Patent ID: 8717879

Claim:
A method of handling a failure in a network, the network comprising at least two network elements, the network elements each including at least two ports furnished for bidirectional communications, and the network elements interconnected via these at least two ports to form a ring network, wherein information can be sent both ways along the ring, and, wherein one of the network elements is a ring master, the ring master having blocked one of its ports connected in the ring for reception and transmission of all traffic except for ring protection control traffic, the method comprising the steps of: sending, by the ring master, test messages across the ring in both directions via its two ports connected in the ring, the test messages each traveling through the ring and being received at the ring master's respective opposite port; detecting, by the ring master, a unidirectional link failure somewhere within the ring network due to non-reception of test messages at one opposite port from one direction of the ring, whereas test messages are received from the other direction of the ring at the other opposite port; and sending by the ring master in case of a unidirectional link failure being detected a block interface message via the opposite port that did not receive test messages.