Yup, that’s allowed, 4 hops. This just represents the last path followed, not necessarily the only path or the optimal path. The next time it could take a different path. Doing a Z-Wave repair may change the optimal path it takes.
Here’s a simple example of what the mesh routing table looks like:
Now if 5 wants to talk to the hub (1), then it can go through 5 → 4 → 3 → 1 or it can go 5 → 2 → 1 or it can go 5 → 3 → 1 etc. So it has multiple options. It’s possible the packet may be go through more than one path and the hub will only accept the first one it receives.
So what the IDE is showing you is the first packet that was received which may not be the same path it takes the next time. This can happen for MANY reasons, some of which were explained the link on the last post.