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Alerts - Troubleshooting Alerts

If alerts aren't working, there are a number of things you can do to troubleshoot them. Here are some specific suggestions, and it's also recommended that you review the Alerts - Setup section of this tutorial.

Make sure you're "Watching" a host with the alert.

By far, the most common reason that an alert isn't working is because it isn't tied to an IP address. An alert won't just start working automatically after you define it. You need to tell it which host(s) that you want that alert to watch.

To attach an alert to an IP address, trace to the host you're interested in, right-click on the hop that has the IP address you want to monitor and then select "Watch this host (Alerts)…" from the menu. You can then take your "Available Alert" and move it into the "Select Alert(s)" column.

If you're tracing to a destination that doesn't respond (instead of a name or IP address, that hop is instead showing Destination Address Unreachable), and you want to watch that destination (even though it's not on the upper graph), just right-click on the Timeline Graph and select "Watch this host (Alerts)...". From there you can move an alert from the "Available" to the "Selected" list. Any alerts on the "Selected" list will watch this host whenever this host is involved in any route (be it an intermediate host, or the final destination).

When a host is being watched by the alert system, there will be brackets around the hop number in the upper graph. If those brackets aren't showing, then that host isn't being watched.

Set up an alert that will fire instantly, with an event that is very evident.

If you have an alert setup and tied to a host (see above), but it seems like the alert isn't working, then changing your alert parameters (or creating a new "test" alert) can be helpful.

For example, set "Traces to Examine:" to 10, and Alert when "1" or more traces are over 1ms. Unless your network is responding in 1ms or less, this alert will fire on the first collected sample with the alert enabled.

For an event type use "Play a sound", or "Tray icon change/notification" since both of these events happen immediately with no wait. In addition, for the "Play a sound" alert use "each time alert conditions are met (repeating)", since this will continuously make the alert fire rather than just when conditions start / stop.

Using this sequence, you should be able to tie an alert to just about any host and have the alert conditions fire immediately. When that alert is working with that event, you can then add another event type (i.e.: email) to it. By having multiple events within that one alert, you can continue to hear the sound while you're troubleshooting another event type.