help me know if how many switches it came across or passes through from my PC to my target? tracert perhaps?

Hey Edwin,

We received your support ticket on this issue as well (and have responded to that), and it looks like your graph situation can be fixed by making an adjustment to your trace interval. If you should find yourself with any questions about this, please let us know.

As far as your question about how many switches your packets pass through - this is displayed in the upper portion (or "trace graph") in the program. PingPlotter is a trace route utility, and the trace graph portion of the program displays each device between you and your target and displays them as hops in your route. If you're interested, we cover this topic in quite a bit more detail here:

http://www.pingplotter.com/manual/howitworks.html

If you have any other questions - please let us know!

Best wishes,

-Gary