Alerts skipped - why?

Hi Bmurching,

Although I've responded to you via the support case you opened, I'll also respond here for the sake of others that might experience similar situations.

In order to see what gets triggered and when, simply perform the following:
 
1. Go to the "Devices" tab.
 
2. Go to "All Managed Devices".
 
3. Click the Device in question and then one of its Monitors.
 
4. Once on the settings page for the Monitor, click "Downtime Simulator".
 
This should indicate what Alerts/Actions get triggered and when.  Let me know if this represents the behavior you are expecting or not.

One other thing that I forgot to mention is to check for Dependencies above the failing Monitor.  See if perhaps any parent groups have members that are failing which may be a Dependency for the group.  If so, Alerting for failing members under that group will be supressed.

Let me know if this helps.
 
Sincerely,
 
Chris Foley - SolarWinds - Support Specialist
Support:866.530.8040 || Fax:512.857.0125
network management simplified  |  solarwinds.com

I got the answer from Chris through support.  The issue is that my alerts were configured for the "Down Monitors" smart group.  Apparently when a monitor individually goes down, there may be a delay before it is included in the Smart Group.  As a result, when it goes down, the alerts may be tested and skipped before they show up in the smart group, causing messages not to be sent.

Therefore: do not use smart groups for your alert targets.

Good tip!

Chris, what is the long-term fix for this?  Using smart groups is brilliant for managing alerts on many monitors.  Will Solarwinds officially discourage their use in this way or will they be improved to work better with alerts?

Thanks - Simon

A Monitor in a Down state is defined as a Monitor that is failing and has triggered Alerts.  If an Alert is based on a SmartGroup of Monitors that are in a Down state, you are creating a Catch 22.  The Monitor is not "Down" because it has not triggered Alerts.  The Monitor has not triggered Alerts because it is not "Down".

Having that said, one should not configure Alerts based on a SmartGroup for Monitors that are Down.  Any other SmartGroups are fine.

Hope this makes sense.

Chris Foley - SolarWinds - Support Specialist
Support:866.530.8040 || Fax:512.857.0125
network management simplified  |  solarwinds.com

Thank you for the explanation.

I think it would be a good enhancement to receive a simple pop-up or other note when trying to add "Down Monitors" to an alert, so that people know it's an exception case.  We lost a few hours trying to solve this.

Hi Chris

Thanks for the explanation.  That makes perfect sense.  Glad that other SmartGroups work fine with alerts.

Rgds, Simon