# Multi-vantage and "partial"

Every `--bee` URL you pass becomes one row — a **vantage** — in the
report. A vantage probes the reference independently and contributes
one outcome: `retrievable`, `unretrievable`, or `error` (where
`error` means the call itself failed before we got an answer).

The report's top-level `status` aggregates them:

| All vantages said | Top-level status | Exit code |
|---|---|---|
| `retrievable` | `retrievable` | `0` |
| `unretrievable` (or `error`) | `unretrievable` | `2` |
| mix of yes and no | `partial` | `0` (at least one yes) |
| every one errored | `error` | `2` |

Public gateway probes (`--gateway`) are folded into this same
aggregation — a "yes" from any gateway counts the same as a "yes"
from any Bee.

## What `partial` actually means

`partial` is the most interesting outcome. It says: **the reference
is retrievable from some perspectives in the network but not
others.** This is often *fine* (Swarm is a distributed network; not
every node has visibility into every chunk's neighborhood) but it
can also be a leading indicator of:

- **Asymmetric pinning** — only one node has the content pinned and
  the chunks haven't propagated yet.
- **A specific neighborhood being slow or unreachable** — combine
  with `--per-chunk` to see which chunks are missing where.
- **Postage batch staleness** — chunks whose batch is expiring can
  start to disappear from the neighborhood that was storing them.

## Picking your vantages

The signal you get is only as good as the perspectives you sample.
A useful baseline:

- one node **you control** (lets you see network-retrievability from
  your own infrastructure)
- one node **in a different geographic region** (catches "it works
  here but not from EU" cases)
- one **public gateway** (`--gateway https://api.gateway.ethswarm.org`
  — proxies a retrieval through a gateway operator's nodes)

For the public gateway probe, see also
[Comparison to check.ipfs.network](../reference/comparison-ipfs-check.md)
— a "yes" from the gateway is the closest analog to "yes from the
network" that you'll get without operating fleets yourself.

## See also

- [Swarm docs — Public gateways](https://docs.ethswarm.org/docs/develop/access-the-swarm/use-a-gateway)
- [Bee API — `GET /bzz/{ref}/`](https://docs.ethswarm.org/api/#tag/BZZ)
