A method for automatically attempting to recover equipment from a transient fault includes detecting a fault associated with the equipment in a node in a communications network, determining whether the fault associated with the equipment is transient, if the fault is transient automatically attempting to recover the equipment from the transient fault without user intervention, if the recovery attempt is successful monitoring the equipment for a pre-determined period of time to determine if the fault recurs, and if the fault recurs automatically re-attempting to recover the equipment from the fault until the fault does not recur in the pre-determined period of time or until a pre-determined number of attempts to recover the equipment have been performed.