A method includes receiving in a communication terminal a signal, which is transmitted in multiple links and which includes a control channel transmitted in an assigned sequence of the links. One or more candidate sequences of the links, which are likely to be the assigned sequence, are identified. For at least, one candidate sequence, a verification is made whether the candidate sequence is the assigned sequence, by re-encoding decoded bits of the candidate sequence to produce regenerated symbols and comparing the regenerated symbols to respective received symbols from which the decoded bits were decoded. The control channel is decoded from the candidate sequence in response to verifying that the candidate sequence is the assigned sequence.