How do you know for sure that a weird TCP packet order bug is not a networking issue?

Question

Hi all :) regarding the close vote on Requests coming in the wrong order over the network

it has been closed as "not networking related", but we've pretty much excluded application-level causes and there's a useful comment from a user stating that he had similar experiences with certain HP routers. From our perspective the client is now doubting something called "ISDN simulator" that they have installed on the sites in question.

I believe that the "off-topic" close vote was premature, that there are cases when networking equipment or setup will cause such issues and that the potential answers could be useful to the community in the future and save some people days and days of ghost hunting - like myself.

The broader question is, "how do you know for sure that a highly specific topical bug isn't network related until a couple opinions come in from people who may have come across it".

Tia :)

Answer 1

The question was not closed as "not networking related". It was closed as off-topic. There is a big difference. It appears there are a couple of problems with the original question.

For example, the questions about HTTP and proxies are questions about application-layer protocols. If you look at the Off-Topic section of What topics can I ask about here? it says, "protocols above L4 in the OSI model (e.g. HTTP, FTP, etc)."

Also, your question sounds like this is happening on networks you do not control. The networks in question must be "under your direct control (if the network is not under your control you will not likely be able to provide the information required to answer your question)." How, for instance, are you going to be able to provide a network diagram, network device models and configurations, etc., if you do not control the networks in question? This leads to the question being too broad and soliciting opinion-based answers, both of which are off-topic here.

Off-topic questions get placed On Hold for a few days to allow you to correct the question, if possible, to bring it into compliance. After a few days, the question will automatically close. If you edit the question to bring it into compliance, a reopen vote is automatically started.