Can I exclude a specific node from a trace list?
Background: I have been regularly using Ping Plotter on-demand and as continuous connection check to a site that I frequently use (for remote computer login and teleconferencing). The route contains one node that is set not to respond to ICMP, hence always shows an 100% error. Now our site system administration asks me if I can remove that server from the list to avoid the “fake” error returns, which upset other monitoring tools they have in place. I am using Ping Plotter 2.30.1

At present, there is really no way to do this. The closest you can get is to exclude all the hops up to and including that router (which isn't what you want to do in most cases).

The difficulty in this concept is that it's likely a single route to a specific host (or limited group of hosts), and if a route changes, then the hop will move - or not exist. Getting a way to detect this *gap* is a bit rough.

I suppose one possibility (we're talking theory here - no such capability exists yet) is to have Ping Plotter look at the hop immediately before and immediately after this gap - and if they match a specific pair of hops, then it could not dispatch packets to this hop number. There would still have to be occasional sends, though, as the first time out, Ping Plotter is trying to determine the route and wouldn't know to exclude this one. Also, if the route changed, it would need to try it again and make sure it was still timing out.

Would your administrator be OK with *occasional* requests back (I suspect so - since any time out by a router is going to look similar - even on hops that normally respond) that timed out? If your admin is OK with 1/10th the current volume, then something like above might work. If your admin is striving to not have any timed out responses come back, then there will be no way of making Ping Plotter do this - as these packets are going to happen on *any* lost packet.