Unable to connect, white screen, or getting Unable to communicate error - Using Traceroute to resolve

Products

• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

Unable to communicate to PPM Server error error intermittently, unable to connect, some users getting a white screen. This may be seen only for for certain network/VPN

Environment

Release : All Supported Clarity releases

Component : CA PPM SAAS INSTALLATION AND UPGRADE

Resolution

We need to run a trace route to see if any issues are found, and reroute users that are having connection issues

Steps to determine if this is the cause on the PC that's unable to connect

Run the appropriate trace route command below

Windows:

1. 1. Open Command Prompt
   2. Run tracert <IP Address> command <provide the Public IP for the server you're trying to connect to.>
      Example: tracert 192.1.1.1
      To find the Public IP address of a server:
      Connect to the server you want to find out the public IP for
      Open Google and type "what is my ip address"
      The resulting IP is the Public IP
   3. Allow the trace to run to completion
   4. Select the information in the screen and paste into a text file

  Mac: 

1. 1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal
   2. Run the command: traceroute <IP Address>
      Example: traceroute 192.1.1.1 <provide the Public IP for the server you're trying to connect to.>
   3. Allow it to run to completion
   4. Select the information in the screen and paste into a text file

Review the resulting trace:

Check for too many hops to see if this is causing the issue. 
One example: If it's going through 30 hops, it may be timing out - in that case a reroute for the user(s) can solve the issue.

Compare against working trace for any differences.

 

If any issues are found in the trace:

See if there is a specific location / VPN that has the issue and raise with your internal Network team i.e. sometimes a specific "hop" on the way is causing the delay and it should be brought up with the ISP in question. 
For those where too many hops are observed as mentioned in step 2 reroute the user(s) to see if that solves the issue

Additional Information

See also 191799 - Unable to Communicate to the PPM server - List of Known Issues