[Apcupsd-users] APC UPS sometimes fails to restart after power outage

[Jonathan W. <jw...@at...>]

Hi everyone

We've been using apcupsd for close on 10 years with a small number of APC
UPS models (mostly the SUA1500RMI2U 1500VA unit).  Everything has always
worked exactly as it should.

Recently we've had to change to using the SURT1000XL 1000VA
double-conversion UPS on the insistance of a customer.  Since deploying this
unit into two different locations with apcupsd 3.14.8, each unit has failed
to restart following a power outage.  The failure to restart has occurred
only once per site - for all other power outages and tests (both before and
after the problem was observed) everything has been fully functional.

In our systems we configure apcupsd to run for 2 minutes on batteries.  If
the power is still out at this point we shut the PC down and instruct the
UPS to power off its output.  The idea is when AC is restored the UPS will
power up the output and the PC will restart.  This is what happens most of
the time.

On the two occasions mentioned (one per site), AC has been restored but the
SURT1000XL has failed to turn on.  To get the computer powered one needs to
manually operate the front-panel switch.  Investigating the log files later
shows that the shutdown occurred exactly like it normally does.

Has anyone else encountered similar behaviour before, and if so is there a
known workaround?

The apcupsd.conf contents are as follows.

UPSCABLE smart
UPSTYPE apcsmart
DEVICE /dev/ttyS0
LOCKFILE /var/lock
SCRIPTDIR /etc/apcupsd
PWRFAILDIR /etc/apcupsd
NOLOGINDIR /etc
ONBATTERYDELAY 6
BATTERYLEVEL 5
MINUTES 3
TIMEOUT 120
ANNOY 300
ANNOYDELAY 60
NOLOGON disable
KILLDELAY 0
NETSERVER on
NISIP 0.0.0.0
NISPORT 3551
EVENTSFILE /var/log/apcupsd.events
EVENTSFILEMAX 10

There is only a single Linux PC connected to the UPS, which is the machine
running apcupsd.  As is evident from the above entries, we are using the
serial interface to communicate with the UPS (the SURT1000XL doesn't have a
USB interface as standard).  We are using the supplied serial cable with the
UPS.  The items related to netserver are just active because they were
present in the example configuration file and didn't seem to cause any harm
if left in place.  No machines are making use of the netserver.

Given that things mostly work it seems possible that there's a bug in the
UPS itself.  However, APC don't want to know me because I'm not using
powerchute - somewhat irrationally (given the symptoms) they're blaming
apcupsd for the trouble.

Regards
  jonathan