Dual paths to the same nodes are detected by the data link control (DLC) fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) in one of two ways. If a call is in progress to a remote node, which is also trying to call a local node, the incoming find (remote name) request is treated as if a local listen was outstanding. If a pending local listen has been acquired by a remote node's call, and the local user issues a call to that remote node after the link station is already active, a result code (DLC_REMOTE_CONN) is returned to the user along with the link station correlator of the attachment already active, so that the user can relink attachment pointers.