Date format in email alerts from Network Management Card 2

[Anonymous user]

I have two APC Smart-UPS 2200VA RM with a Network Management Card 2 installed in both of them.

The card is configured to send email alerts, but unfortunately those email alerts get a slightly wrong format of the time/date field causing the emails to be ordered the wrong way when ordered by date in an email client.

The format of the time/date field in SMTP messages is described in RFC 2822, chapter 3.3 at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt

Example of a valid date line is:

Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 05:33:29 -0700

(the above example is taken from http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt describing the SMTP protocol)

The time/date field from Network Management Card 2 looks almost the same, it looks something like:

Date: Thu 21, May 1998 05:33:29 0000

The minor difference is that even though another time zone than UTC is choosen the time diff is presented as 0000, however that doesn't really cause any harm. The bigger problem is that the comma has been moved from the right position after day of week to another position after day of month. This moved comma confuses software that expects the time/date format to be RFC compliant.

I have not found any setting in the Network Management Card 2 that would correct this. At delivery the Network Management Card 2 had firmware version 5.1.3, I tried to upgrade to the latest firmware 5.1.5, but the problem still remains with version 5.1.5.

regards Henrik

[BillP]

where can i find the change log for apc_hw05_aos516_sumx516_bootmon102.exe

thanks.

[BillP]

here are the release notes (attached to my post)

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for a really quick reply and also providing the fixed firmware!

Now when I look again at http://www.apc.com/tools/download/index.cfm I can see that 5.1.5 which I downloaded wasn't the latest version even though it was on top of the page for AP9630 cards. Also 5.1.6 is on that page from 08/18/2011.

Knowing that 5.1.7 is coming soon I will wait for that version.

Thanks again!

regards Henrik

[BillP]

thanks

[Anonymous user]

Thanks again!

At first it was my plan to wait for 5.1.7, but I have now flashed 5.1.6 and can confirm that the date is correctly formatted. Not only is the comma in the right place, but the time diff is no longer 0000, it is now +0100 for me living in CET (UTC+1). During this time of the year I have not been able to test daylight saving.

regards Henrik

[BillP]

ok great - i am expecting 5.1.7 on thursday of this week and it will then also be put on the website too. things can change though but it is close!

[BillP]

sure - check here for 5.1.7 notes -> http://www.apcmedia.com/salestools/PMAR-8P9GJZ_R0_EN.zip

lots of good stuff in this release - the addition of controlled early shutdown, similar to load shedding, for older UPSs is included among other issues fixed/added.

[BillP]

ok thanks

[BillP]

can you provide a changelog?

[BillP]

any update on 5.1.7?

[Lgbr_apc]

I'm sorry to bring back this very old thread but with FW 6.5.0 for AP9630 (smart) we have a new problem with the date string in generated notification mails.

It show now like this:

Date: Thu, 22, Feb 2018 11:03:31 +0100

There is an extra comma between day and month. In result MS Outlook (V2010) cannot display the date of the mail anymore.

With V6.4.0 it looks to be ok:

Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 10:03:14 +0100

One of my customers use an e-mail archive system and he notice that v6.5.0 are not be triggered in case of the 'invalid' mail string.

Kind regards
Andreas Lammel

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

Could you provide any further information? Or feel free to send this issue through technical support and provide me the case number so I can follow up on it.

I am looking for more specifics in order to potentially log a bug. I'd be interested in:

• Any error messages from Outlook 2010
• What the date/time format looks like through Outlook when reading an email (or is it definitely only a problem when you try to archive emails)
• Confirmation you've checked email header to get this info you've displayed (or maybe from packet capture), we'd be interested in snippets of this from the actual email from the NMC)
• Any other versions of Outlook or email clients tested that don't have a problem (just for reference)
• .tar debug file downloaded from both 6.4.0 and 6.5.0 (at least 6.5.0) if possible which contains the configuration file of the NMC. (Instructions on downloading here if you need it -> http://www.apc.com/us/en/faqs/FA156131)

Basically, I would plan to write something up and need to provide as many details to our team as possible with screenshots, full explanation, etc. This info here is helpful just in case they come back questions or also potentially an explanation why we changed something, assuming it was inadvertent. 

[Lgbr_apc]

Hi,

I will try to collect all information you like. this take some days and I send it.

I can only try Outlook 2010 at this time. Outlook don't give error but show 'none' in the send time information of the mail header. Outlook cant read the time string from the mail header correctly. As I write above it is only the new comma in the date field of the plain mail header. I check several other mails in Outlook and take look at the plain mail header and nowhere is a comma after the day. Only in mails from NMC with V6.5.0. Should be very easy to verify by APC.

I also use a web based mail client which show the timestamp in the normal way. The mail archive system have a parser for the mail header and the filter function for the date field see the additional comma in the wrong place and give wrong information to the storage, that's all. For reference I do test mails with 6.4.0 and 6.5.0 and put it my full reports next days.

Regards
Andreas

[Anonymous user]

I also have a new NMC with firmware 6.5.0 and can confirm that emails sent from that card have an extra unwanted comma between day of month and month. This is not as specified in the RFC and it also causes problems with other email programs than outlook.

Example of a date string from a valid email program:

Fri, 5 Jul 2019 15:35:04 +0200

Example of a date string sent from firmware 6.5.0:

Fri, 5, Jul 2019 16:23:54 +0200

Note the comma between "5" and "Jul", that comma causes problems for different programs. In sylpheed dates are formatted and sorted wrong.

regards Henrik

[Anonymous user]

I upgraded to firmware 6.7.2 and that solved the problem with extra comma from firmware 6.5.0.

regards Henrik