How would you know there was a fault on the socket circuit if it were a ring? For one or two sockets on a ring to fail (owing to the foresaid type of fault) would you not need to have 2 breaks?
Depends on what level you noted the lack of continuity
Unfortunately there are circuits that are not continuous before a fault occurs or becomes apparent
One job I went to, two out of about ten sockets on the circuit not working.
32 a mcb , two wires marked up ring , all looked ok,turned out mice chewed wire last year , so someone disconned it and left it on two radials still from the 32a.
Was not till the other two sockets failed anyone noticed, mouse had chewed through another cable on the same circuit.
This building now has two 20 a radials,with the middle section disconnected and two non working sockets.
Other job went to mcb was tripping , disconnected and tested again all three open circuit, traced to two T+E cables cut off , still live, someone had forgot to fit the socket on the end.
So the so called ring was not a ring.
Another job half an office failed due to socket terminal burning out,with a ring , should not have lost more than one socket as you say ,turned out one socket was missing already and cables not joined.
This is the downside of the ring and the main reason for indepth testing as a majority of faults will not be apparent till the second fault occurs
I think the OP is more at the early stage, so this may not be relevant,but if he is faultfinding on his circuits , prior to there use, then he needs to brush up on his terminating skills , then he may not need the faultfinding skills so much