Techniques are provided for managing the forwarding of a data stream to respective cores of a multi-core system, in which the incoming data stream is processed in a hardware machine prior to forwarding the data stream to respective cores. The techniques may include the hardware machine executing an algorithm to identify frames in the data stream having a fake hole therein, generating metadata, and attaching the metadata to any frame in which a fake hole is identified. The metadata may instruct a core that receives the respective frame in which a fake hole has been identified to ignore the fake hole in that respective frame. Also in the algorithm, the hardware machine identifies frames in which a real hole exists and maintains a database log of the real holes and the respective cores among the multiple cores that receive the data stream with the real holes therein, together with a notification to the respective core.