Skip to content

Parameter-Plane Cable Link Down

A physical link on the parameter (backend) network plane goes down, isolating a node's RDMA path and stalling distributed collectives. One of the most common hardware faults in production traces.

Quick answer

A physical link on the parameter (backend) network plane goes down, isolating a node's RDMA path and stalling distributed collectives. One of the most common hardware faults in production traces.

Infrastructure#network#cable#link-down#infrastructure#rdma#parameter-plane

What this failure is

Parameter-Plane Cable Link Down is a Infrastructure failure seen during ML training runs. A physical link on the parameter (backend) network plane goes down, isolating a node's RDMA path and stalling distributed collectives. One of the most common hardware faults in production traces. Common tags: Network, Cable, Link Down, Infrastructure.

Live diagnosis, no signup

Is this what broke your run? Paste your log.

You're reading about Parameter-Plane Cable Link Down. Paste your own crash log or traceback below and get the real root cause for YOUR run, not this generic entry. No account, no card. Logs are masked at ingress and never saved to account history.

training_logs.txt
No log to hand? Try one:

3 free diagnoses/day

Want 14 days on the Scale plan?

Request an evaluation code. A verified workplace organization activates up to 50 diagnoses a day, alerts, history, and follow-up questions. No credit card or automatic subscription.

Evaluate one incident

Why it happens (the mechanism)

Cable, transceiver, or port hardware failure. Optical module degradation. Switch port fault on the backend plane. Taken together, these mechanisms explain why the failure is reproducible, why it tends to surface on specific workloads or scales, and why generic mitigation attempts often fall short without addressing the underlying cause.

What you'll observe

  • A node drops out of distributed training
  • RDMA collectives stall or fail on one node
  • Link-state alarms on the backend fabric

Common symptoms and what they mean

SymptomWhy it happens
Link Down event on a parameter-plane cable/portCable, transceiver, or port hardware failure
NIC carrier lost / port state DOWNOptical module degradation
Sudden packet loss to one nodeSwitch port fault on the backend plane

Which systems are affected

  • Large GPU clusters with a dedicated parameter/backend plane
  • RoCE/InfiniBand backend fabrics
  • Nodes with optical cables / transceivers

How to confirm this is the problem

Use this checklist to test the hypothesis against a small reproduction. No single line proves the root cause, so preserve the preceding events and compare one variable at a time.

  • ✓Reproduce the failure from a clean checkpoint/seed: the symptom must appear without warm-up state from a previous run.
  • ✓Verified signal present: Link Down event on a parameter-plane cable/port
  • ✓Verified signal present: NIC carrier lost / port state DOWN
  • ✓Verified signal present: Sudden packet loss to one node
  • ✓A targeted fix from the "How to fix it" section eliminates or substantially reduces the symptom within one validation pass.

The fix and the prevention pattern

The root cause is on this page and stays free. A free account adds the exact remediation steps, saved history, and the fix on every entry in the encyclopedia.

Sign up free. Unlock the full analysis

No credit card. Daily allowance follows verified trust tier. Instant access.

Diagnose this failure in VS Code

Select the traceback or open the failed terminal, then run Denpex locally to see the initiating rank, collateral failures, exact fix, and verification command without uploading the log.

Install the free VS Code extension

Related failures to investigate next

Lambda Bgp Route Withdrawal Region Outage often co-occurs with this failure because both share underlying assumptions about infrastructure; if you fix this entry but still see drift, validate the related primary cause next. lambda bgp route withdrawal region outage →
Kubernetes Gpu Pod Pending often co-occurs with this failure because both share underlying assumptions about infrastructure; if you fix this entry but still see drift, validate the related neighboring cause next. kubernetes gpu pod pending →
Cloud Storage Throttling often co-occurs with this failure because both share underlying assumptions about infrastructure; if you fix this entry but still see drift, validate the related neighboring cause next. cloud storage throttling →

Root cause

  • Cable, transceiver, or port hardware failure
  • Optical module degradation
  • Switch port fault on the backend plane

The fix and how to prevent it

Evaluate Denpex on your own logs

Request a Scale evaluation code. A verified workplace organization activates 14 days with up to 50 diagnoses a day. Every account keeps its current diagnosis allowance and gets a verification path. No card or automatic subscription.

We send a single-use code tied to that address. Static provider and TLD rules do not reject valid addresses. Account trust determines the benefit after signup.

References

Don't just read the fix, diagnose your run

The encyclopedia tells you what went wrong. Denpex tells you what went wrong in YOUR training run. With your logs, your config, and your stack.

Diagnose your logs freeBrowse all failures

Related Infrastructure errors

Dual ISP BGP Route Withdrawal Causing Complete GPU Cloud Region Outage

Infrastructure · critical

Routine UPS Maintenance Triggering Cascading Power and Cooling Failure Across GPU Cloud Region

Infrastructure · critical

Remediation Storm Prevention via Circuit Breaker Pattern in AutoClusters

Infrastructure · high

Network Storage Volume Causing Process Hangs on H100 GPU Nodes

Infrastructure · high