December 7, 2021 How do I do a traceroute?

A trace route is a command run on your computer that sends a small file to an internet server that you specify. It shows the path that file takes, the names of each computer it touches, and the time it takes from each computer to the next one. It’s an extremely useful  anaytic tool to find problems between your computer and a place on the internet (more info).

ABOVE: An example of the file that you’ll send to us – this is what a “traceroute” looks like.

For Microsoft Windows

For Windows (any version), you’ll be opening a “old school” DOS prompt, typing in some commands, the result will be written to a file, and you’ll send the file to us (you can look at the file to see what’s in it, too).

You may wish to print this instructions page, so you do not have to keep swapping windows around.

Open a DOS command prompt

START menu, Run…, type “cmd” without the quotes (or “command” if you’re using anything older than Windows 7). A black window will open up with a flashing cursor. Very 1991, eh? 🙂

ABOVE: The black window opens, called a command prompt, where we can give instructions directly to the computer.

If you see the Access denied error message, it’s because Administrator access is required. After writing “cmd”, instead of hitting ENTER (or clicking “run”), instead press CTRL-SHIFT+ENTER. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, click Continue. You should see the black window now?

Enter the traceroute command

Enter the following command. It has to be exact, letter for letter, space for space.

It’s best to copy-and-paste, but to paste into the DOS command line window, use ctrl-INS (ctrl-v will not work).

tracert -d -w 1 cdn.abbywinters.com > c:\abbytracecdn.txt

Press the ENTER key. Not much appears to happen (we’re sending the output of the command to a file, so it’s easy to send to us, but that means the output is not displayed on screen). After a 30 to 60 seconds, you’ll go back to the DOS prompt with a flashing cursor.

ABOVE: The command has been pasted in to the command line, and enter was pressed. It takes about 30 secondws for the command to run. We know it worked, because there are no errors, and the system is ready for the next command.

If you see an “Access denied” error message, type “exit” to close the command prompt, and use the technique described above in “If you see the Access denied error message…”.

Close the command prompt window

You’re done here! Type “exit”, press ENTER, the black screen will go away.

Review the file

Let’s check the file actually has useful info in it!

  1. Open Explorer (Windows-e)
  2. Click on Local disk (C:) Drive in the left panel
  3. Look for this file, created in a previous step; abbytracecdn.txt
    1. See screenshot below for an example
  4. Double click on the file, it will open in Notepad (a text editor)
  5. Keep the file open for the next step.

In the file, you’ll see a bunch of web addresses and numbers and stuff in it (see image at the top of this page, but yours will have different numbers).

ABOVE: Locating traceroute the file created (1) Select the C: drive (2) the abbytracecdn.txt file. Double click to open.

Send us the info in the file

We need to see what’s in the file, to help us diagnose the problem. We’ll copy the text from the traceroute, and paste it into an email to us. Continuing on from the previous step;

  1. Select all the text in the traceroute files
    1. Hold down the CTRL (“control”) button on your keyboard, and tap the “A” key.
    2. This is a shortcut to “Select all”. The text will go white, and the background black. Let go of the CTRL key.
  2. Copy the traceroute report
    1. Hold down CTRL again, and tap the “C” key, then let go of the CTRL key. This will copy that stuff into your computer’s memory.
    2. If it all disappears and is replaces with the letter c, you need to hold down CTRL again, and tap the Z key – this will undo the last action. Go back to step 1 above, and try again.
  3. Reply to the email where we asked you for a traceroute, say hello
  4. Paste the traceroute report
    1. Hold down the CTRL key, and tap the V key. Your traceroute info should appear there as if by magic. Let go of the CTRL key.
  5. Send the email to us, and we will investigate from there.