PCBE 7.0.5 & Email

[BillP]

Hello,

We have around 25 Smart UPSs of various models connected to various machines which are all running PCBE 7.0.5.
All these installations have PCBE server configured to email a number of addresses in the standard configuration profile, all using the same SMTP server and all using the same email account.

Some of these email us when things happen, such as a power failure, some don't. All of these have the applicable networking hardware attached to the UPS so there's no question of whether they have access to the mail server or not.

To test, I currently have a flat XP SP3 machine next to me with PCBE 7.0.5 installed, attached to a Smart UPS 700 via RS232. I configured it as usual and sent/received a test email successfully. I then disconnected the UPS from the mains supply and noted that the software recognised that there was a power failure. It however did NOT email me.

In short, why is the software failing to send an email, and how do I fix it? I could of course configure each agent to send emails through the web interface, but to be honest, I'd just rather have this working as intended!

Thanks.

[BillP]

Hello,

We have around 25 Smart UPSs of various models connected to various machines which are all running PCBE 7.0.5.
All these installations have PCBE server configured to email a number of addresses in the standard configuration profile, all using the same SMTP server and all using the same email account.

Some of these email us when things happen, such as a power failure, some don't. All of these have the applicable networking hardware attached to the UPS so there's no question of whether they have access to the mail server or not.

To test, I currently have a flat XP SP3 machine next to me with PCBE 7.0.5 installed, attached to a Smart UPS 700 via RS232. I configured it as usual and sent/received a test email successfully. I then disconnected the UPS from the mains supply and noted that the software recognised that there was a power failure. It however did NOT email me.

In short, why is the software failing to send an email, and how do I fix it? I could of course configure each agent to send emails through the web interface, but to be honest, I'd just rather have this working as intended!

Thanks.

[BillP]

when you DON'T get the emails, the event log works fine right? so you see the events logged in the PCBE log.

how do we know PCBE isnt emailing? how do we know that the mail server is reachable when being emailed? have we checked this aspect of it?

[BillP]

yeah i saw that but what does your agent configuration look like even so?

[BillP]

are you using powerchute business edition deluxe and using the console GUI to configure email?

i would want to access each agent and see what type of notifications it is set up for but i realize you don't want to do that for each UPS.

see my screenshots. the first is the GUI for PCBE deluxe which i am wondering is where you have configured emails and then the second is the agent web interface that you can navigate to in order to check what events are configured via email for that particular agent.

[BillP]

The only difference between my config and your screenshot is that I don't have "notification" for the event "power failed" configured.
Originally "e-mail" wasn't configured for this event either but I manually enabled it during testing.

[BillP]

Hi

Configured through the PCBE GUI.
As mentioned, I recognise that I can configure the agent to email directly rather than using the PCBE server, but would rather not!

Thanks.

[BillP]

hmm ok. one other thing i thought of would be to make sure communication is open between the components of business edition.

not sure if that would cause this since everything else appears to be working but you can double check: [see this link|http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2790]

[BillP]

Yes the events are logged correctly, everything else happens as expected, just no email.

The only way I can verify that PCBE isn't emailing is indeed that nothing is being received by any of the listed recipients.

My test consisted of a machine which was consistently able to contact the mail server, connected to a smart UPS 700. When power failed, an email was received from the PCBE agent but not from the server... is that good enough as proof that the mail server/networking works?

Thanks.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

The agent and server are installed on the same workstation and as far as I can see are communicating correctly. Can't really see another way of troubleshooting from this direction.