Preventing transmission of errors in a computing network

A network device comprising:

• a processing unit;
• and
• network ports;
• wherein the network device performs operations, the operations comprising:
• maintaining counts of packet errors for network packets processed by the network ports, wherein the packet errors comprise cyclic redundancy check (CRC) errors;
• upon detecting a packet error condition based on the counts of packet errors:
• if the network device supports tracking outbound CRC errors for transmitted network packets:
• detecting the packet error condition for one of the network ports;
• and
• disabling cut-through forwarding on only the one network port;
• and
• while cut-through forwarding is disabled on the one network port, processing network packets via the one network port using store-and-forward network packet processing;
• and
• otherwise, if the network device does not support tracking outbound CRC errors for transmitted network packets:
• detecting the packet error condition;
• and
• disabling cut-through forwarding for all network ports of the network device;
• and
• while cut-through forwarding is disabled on all of the network ports, processing network packets via all of the network ports using store-and-forward network packet processing.

A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for causing a computing device to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• obtaining cyclic redundancy check (CRC) error information for network packets processed by a network device, wherein the network device supports cut-through forwarding, and wherein cut-through forwarding is enabled on a plurality of network ports of the network device;
• based on the obtained CRC error information, detecting a CRC error condition associated with the network device;
• and
• if the network device supports tracking outbound CRC errors for transmitted network packets:
• detecting the CRC error condition for one of the network ports;
• and
• in response to detecting the CRC error condition, sending a command to the network device to disable cut-through forwarding on only the one network port so that the one network port uses store-and-forward when processing network packets;
• and
• otherwise, if the network device does not support tracking outbound CRC errors for transmitted network packets:
• detecting the CRC error condition;
• and
• in response to detecting the CRC error condition, sending a command to the network device to disable cut-through forwarding for all network ports of the network device so that all of the network ports process network packets using store-and-forward network packet processing.