Patent ID: 8756453

Claim:
A method for resolving a network error in a distributed communication system, the method comprising: a first component, executing using a processor and a memory in a first data processing system, receiving, over a data communication network and using a first adapter in the first data processing system, a first diagnostic heartbeat packet from a second adapter in a second data processing system, wherein the first heartbeat packet is a packet comprising a header, a set of heartbeat parameters, and a set of diagnostic attributes; the first component determining, based on a set of values corresponding to the set of diagnostic attributes in the first diagnostic heartbeat packet, that a soft network error condition exists in the data communication network, wherein the soft network error condition is a network error condition that adversely affects transmission of packets having certain properties in the data communication network; the first component storing the set of values in a state information record associated with the first component; and the first component re-routing data traffic from a link between the first data processing system and the second data processing system to a different link between the first data processing system and the second data processing system.