Efficient Remote Call Diagnostics

An approach is provided in which a request addressed to a remote target node is transmitted through a network path with the network path includeing multiple relay nodes. The transmitting system recognizes that the transmission of the first request failed. Relay nodes in the serial path are analyzed using historical failure data. A first relay node is identified as a likely failed relay node based on the analysis. The first relay node is tested by transmitting a test request to the likely failed relay node. If the transmission of the test request fails, the identified likely failed node is verified by testing the previous node in the path. If verification is successful, the first node is selected as the failing node. However, if verification is unsuccessful, then a second node is chosen as the likely failed node and testing resumes.