Patent ID: 8345559

Claim:
A method of diagnosing a problem in a multi-protocol label switching network, comprising: hopping from a first network element to a second network element in the multi-protocol label switching network; determining that a label switched path between the first network element and the second network element is not operational; identifying that the hopping from the first network element to the second network element was strict; finding an interior gateway protocol link between the first network element and the second network element; remembering the interior gateway protocol link between the first network element and the second network element; diagnosing causes of the label switched path between the first network element and the second network element not being operational; and altering a display of a topology map of the multi-protocol label switching network to indicate the diagnosed causes of the label switched path between the first network element and the second network element not being operational, wherein different colors on a particular link in the altered display correspond to different diagnosed causes on the particular link.