I am sending UDP packets from one PC to another. I am watching the the whole activity using Wire Shark. I notice that for some time there is smooth transmission of packets from one system to the other. Then suddenly ICMP packets with error 'port unreachable' starts to appear. Then they disappear for some time and there is again smooth transmission of UDP packets. Then these ICMP packets again appear with the same 'port unreachable' error. Then these ICMP packets disappear again and so on. And this continues in a periodic manner.
Can anybody shed some light that what could be the reason for it.
Answer
One odd error that might be associated with a Port Unreachable message is seen when an otherwise normally operating conversation is interrupted by a Port Unreachable message. When you inspect the conversation you observe that the unreachable port was working without a problem. Frames were going to and from the port number when, suddenly - Port Unreachable. This is indicative of an overload condition or process priority configuration problem in the reporting host. The process in question was swapped out of memory and was not able to swap back in quickly enough to avoid the unreachable indication.
Source: https://www.savvius.com/resources/compendium/tcp_ip/unreachable#port_unreachable