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In the domain of modular robotic systems, self-configuration, self-diagnosis and self-repair are known to be highly challenging tasks. This paper presents a novel fault self-diagnosis strategy which consists of two parts: fault detection and fault message transmission. In fault detection, a bionic synchronization ‘healthy heartbeat’ method is used to guarantee the high efficiency of the exogenous detection strategy. For fault message transmission, the Dijkstra method is modified to be capable of guiding the passage of fault messages along the optimal path. In a modular robotic system, fault message transmission depends mainly on local communications between adjacent modules, so there is no need for global broadcast information. Computational simulations of one system form, M-Lattice, have demonstrated the practical effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The strategy should be applicable in modular robotic systems in general.