| CPC H04L 12/18 (2013.01) [H04L 43/0864 (2013.01); H04L 43/106 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A method, comprising:
identifying, by a network device in a network, a join request and a data packet of a multicast group received at the network device;
determining respective timestamps indicating arrival and departure of the join request and the data packet;
determining, based on the timestamps, at least a local latency incurred by the data packet at the network device and a network latency incurred by the data packet in the network;
receiving a multicast trace (mtrace) request for the multicast group;
incorporating the local latency and the network latency into the mtrace request; and
in response to identifying an upstream network device in a multicast path associated with the multicast group, forwarding the mtrace request to the upstream network device.
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