A second type of problem may exist in networks using the datagram organization. Consider a path that contains a cycle. For example, router `R1` sends all packets towards destination `D` via router `R2`. Router `R2` forwards these packets to router `R3` and finally router `R3`'s forwarding table uses router `R1` as its nexthop to reach destination `D`. In this case, if a packet destined to `D` is received by router `R1`, it will loop on the `R1 -> R2 -> R3 -> R1` cycle and will never reach its final destination. As in the black hole case, the destination is not reachable from all sources in the network. In practice the loop problem is more annoying than the black hole problem because when a packet is caught in a forwarding loop, it unnecessarily consumes bandwidth. In the black hole case, the problematic packet is quickly discarded. We will see later that network layer protocols include techniques to minimize the impact of such forwarding loops.
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