I have a question regarding traceroute "hop status"...

[gavnone]

Hello,

 

I'm a new user -  I just finished reading all of the Forum Rules, and I have a question about traceroute hop status' (not sure if status' or "stati" is the correct word for this?):

 

I pay for a 34Mb connection, from my ISP, yet I regularly receive a 15-16Mb connection (I checked this using the TMN speed test). A few minutes ago I did a traceroute, out to 16 hops, from my IP address to my ISP's main IP address and noticed that, while I was getting really low latency between hops 1-11, I was receiving a "request timed out" message starting at hop 12 and continuing to hop 16.

 

Here is a copy of my traceroute report:

Tracing route to comcast.net [162.150.0.50]
over a maximum of 16 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.0.1.1
  2    10 ms     8 ms     9 ms  96.167.76.1
  3    13 ms     7 ms     7 ms  te-0-0-0-14-ur07.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net
[68.86.98.33]
  4     7 ms    11 ms     9 ms  be-1-ur08.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net [69.139
.164.134]
  5   129 ms    69 ms     8 ms  ae-20-0-ar03.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net [69.
139.164.129]
  6    19 ms    18 ms    17 ms  he-1-4-0-0-10-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net
[68.86.94.237]
  7    48 ms    50 ms    35 ms  pos-0-11-0-0-cr01.denver.co.ibone.comcast.net [6
8.86.87.65]
  8    68 ms    71 ms    59 ms  he-5-12-0-0-cr01.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net
 [68.86.85.249]
  9    61 ms    60 ms    59 ms  pos-0-3-0-0-ar02.northlake.il.ndcchgo.comcast.ne
t [68.86.94.182]
 10    59 ms    60 ms    60 ms  te-0-3-0-0-ur04.northlake.il.ndcchgo.comcast.net
 [69.139.217.222]
 11    61 ms    59 ms    73 ms  ge-0-1-0-0-ur03.northlake.il.ndcchgo.comcast.net
 [69.139.236.1]
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

My question is... should I be concerned about these "request timed out" errors and, if so, is there anything that can be done about them?

 

[CA3LE]

Here's some information on that... In summary, those can be ignored, sometimes.

"Request timed out" Message - At the Beginning of a traceroute

A “Request timed out” message at the beginning of a traceroute is very common and can be ignored. This is typically a device that doesn’t respond to ICMP or traceroute requests, as shown in Hop 2.

Example Hop 2:

2 * * * Request timed out.

"Request timed out" Message - At the End of a traceroute

There are several reasons why a “Request timed out” message may appear at the end of a traceroute, such as in Hops 17 through 19.

The destination’s firewall or other security device is blocking the request. Even if a firewall is preventing the final hops at the destination from showing up in traceroute output, the destination is likely still reachable using the application you’re interested in (e.g. web/HTTP).

There could be a problem on the return path from the target system. Remember the round trip time measures the time it takes for a packet to travel from your system to a destination system and back. The forward route and the return route often follow different paths. If there is a problem on the return route, it may not be evident in the command output.

There may be a connection problem at that particular system or the next system.

Example Hops 17 Through 19:

17 * * * Request timed out.

18 * * * Request timed out.

19 * * * Request timed out.

Source: customer.comcast.com