Network Management

ICMP Node can be pinged but node showing down in the SolarWinds Platform when the ping packet is shortened

This article describes how to resolve an issue that occurs after adding a node using ICMP in the SolarWinds Platform.

First published date

10/29/2018 4:34 PM

Last published date

7/15/2026 1:36 PM

Overview

When you add a node using ICMP, it adds successfully. After one minute, the status goes to Warning and then Node Down while the node is still able to be pinged from the server.
By default, SolarWinds utilizes a 23-byte ping packet which is shorter than many devices expect. Below are steps for increasing the length of the ping message to 32-bytes.

Product section

Network Performance Monitor

Cause

The device may be dropping packets because it thinks it is a fragmented packet. The SolarWinds default ping packet is smaller than the Windows 32-bit ping packet.

Resolution

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
  2. Click Settings > All Settings.
  3. Under Thresholds & Polling, click Polling Settings.
  4. Scroll down to Network and locate ICMP Data.

  5. In the corresponding field, change "SolarWinds Status Query" to "SolarWinds Status Query xxxxxxxx"

    where "x" is any character. This adds up to 32 characters, including spaces.
  6. Click submit.
  7. Perform a "poll now" on the node on Node Details to see if it comes back as up.

 

If, after the steps above, some nodes stopped responding, you can use the following text in the ICMP data, as it is the default Windows ping:

abcdefghijklmn opqrstuvwabcdefg hi