What is MTR traceroute and how does it work?

MTR (My Traceroute) combines ping and traceroute into a single diagnostic. It sends packets with incrementing TTL values, causing each router on the path to return a time-exceeded message. This reveals every network hop between the probe node and your server, with latency and packet loss measured at each individual hop.

How do I read an MTR result?

Each row represents a network hop. The Host column shows the router IP or hostname, Loss% shows packet loss at that hop, and Avg shows average latency. If a middle hop shows high loss but subsequent hops respond fine, that hop is rate-limiting ICMP replies — not actually dropping real traffic. Actual packet loss that affects users shows at the final destination hop.

What does 100% packet loss at a hop mean in MTR?

A hop showing 100% packet loss while subsequent hops respond normally is almost always ICMP rate-limiting — the router is forwarding traffic fine but deprioritizes generating TTL-exceeded replies to reduce load. Only packet loss at the final destination hop indicates traffic is actually being dropped for real users.

Can I run an MTR traceroute from a specific country?

Yes. Use the country-specific node pages (e.g. /mtr/germany or /mtr/singapore) to run an MTR diagnostic from nodes in that specific country. Running from multiple countries simultaneously helps identify whether routing issues are path-specific or affect all global traffic to your server.