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'Smart Sensor State Classification: Distinguishing Service Performance from Monitoring Infrastructure Failures' has been merged into this idea

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Differentiate the Sensor Down State from Error State

As a Systems Engineer, I want PRTG to distinguish between Down status (when monitored services fail operational thresholds) and Error status (when sensors cannot capture data due to communication/protocol issues) so that I can configure separate notifications to alert operations teams about actual service failures while directing data acquisition problems to monitoring administrators.

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claudio saavedra shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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Gathering Feedback  ·  AdminJonah Kowall (SVP Product and Design, Paessler) responded  · 

Hi there,


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  • claudio saavedra commented  ·   ·  Report

    WMI Sensor Behavior After Host Reboot and Its Impact on Alert Generation in PRTG
    In certain operational scenarios—such as power outages, unexpected shutdowns, or unplanned maintenance—it has been observed that when affected devices (particularly Windows-based systems using WMI sensors) are restarted, PRTG successfully restores only basic connectivity sensors (such as Ping), while WMI sensors often fail to resume functionality immediately or automatically.

    This behavior results in WMI sensors being unable to establish a connection with the host, triggering errors such as "Connection could not be established". Consequently, the sensor status changes to "Down", which activates notifications configured for genuine operational conditions, such as exceeding CPU, RAM, or disk usage thresholds.

    However, this type of alert does not reflect an actual operational issue, but rather a data acquisition failure caused by a disruption in communication between PRTG and the host. Since this condition is not differentiated from a "Down" state due to threshold violation, the alerts are incorrectly routed to operations personnel, generating unnecessary noise and potential misallocation of resources.

    Technical Recommendation
    It is recommended to evaluate the implementation of logic that distinguishes between:

    "Down" state due to threshold violation (actual operational condition).
    "Down" state due to data acquisition failure (technical condition).
    This would enable:

    Redirecting technical alerts to the platform administration team.
    Preventing operational alerts from being triggered during host recovery processes.
    Improving monitoring accuracy and enhancing incident response efficiency.

  • claudio saavedra commented  ·   ·  Report

    As an IT Operations Manager, I want sensor Down states to clearly differentiate between service performance violations and monitoring infrastructure failures so that I can route performance alerts to my operations team while platform connectivity issues go directly to the infrastructure team, ensuring proper accountability and faster resolution times.

    As a Systems Engineer, I want to receive only 'Down (Service)' sensor alerts where data was retrieved but thresholds were exceeded so that I focus on actionable service issues I can troubleshoot instead of being interrupted by network connectivity or PRTG platform problems that are outside my domain.

    As an IT Infrastructure Manager, I want immediate notification when sensors enter 'Down (Infrastructure)' state due to data collection failures so that I can quickly resolve monitoring blind spots, connectivity issues, and authentication problems before they impact our ability to monitor critical services.