Bug In Latest TrippLite PowerAlert Software (V 12)

As I'm replacing all of the systems here, I'm also getting a TrippLite SmartPro 550 USB Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). These will keep a PC and monitor running for about 10-15 minutes. Long enough to stay on during most power blips and to shut down if needed during an extended power outage. Also has built in circuit protection and noise filter to increase the life of your equipment. Cost is about $75 per. So not much more than a good power strip.

Has 6 receptacles and an 8' cord.

Anyhow, I've run into a problem with the Power Alert software that runs on the PC.

This software monitors the UPS's power situation and lets the user know if the UPS goes into an error condition. Error conditions can range from UPS on battery, UPS on battery and at low charge, bad battery, power back on, etc. You control how long the UPS waits to initiate shutdown through this software.

The problem that occurred was that the software on a few PCs was seeing the Dell USB keyboard with USB hub as a power device. This was causing the software to constantly use 50% of the total CPU power. Would also totally screw up Windows' ability to display properly.

The fix is to shut down the Power Alert Monitoring Service. Remove a file named commhid.dll from c:\program files\TrippLite\PowerAlert\Engine\ directory (this is default install location). Delete all files in the c:\program files\tripplite\poweralert\data\ directory.

*** Warning: Be careful when working with the registry. Make a backup before you do anything. ***

You may also have to delete the keys in the registry for the devices found under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tripp Lite\PowerAlert Agent\ key.

Restart the Power Alert service and it should now just see the UPS.

Comments

[Neal]

Speaking of backup batteries. May i enquire on what do you use for backup power on your servers ?
MY STORY:
I was recently ( 2 days ago ) shot down by the CFO and COO on getting a 1.5 hour backup battery system by APC and DELL for our 20 servers in house and 4 hour supply for the servers and networking equipment at our DR site. Now granted this was a 60k purchase, and that local electrical union was gonna bidding a "plug in" cost of 50k to just wire up the room for the battery, the question still remains, how much is too much ( cost wise ) when it comes to providing a higher rate of uptime. We have an estimated 2 million dollars worth of equipment supply connectivity ( network and services ) to 42 other buildings, with 0 ( yes 0 ) battery backup.If the core ( OC9 ) goes down, everything else does....unless you call a pathetic 36k frame a connection
During the blackout back in August of 2003, the UPS that were providing power conditioning to the servers provided a backup of a whooping 15 seconds.
The PBX had an 8 hour supply battery farm attached to it, but had 0 venting so it would have overheated in half that time, it was forced to come down.

Now here comes my blame game. Who is ultimately responsible for power to the servers, is it the Operations Department or is it the IT Department, or wait, could it be the Finance department ( which controls us ...weird i know ). I'm just a drone in the IT , my boss, sucks big time when it comes to "selling stuff" to the COO and CFO to be approved and purchased, yet we ( the skilled professional drones ) are denied the opportunity to introduce solutions to the "powers that be"
I find this annoying as hell, especially when they ( the cheeses that be ) say "they'll look into it"
Now I've created a great and personal relationship with DELL and its reps over the past 7 years, and I fear these relationships are tested when the reps and i work endless hours on getting the best quotes and working out the fine details ( with our hopes held high ) only to have countless projects shot down with a silver bullet. You could imagine the lack of work enthusiasm i have these days.

Anyways...i'll post more passive agressive frustaion release notes later on ( this is ver 1.0 ). But thanks for the space .

Neal :)

[Alex Scoble]

First off I only have 8 servers and 2 workstations in the server room to protect plus a gigabit switch, router, csu/dsu and kvm switch.

I have two UPS, one is an APC SM2200RM3U which I use for the misc networking equipment that can't be automatically shut down. The other is a TrippLite 2500VA 2U UPS with a 48V 3U additional battery pack. The Tripplite has 2 USB ports (gotta be USB these days and a few months ago when I bought this piece, APC didn't have a USB capable UPS) to connect to systems and the other systems are shut down through IP protocols from the software.

For small businesses TrippLite seems to have a bit better value, but you don't get the flexibility of APC systems (they have a greater variety of add on cards that you can buy). I also got a Tripplite 1U 16 port KVM switch that works pretty well and only cost $550 or so. Similar KVM switch from BlackBox would have been $2000.

As far as the political stuff, it's your boss's ass if something goes wrong. As long as you did your homework and got the system that was required for the job at the lowest price, there's really not much else that you can do.

Not much help, but there it is. Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to accept that which you cannot control.

[Neal]

I've been working permanently at this spot for 7+ years for this "3rd gen. family" company. I'm amazed at how much is influenced by internal politics, especially decisions concerning the IT Department, maybe its because we are the department of expenses, if anything. I did some work recently for the City of New York ( moving 3000 + Users from Lotus to Exchange 2000,adding 3 Nortel Option 81 C PBX and nodoubt there is alot of red tape to go though in aquire equipment ( bids for everything ), but YES/NO decisions are well made, and the reasons are well thought out and practical. My personal opinion is that its unfortunate that some private businesses put "I DON'T KNOW or MAYBE" in there decisions.

But in the end i agree with you- "Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to accept that which you cannot control"

[WCR]

Thank You so much, for this solution. My problem was different, but deleting that files fix my annonying problem.

Misteriously since a couple of months, power alert stop working. I only got a message that says that pa.exe was found an error and must be closed. (Something like that).

PS. Sorry for my english.

[[email protected]]

holy shart... 2014 and this is still an issue. thank you for the info.

[Alex]

Wow, this is still a thing? That's not good at all and doesn't speak well at all for Tripplite