Due to bugs in the IP implementation of various hosts and switches, the IP trace command may behave in unexpected ways.
Not all destinations respond correctly to a probe message by sending back an "ICMP port unreachable" message. A long sequence of TTL levels with only asterisks, terminating only when the maximum TTL is reached, may indicate this problem.
There is a known problem with the way some hosts handle an "ICMP TTL exceeded" message. Some hosts generate in ICMP message, but they reuse the TTL of the incoming packet. Since this is zero, the ICMP packets do not make it back. When you trace the path to such a host, you may see a set of TTL values with asterisks (*). Eventually, the TTL gets high enough that the "ICMP" message can get back. For example, if the host is 6 hops away, traceroute times out in responses 6 through 11.
taken from the Cisco website
-Jeff ----------------------------------------
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