Basic Alerts get trigger and log to file but do not e-mail. Reboot is the only fix!

Question

We've been having an issue with our Basic Alerts getting triggered and showing in the Alerts module on the NPM, but not e-mailing the alert out. Advanced Alerts work without issue and Test Firing a basic alert works also. The only way to fix it is to reboot the server, which I find to be a very poor fix. I've opened numerous cases with support. One engineer I worked with told me it was an issue with the install. We re-installed the OS and NPM and it happened two days later. It is currently happening now and I have spent over 6 hours try to replicate all the Basic Alerts with Advanced Alerts. The Advanced Alerts are so far from being advanced. The Basic Alerts are more advanced. Anybody run into this issue? Anybody have a permenant fix for the issue? Rebuilding the server and rebooting it is getting old as the product is basically becoming unreliable. We are really starting to look at other solutions as our maintenace contract is set to expire soon. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

jl27 · Answer

1) We have added writing to a text file as an action to the basic alert. The log always gets updated. The problem is specifically with the e-mail portion of the alert.

2) Not consistent at all. Varies from hours, to days, to months between break downs.

3) Yes, We  usually use IIS on the local machine, but have tried it with our exchange server, internet mail gateways, and even yahoo and hotmail. Tried different reciepants also.

4) Affects all basic alerts on the polling engine.

5) We are having trouble with the bandwidth output from the percent utilization alerts. We actually had to go to a DBA to write SQL queries to get us the info that was so simple to get with the basic alerts. We have been also having issues getting certain interfaces not to be included in the alerts. In the basic alerts it was just un-check a box and it was done.

Thanks for the help...

qle · Answer

Gotta ask at least a few question in response to the problems you're experiencing.* Can you add another action to the basic alert so that it creates/updates a log every time it is triggered? If the log gets updated, you know it's a problem specifically with the e-mail action.
* Is the period between the server reboot and the time the alert starts to fail always consistent?
* Have you tried specifying a different SMTP server or destination e-mail address?
* Is this a problem with a specific basic alert or does it affect all of the basic alerts?
* Finally, what part of the advanced alerts aren't so advanced for you?