Why would tracert produce the following results:

Tracing route to over a maximum of 30 hops

  1     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Indicating that it's using as a next hop when the routing table is as follows:

route print:

IPv4 Route Table
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
     25         On-link    286         On-link    286         On-link    286         On-link    306         On-link    306         On-link    306         On-link    281         On-link    281         On-link    281         On-link    306         On-link    281         On-link    286         On-link    306         On-link    281         On-link    286

Shouldn't it be using the interface due to this line being the most specific?
         On-link    286


Sometimes I also get Reply from Destination host unreachable. followed by Request timed out. on ping. Perhaps it thinks it's a bad route and blacklists it (falling back on the default route?)


This depends on your topology, but it would seem that whatever is there at knows how to get to and it's also connected to your interface. The key to understand this is that tracert lines list the source address that the intermediate node uses to reach the original source, and not the original intermediate destination. (It is the source of an ICMP message)

Thus, if has a route to via, that ( will be the source of the ICMP and what you will see.


Try to make the metric of the correct route < metric of default route. Mostly you need to make manual metric instead of automatic metric in the interface settings.

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