COHERENT CAPTURING OF SHARED-BUFFER STATUS

A network element includes multiple ports configured to communicate over a network, a buffer memory, a snapshot memory, and circuitry. The circuitry is configured to forward packets between the ports, to temporarily store information associated with the packets in the buffer memory, to continuously write at least part of the information to the snapshot memory concurrently with storage of the information in the buffer memory, and, in response to at least one predefined diagnostic event, to stop writing of the information to the snapshot memory, so as to create in the snapshot memory a coherent snapshot corresponding to a time of the diagnostic event.