Network Management

NPM alert fails when it references a custom property with NULL values

Provides a resolution for NPM users with alerts referencing a custom property that fail to trigger.

First published date

10/25/2018 2:59 AM

Last published date

3/2/2022 10:40 PM

Overview

Alert that references a custom property with NULL entries does not trigger.

Product section

Network Performance Monitor

Cause

The custom property that the alert references is most likely a 'Text Property' and it has 'NULL' values on some of the nodes in the database.

First, any query statement that is "where xxx is NOT EQUAL TO yyy" is more expensive than several OR statements, so you should avoid that if possible.

Second, this is not a Solarwinds flaw. In the land of databases in general, the handling of NULL values is problematic, to say the least.

Resolution

  1. Click Start > All Programs > SolarWinds Orion > Orion Webconsole > Settings > Node Management > Manage Custom Property > Edit property 
  2.  Click Add values.
  3.  Replace the 'NULL' entries with some value, you can even use a space as the entry and the alert triggers correctly.