IP Received Header Error Count May Be High

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51 and 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51 and 4.0

The "netstat -s" command can be used to view various TCP/IP protocol statistics.

Windows NT systems that are running on a TCP/IP network with more than one logical subnet per physical network may display a large number of IP Received Header Errors, as shown below:

IP Statistics

   Packets Received                   = 84167
   Received Header Errors             = 10395    <-------
   Received Address Errors            = 94
   Datagrams Forwarded                = 0
   Unknown Protocols Received         = 0
   Received Packets Discarded         = 0
   Received Packets Delivered         = 73678
   Output Requests                    = 2016
   Routing Discards                   = 0
   Discarded Output Packets           = 0
   Output Packet No Route             = 0
   Reassembly Required                = 0
   Reassembly Successful              = 0
   Reassembly Failures                = 0
   Datagrams Successfully Fragmented  = 0
   Datagrams Failing Fragmentation    = 0
   Fragments Created                  = 0

MORE INFORMATION

When an IP datagram is received as a broadcast at the link level, it is passed up to IP to process. IP performs a check to see if the datagram is a valid IP broadcast for a subnet that the computer is configured on. If the datagram is not a valid subnet broadcast, it is discarded, and the "IP Received Header Errors" count is incremented.

This is a harmless error, but a request has been logged to eliminate this behavior in future versions of Windows NT.