Using pathping to troubleshoot network paths on Windows
Posted: (EET/GMT+2)
It's not seldomly when you need to troubleshoot network connectivity during your software development work. On Windows, pathping is a handy built-in tool. It combines features of ping and tracert into one command.
The command shows the route to a destination and also measures packet loss at each hop. This makes it useful when you want to see where delays or drops happen along the path.
A simple example:
pathping google.com
This first traces the route, then collects statistics for each hop. It may take a while to complete, because it sends multiple probes to calculate packet loss.
The output typically shows:
- Each hop between your machine and the destination
- Latency for each hop
- Packet loss percentage per hop.
If you want to force IPv4 or IPv6, you can use the -4 and -6 parameters:
pathping -4 google.com pathping -6 google.com
This is useful when troubleshooting environments where both protocols are in use and you want to test them separately.
You can also limit the number of hops:
pathping -h 10 google.com
And reduce the number of queries to speed things up:
pathping -q 10 google.com
A few practical tips:
- Expect the command to take some time. It collects statistics before showing results.
- Look for high packet loss between hops. That often indicates where the problem is.
- Use
-4or-6if you suspect protocol-specific issues.
Hope this helps!