Techniques are described for selectively pinging certain devices along a segment routing label switched path (LSP) to detect failures in the segment routing LSP. For example, an ingress device comprises one or more processors operably coupled to a memory that are configured to: in response to a request to verify connectivity of a segment routing LSP, configure a FEC stack specifying a stack of segment routing labels for the segment routing LSP; for each of the one or more devices identified from the FEC stack: generate a respective MPLS connectivity request packet for a respective device identified from an outermost FEC of the FEC stack; send the MPLS connectivity request packet to the respective device; receive an MPLS connectivity response packet that verifies connectivity of the respective device; and in response, update the FEC stack by removing the outermost FEC of the FEC stack that identifies the respective device.