Patent ID: 7283531

Claim:
In a telecommunications signaling network comprising a sending peer that sends sequenced data messages to an associated receiving peer, a method of carrying out a recovery action upon the peers becoming out of synchronization with one another, said method comprising: (a) sending a poll message from the sending peer to the receiving peer, said poll message indicating a sequence number for a sequenced data message to be sent next; (b) returning a response to the poll message from the receiving peer to the sending peer, said response indicating that the sequence number indicated in the poll message is the one expect next by the receiving peer or indicating an error when the sequence number indicated in the poll message is not the one expect next by the receiving peer, as the case may be; and, (c) entering into a recovery action state upon the response to the poll message indicating an error, wherein while in said recovery action state selected sequenced data messages received by the receiving peer from the sending peer subsequent to entry into the recovery action state are buffered by the receiving peer.