350-501 Networking Practice Question
An engineer is troubleshooting a BGP route reflector setup. Clients are not receiving all routes. The 'show bgp neighbors' output shows a state of 'Active'. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between BGP session states and route advertisement issues, so candidates mistakenly attribute 'Active' to routing problems like next-hop unreachability or loops, when it actually points to TCP connection or neighbor configuration errors.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Incorrect BGP neighbor statement on the route reflector or client
The 'Active' state in BGP indicates that the router is trying to establish a TCP connection with the neighbor but has not yet succeeded. This is most commonly caused by a misconfiguration in the BGP neighbor statement, such as an incorrect IP address, wrong AS number, or a missing neighbor statement on one side. Since the route reflector is not forming a BGP session, clients cannot receive any routes, which explains the symptom.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The route reflector does not have a full mesh with clients
Why it's wrong here
Route reflectors do not need full mesh with clients.
- ✗
The route reflector is detecting an AS_PATH loop
Why it's wrong here
Loop detection would not cause Active state.
- ✗
Next-hop reachability issue
Why it's wrong here
Next-hop reachability is for route installation, not session state.
- ✓
Incorrect BGP neighbor statement on the route reflector or client
Why this is correct
Active state indicates TCP session failure, often due to misconfiguration.
Visual reference
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 971 original 350-501 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 350-501 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 350-501 exam.