I can't seem to get the alert feature to work.<br><br>I'm running PPloter 2.21 (registered and paid for) on a w98 puter.<br><br>I followed the directions by first going to "Edit/Alert Setup" menu, created a test alert named "New Alert 1". Then I traced to the destination and right clicked on the hop number and clicked "Add Monitor", then in the dialog I moved "New Alert 1" to the left column of "Selected alerts", and clicked oK.<br><br>Nothing happens. I set the values in the Alert Setup ridiculously low, so I would be sure to get an alert. Checked in both bottom boxes for text file and alert wave file--picked a standard win wave file.<br><br>Nothing. One thing I noticed was an IP address never showed up at any time during the setup process, and the help file clearly states that I should be seeing an IP during the "Add Monitor" part of the setup. What am I missing here in the setup?<br><br>I've read through the section "Tying an alert to an IP." 3 times--I must be missing something here. I have also read through all the Ping Plotter Support forum posts, and this Q hasn't come up other than being directed to the FAQ's which aren't answering my question.<br><br>I haven't set it up for an email alert, I just want it to ring the alarm. Once I get that working I'll set-up for sending emails. Does PP need to be open, closed, minimized, or icon in taskbar for this feature to work?<br><br>

It *sounds* like you're doing everything right, but I'll try to walk through what I see when I create an alert.<br><br>I'm using 2.21 beta 4 (not officially released yet - but the alerts have not changed a bit since beta 3).<br><br>First off, I go and set up an alert:<br><br><br><br>I set "Traces to Examine" to 5 (it looks back over the last 5 samples) and then have it set to alert if any one of those 5 samples are over 50 ms. You might set this to 5/5 (100% are over 50ms) or even 1/1 (examine 1, if 1 is over 50ms, then alert), but for starting out, let's set up something that's very, very sure to happen (if you have latency < 50ms, then use 10 - or something small above 0).<br><br>Make sure the path to the wave file is fully qualified (has the drive letter and full path). Clicking on the little envelope should let you browse - and it should insert the full path when you select something. Right clicking a wave file when browsing let's you select "Open" or "Play" (depending on your player) to hear the wave before you select it. (Do this now - just to make sure that the wave mechanisms are all working right).<br><br>Once you've got that set up, let's go back to the graph. Start a trace to www.nessoft.com (just for consistency) - and when it's reached the destination, right-click on the final hop. You should see a screen similar to this (although the alert will be on the right side instead of the left). Notice the caption shows the name of the host and the IP address. If you don't see this, then close this dialog and click on the last hop number - and make sure there's a little box around the number (focus rectangle), then right-click on that same number to see if you get the host and IP address.<br><br><br><br>Make sure you get the new alert on the left (Selected Alerts), then click OK. At this point, the alert should be working - no shutdown is necessary to get it going. <br><br>You can make sure that the alert is correctly associated by looking at the hop number on the host you want to monitor. Notice on this graph how the number 14 has brackets around it - [14]. These brackets indicate that there is at least one alert associated with the hop.<br><br><br><br>Hopefully, at this point (if you're collecting data in Ping Plotter), you'll be hearing your wave file playing every trace. From here, you should be able to modify the alert to make it work like you expect.<br><br>Post back here and let us know if get things working right - I'm quite sure that alerts *do* work on 95, 98, ME, 2000 and NT4 - so I don't think it's an OS problem.<br><br><br>

Everything checks out OK, I think I was just misunderstanding how it was supposed to work. I was hoping it could monitor several IP--my three collocated webservers, without having to trace to them individually. Maybe that's covered somewhere else in your docs.<br><br>Thanks Pete, you've been most helpful, your pix's confirmed that I wasn't loosing my mind.<br><br>Jim<br><br>