What does NTSTATUS 0xC000023D (STATUS_HOST_UNREACHABLE) mean?

STATUS_HOST_UNREACHABLE

The transport cannot reach the destination host

Capture route selection, next hop, address family, and neighbor-resolution state for the destination. This status points to reaching the host, not to whether a service is listening on a particular port.

This indicates reachability failure at the host/path level. The destination protocol or port is not the immediate issue if the host itself cannot be reached.

What to inspect

• Check routing table, gateway, interface state, and VPN compartment.
• Compare with STATUS_PORT_UNREACHABLE for service-specific failures.
• Use packet capture or ICMP diagnostics when allowed.

References for STATUS_HOST_UNREACHABLE

• Microsoft Open Specifications: NTSTATUS values
• Microsoft: Windows Sockets error codes
• Microsoft Open Specifications: DFS client product behavior