This read-only Counter32 counts software, or protocol, errors, valid frames such as ICMP anomaly reports, recorded on the whole monitored link (both ports combined) during this 15-second short-term sample, with 4294967294 meaning unknown. An admin distinguishes this from the hardware error counter to know whether a problem on the whole monitored link (both ports combined) lies in the physical medium or in how end systems are behaving at the protocol level. For example, a spike in this software error count on the whole monitored link (both ports combined) without a matching rise in hardware errors suggests a misconfigured host generating excessive ICMP error reports rather than a cabling fault.