Question 172 of 504
PCNSE Practice Question: Managing Troubleshooting and High Availability
A company has two Palo Alto Networks firewalls configured in an active/passive HA pair. During a failover test, the passive firewall becomes active, but traffic stops passing through the new active firewall. The management interface on the new active firewall is reachable. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume a management interface being reachable means the data plane is fully operational, but in Palo Alto firewalls, the management plane and data plane are independent; a license or capacity limit can block data forwarding while management remains accessible.
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
✓
The session setup rate exceeded the new active firewall's capacity.
When a passive firewall becomes active, it must process all new session setups from scratch. If the session setup rate exceeds the new active firewall's capacity (e.g., due to licensing limits on session count or throughput), traffic will be dropped even though the management interface remains reachable. The management plane is separate from the data plane, so management access can still work while forwarding fails.
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 ARP table was not synchronized during failover.
Why it's wrong here
ARP entries are synchronized via HA1 backup, so this is unlikely.
- ✗
The HA2 link is down, causing session table mismatch.
Why it's wrong here
HA2 is for session synchronization, not for traffic forwarding.
- ✗
The new active firewall does not have a valid license.
Why it's wrong here
Licenses are shared in HA; both firewalls inherit the same license.
- ✓
The session setup rate exceeded the new active firewall's capacity.
Why this is correct
If the session setup rate is too high, the firewall may drop new sessions while still being manageable.
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This PCNSE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Palo Alto Networks 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 PCNSE exam.
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