UPS Power for main outlet group, <Group name> is turned on

[Anonymous user]

All,

I have recently purchased 4 of the Smart-UPS 1500 and one of them has a peculiar issue in that it warmstarts and gives the informational alert(s)


Informational Events - UPS: The power for the main outlet group, UPS Outlets, is now turned on.

Informational Events - UPS: The power for switched outlet group 1, Outlet Group 1, is now turned on.

I've have seen that this generally follows a warmstart and a reinitialize of the Network Card. My question is... is this a problem? Since I only have one doing this I think it's an irregularity that needs to be addressed.


Info on device
Firmware Revision: UPS 06.5 / MCU 11.0 / UBL 08.2 / MBL 11.0
Manufacture Date: 04/27/2011


Log file
========
05/24/2011 10:13:24 UPS: The power for switched outlet group 1, Outlet Group 1, is now turned on.
05/24/2011 10:13:24 UPS: The power for the main outlet group, UPS Outlets, is now turned on.
05/24/2011 10:13:21 Environment: Restored the local network management interface-to-integrated Environmental Monitor (Universal I/O at Port 1) communication.
05/24/2011 10:13:21 UPS: Restored the local network management interface-to-UPS communication.
05/24/2011 10:12:56 System: Network service started. System IP is xxx.xx.xx.xxx from manually configured settings.
05/24/2011 10:12:50 System: Warmstart.
========

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Confirmed that was the screen I saw under Event Actions by Event > Input Line Status > UPS: Compensating for (LOW/HIGH) input voltage

[BillP]

no, this is normal. i think it was fixed in sumx v5.1.7 on the management card. after the NMC reboots, it checks the outlet group status and reports that they are on. it does not mean the outlet groups turned off. this was misleading that the outlet groups turned off (since it says they are now on) so that is why it was changed.

[Anonymous user]

Thank you - here are the versions I have on this box currently. I will try to put the latest version on it and see if that fixes the issue.

Application Module

Name: sumx
Version: v5.1.3
Date: May 4 2010
Time: 14:06:35


APC OS (AOS)

Name: aos
Version: v5.1.3
Date: May 4 2010
Time: 13:55:26

[BillP]

yep i verified sumx 5.1.7 has the fix. also, since then the NMC warmstart even has been changed to information severity and renamed "network interface restart" to clarify that it is not indeed critical and its only the NMC restarting, not the UPS.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks Jon, I had found the firmware fairly easily... although does updating the firmware restart the UPS at any point?

I'll be doing the update remotely with the NMC2 utility.

Message was edited by: Techone

[BillP]

Updating the firmware shouldn't turn off or on the UPS.

[Anonymous user]

Ok thank you for your feedback

[Anonymous user]

Last clarification question. In the Zip folder I have three files the updater may choose to use and I was wondering if it is all of these or just one.

apc_hw05_aos_517.bin (2,235kb)
apc_hw05_sumx_517.bin (2,139kb)
apc_hw05_bootmon_102.bin (256kb)

Since I'm pushing this over a WAN across the country I want to know how much information is going to be sent over to approximate job time execution.

[BillP]

The file that I have sent you should have an executable with it, to be exact the filename is FW_Upgrade_R2.exe. You open up this file and the provide the IP address, username and password to get into the card and click Upgrade Now and that should take care of it. And yes all those three files are needed and the executable should take care of it. Bootmon gets uploaded first followed by the AOS and then the SUMX.

[Anonymous user]

Just considering all aspects:

What will occur if the firmware fails to update? Will this bring down my UPS? Worst case scenario for this not working if you have that information.

[voidstar_apc]

Hi Jason,

There is no risk to the UPS--It's not being updated.

Absolute worst case is the management card gets bricked, but I never hear of that happening. The update process is designed to be safe and the UPS prevents the card from losing power during the update. So realistically, when an update fails, all you have to do is run the update again.

[BillP]

i have not been able to brick an NMC2 yet even if you pull the card from the UPS slot during the upgrade, we'd always have bootmonitor.

[Anonymous user]

Thank you for that - I hit up the internet and found the confidence to continue with the update.

A curious thing happened after the update though - I receive the same message as before but it isn't in the event viewer as it was before.

I don't understand - with the update it looks like it only removed it from being put as an event but I still get the email
Also I don't see any setting in the notifications for this type of alert - so I'm stuck either way.

My other 3 1500's at the site are all running 5.1.3 and are not exibiting the same problem.

Faulty UPS possibly?

[BillP]

no, i dont think this is a faulty UPS. can you please post the event log again and config.ini if possible for us to check the settings/notifications? you can still get this message but it should only be when the outlet groups are actually turning on.

here is some instructions on getting the logs if you need them: http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9321

the problem was that before, when the network interface restarted, it was telling you that the outlet groups turned on but the NMC was only detecting the outlet state when it was loading back up after a restart. now, it should be detecting that so it knows what the UPS is doing but it does not report it after a warmstart. (if that makes sense).

oh, also, can you check the UPS-> about section and tell us whats in there? incase we need it. dont necessarily need the serial #, just the other info. Edit found that in the first post, oops.

[BillP]

thanks. this is helpful. sorry - forgot to mention before, can you please check in the /dbg directory on the card via FTP too and get me dump.txt and debug.txt?

i see a few things that I will mention now:

1.) your email configuration appears to be at the default - recipient #2 is getting all emails at a frequency of every 2 minutes and repeating until the condition clears. maybe this is too excessive and you want to change it if all the emails are spamming you? this is the default so that a user will be aware of any issues rather than not getting enough emails and missing out on something.

2.) this UPS is boosting the voltage quite frequently. every time that happens and clears you are getting an email with the frequency mentioned in #1 point along with the clearing message. i would like recommend that for the excessive boosting based on the incoming voltage, that we recommend updating the UPS itself since it is several revisions behind. i think this might fix an issue with potentially boosting too often based on a voltage level teetering. this will need to be done via APC support but we do have an upgrade wizard that can be provided.

3.) Can you confirm the model of the UPS from UPS->About. i only see the UPS firmware so I am not sure if this is an SMX or SMT and what VA it is - i am making an educated guess but I am not sure and would like to confirm.

4.) What email alerts are you specifically getting too often? is it relating to point #2? i thought it was outlet groups turned on but I see a lot of the compensating for low voltage.

once I see debug.txt and dump.txt, i can explain why the NMC is rebooting randomly which is another issue I see in the log. then, we can work on why this is boosting frequently and maybe address that and then also, think about changing your email configuration - maybe to delay a message 2 minutes and only repeat up to 5 times, as an example.

let me know your thoughts and hopefully you can grab the other files. let me know if you'd like to take this offline.

[Anonymous user]

.) your email configuration appears to be at the default - recipient #2 is getting all emails at a frequency of every 2 minutes and repeating until the condition clears. maybe this is too excessive and you want to change it if all the emails are spamming you? this is the default so that a user will be aware of any issues rather than not getting enough emails and missing out on something.

- On this point the GUI doesn't give allocation to what recipient number it is assigned or the frequency..


2.) this UPS is boosting the voltage quite frequently. every time that happens and clears you are getting an email with the frequency mentioned in #1 point along with the clearing message. i would like recommend that for the excessive boosting based on the incoming voltage, that we recommend updating the UPS itself since it is several revisions behind. i think this might fix an issue with potentially boosting too often based on a voltage level teetering. this will need to be done via APC support but we do have an upgrade wizard that can be provided.
- I can definitely look into this further.. seems odd that it'd be out of date since it was just manufactured less than a year ago (see below)

3.) Can you confirm the model of the UPS from UPS->About. i only see the UPS firmware so I am not sure if this is an SMX or SMT and what VA it is - i am making an educated guess but I am not sure and would like to confirm.
Model: Smart-UPS 1500
Serial Number: AS1118220546
Firmware Revision: UPS 06.5 / MCU 11.0 / UBL 08.2 / MBL 11.0 (ID18)
Manufacture Date: 04/27/2011


4.) What email alerts are you specifically getting too often? is it relating to point #2? i thought it was outlet groups turned on but I see a lot of the compensating for low voltage.
- I don't get any alerts regarding compensating for low voltage to the recipient #2.

once I see debug.txt and dump.txt, i can explain why the NMC is rebooting randomly which is another issue I see in the log. then, we can work on why this is boosting frequently and maybe address that and then also, think about changing your email configuration - maybe to delay a message 2 minutes and only repeat up to 5 times, as an example.

Attached are the files requested

[BillP]

In order to change or view email frequency, which is a tiny bit confusing, go to Administration->Notification. You will see by event or by group under Event Actions. If you click by event and then drill into an event, you'll see the configuration for a particular event and who's going to get it at what frequency. if you want to change notifications, you can back up a screen or do and go by group (or event by event if you'd like). groups can be of severity or categories. once you select some groups or categories, you can select what recipients you want to change and then change the number of repeats, etc.

with the dump.txt, unfortunately, we have a known issue where the first dump.txt after a reboot is corrupt and that is what i see here. let's wait for the next random network interface restart and get dump.txt again, since then it will overwrite the corrupted one and I can take a look at that one.

so for now, if you need to, change the notification pattern with my instructions above and let me know if its not clear. its not the clearest process and will soon be changing in the future - where you have a screen that summarizes the current notifications.

on the UPS updates, we do them about every 6 months at a minimum (as it is now). if i am reading correctly, for this unit, we had an update that was released jan 17th 2012 and it is version UPS 08.3.

[Anonymous user]

I've made the modification to the 'Compensating for low/high voltage' to just occuring once. There doesn't seem to be an option to disable the '2 minutes' condition on this notification although I hope that by only putting a duration of 1 time I won't get spammed if this is to generate the email.

[BillP]

i attached a screenshot - this is the screen you saw, correct? you can change the repeat interval but if you only have it happen one time, i guess it does not really matter. just want to make sure you found the right screen which i assume so but thought i'd note it.

[Anonymous user]

We've not experienced any messages and I've been checking the logs daily. If one occurs we'll report it -