Connectivity loss on a storage network may be reliably determined. For one or more host ports connected to a storage system, the frequency with which status communications are received from the host port may be determined. Status communications from a host port then may be monitored to determine if a predefined number of status communications within a predefined period of time have not been received. If so, it may be determined whether a change in storage system permissions concerning use of ports potentially caused the one or more status communications to not be received. If not, it may be determined whether one or more communications associated with a change in configuration of a switch have been received, in which case a predefined amount of time may be allowed to pass to allow the switch change communications to complete; after which status communications from the host port may again be monitored.