Cisco Routed Optical Networking Solution Guide, Release 4.0

Troubleshoot provisioning issues on ZR or ZR+ optics

Updated: October 5, 2026

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Use this procedure to troubleshoot Routed Optical Networking provisioning failures for ZR or ZR+ optics. It helps to identify issues in component communication, service requests, device configuration, or optical endpoint readiness.

Follow these steps to troubleshoot provisioning issues on ZR or ZR+ optics.

Procedure

Use the show controllers optics R/S/I/P or show controllers coherentDSP R/S/I/P command to check the controller state on the router.

Example:

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:ron-8201-1#show controllers optics 0/0/0/20
Thu Jun  3 15:34:44.098 PDT

 Controller State: Up

 Transport Admin State: In Service

 Laser State: On

 LED State: Green

 FEC State: FEC ENABLED

 Optics Status

         Optics Type:  QSFPDD 400G ZR
         DWDM carrier Info: C BAND, MSA ITU Channel=10, Frequency=195.65THz,
         Wavelength=1532.290nm

         Alarm Status:
         -------------
         Detected Alarms: None


         LOS/LOL/Fault Status:

         Alarm Statistics:

         -------------
         HIGH-RX-PWR = 0            LOW-RX-PWR = 0
         HIGH-TX-PWR = 0            LOW-TX-PWR = 4
         HIGH-LBC = 0               HIGH-DGD = 1
         OOR-CD = 0                 OSNR = 10
         WVL-OOL = 0                MEA  = 0
         IMPROPER-REM = 0
         TX-POWER-PROV-MISMATCH = 0
         Laser Bias Current = 0.0 %
         Actual TX Power = -7.17 dBm
         RX Power = -9.83 dBm
         RX Signal Power = -9.18 dBm
         Frequency Offset = 9 MHz

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:ron-8201-1#show controllers coherentDSP 0/0/0/20
Thu Jun  3 15:38:04.565 PDT

Port                                            : CoherentDSP 0/0/0/20
Controller State                                : Up
Inherited Secondary State                       : Normal
Configured Secondary State                      : Normal
Derived State                                   : In Service
Loopback mode                                   : None
BER Thresholds                                  : SF = 1.0E-5  SD = 1.0E-7
Performance Monitoring                          : Enable
Bandwidth                                       : 400.0Gb/s

Alarm Information:
LOS = 8 LOF = 0 LOM = 0
OOF = 0 OOM = 0 AIS = 0
IAE = 0 BIAE = 0        SF_BER = 0
SD_BER = 0      BDI = 0 TIM = 0
FECMISMATCH = 0 FEC-UNC = 0     FLEXO_GIDM = 0
FLEXO-MM = 0    FLEXO-LOM = 0   FLEXO-RDI = 0
FLEXO-LOF = 2
Detected Alarms                                 : None

Bit Error Rate Information
PREFEC  BER                                     : 1.5E-03
POSTFEC BER                                     : 0.0E+00
Q-Factor                                        : 9.40 dB

Q-Margin                                        : 2.20dB

OTU TTI Received

FEC mode                                        : C_FEC

Use the show controllers optics R/S/I/P pm command or show controllers coherentDSP R/S/I/P pm command to gather the performance measurement data.

Example:

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:ron-8201-1#show controllers optics 0/0/0/20 pm current 30-sec optics 1
Thu Jun  3 15:39:40.428 PDT

Optics in the current interval [15:39:30 - 15:39:40 Thu Jun 3 2021]

Optics current bucket type : Valid
               MIN       AVG       MAX    Operational Configured TCA   Operational Configured TCA
                                          Th(min)     Th(min)   (min)  Th(max)     Th(max)   (max)
LBC[% ]      : 0.0       0.0       0.0      0.0          NA       NO   100.0       NA          NO
OPT[dBm]     : -7.17     -7.17     -7.17    -15.09       NA       NO   0.00        NA          NO
OPR[dBm]     : -9.86     -9.86     -9.85    -30.00       NA       NO   8.00        NA          NO
CD[ps/nm]    : -489      -488      -488     -80000       NA       NO   80000       NA          NO
DGD[ps ]     : 1.00      1.50      2.00     0.00         NA       NO   80.00       NA          NO
SOPMD[ps^2]  : 28.00     38.80     49.00    0.00         NA       NO   2000.00     NA          NO
OSNR[dB]     : 34.90     35.12     35.40    0.00         NA       NO   40.00       NA          NO
PDL[dB]      : 0.70      0.71      0.80     0.00         NA       NO   7.00        NA          NO
PCR[rad/s]   : 0.00      0.00      0.00     0.00         NA       NO   2500000.00  NA          NO
RX_SIG[dBm]  : -9.23     -9.22     -9.21    -30.00       NA       NO   1.00        NA          NO
FREQ_OFF[Mhz]: -2        -1        4        -3600        NA       NO   3600        NA          NO
SNR[dB]      : 16.80     16.99     17.20    7.00         NA       NO   100.00      NA          NO

Example:

RP/0/RP0/CPU0:ron-8201-1#show controllers coherentDSP 0/0/0/20 pm current 30-sec fec
Thu Jun  3 15:42:28.510 PDT

g709 FEC in the current interval [15:42:00 - 15:42:28 Thu Jun 3 2021]

FEC current bucket type : Valid
    EC-BITS   : 20221314973             Threshold : 83203400000            TCA(enable)  : YES
    UC-WORDS  : 0                       Threshold : 5                      TCA(enable)  : YES

              MIN       AVG        MAX      Threshold      TCA     Threshold     TCA
                                              (min)     (enable)    (max)     (enable)
PreFEC BER  : 1.5E-03   1.5E-03   1.6E-03      0E-15        NO       0E-15        NO
PostFEC BER :  E-15     0E-15     0E-15      0E-15        NO       0E-15        NO
Q[dB]       : 9.40      9.40      9.40          0.00        NO        0.00        NO
Q_Margin[dB]: 2.20      2.20      2.20          0.00        NO        0.00        NO

Last clearing of "show controllers OTU" counters never

This table contains the streaming telemetry sensor paths and the information fields that you receive from them.

Table 1. Telemetry sensor paths
Sensor path	Information fields
Cisco-IOS-XR-controller-optics-oper:optics- oper/optics-ports/optics-port/optics-info	alarm-detected, baud-rate, dwdm-carrier-frequency, controller-state, laser-state, optical-signal-to-noise-ratio, temperature, voltage
Cisco-IOS-XR-controller-optics-oper:optics- oper/optics-ports/optics-port/optics-lanes/optics-lane	receive-power, receive-signal-power, transmit-power
Cisco-IOS-XR-controller-otu- oper:otu/controllers/controller/info	bandwidth, ec-value, post-fec-ber, pre-fec-ber, qfactor, qmargin, uc
Cisco-IOS-XR-pmengine-oper:performance- management/optics/optics-ports/optics-port/optics- current/optics-second30/optics-second30-optics/optics- second30-optic	dd__average, dgd__average, opr__average, opt__average, osnr__average, pcr__average, pmd__average, rx-sig-pow__average, snr__average, sopmd__average
Cisco-IOS-XR-pmengine-oper:performance- management/otu/otu-ports/otu-port/otu-current/otu- second30/otu-second30fecs/otu-second30fec	ec-bits__data, post-fec-ber__average, pre-fec-ber__average, q__average, qmargin__average, uc-words__data

Note

The performance management sensor paths show the sensor path for a 30-second performance measurement (PM) interval. They also support 15 minutes and 24 hours. To access these options, replace second30 in the sensor path with minute15 and hour24 respectively.

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