UPS Communication Lost across multiple servers and devices

[w1t]

Hi,

We have a number of APC UPS devices in production, across multiple sites, mostly protecting servers. 

We install PowerChute Business Edition on the servers and set up for remote monitoring via SNMP.

This has been working fine, in some cases for years. However, over the last month nearly all of them have gone offline.

The UPS devices themselves seem fine, most are connected to the APC Smartconnect cloud service and that is working fine.

However, of the 18 devices I am looking at now, PowerChute BE is broken on all but 3. The UPS devices do show up in Device Manager, and as "APC UPS", like they did before.

I'm assuming a Windows update might have caused this but can't find anything online. The version of Windows Server doesn't seem to correlate to the ones that are working or not working. 

I tried upgrading to the latest version of PowerChute Business Edition - 10.0.5 - but it didn't help. 

Any ideas? 

Thanks,
Henry

[BillP]

@w1t 

What are the UPS models? Are the SMT, SMC, SMX, and how are they connected to the servers? 

[w1t]

@BillP 

Thank you for coming back to me.

All are connected via USB.

Sample of models we use below:

SMC1500I-2UC

SMC1000IC

SMT2200RMI2UC

SMC1500IC

Thanks,

Henry

[BillP]

@w1t 

On the systems that are not displaying APC UPS in the device manager, disconnect the USB cable and reconnect. The OS should re-discover the device. If the APC UPS device is not re-added, or HID UPS Battery is not added, check to see if American Power Conversion USB UPS is listed under Human Interface Devices. American Power Conversion USB UPS requires these drivers' hidclass.sys, hidparse.sys, hidusb.sys they will be found in C:\Windows\System32\drivers

If those drivers are there and APC UPS or HID UPS Battery is not displayed in the Device Manager under Batteries, I suggest rebooting the system.

If APC UPS is displayed after reconnecting the USB cable and communication is not established with the UPS, I suggest you resent the comm interface on the UPS.

To reset the comm interface of SMT, SMTL, or SMX model UPS from the display interface, hold the UP and DOWN buttons simultaneously for 5 – 10 seconds. The display flashes to indicate that the network interface has restarted.

To reset the network interface of an SMC model UPS from the display interface, hold the MUTE and MENU buttons simultaneously for 5 – 10 seconds. The display flashes to indicate that the network interface has restarted.