strange behavior when retrieving values from the "status" key

[mconigliaro]

ok, im not sure if this is a bug or if im doing something wrong...

whenever i add a new host, i browse to "view -> latest data" to make sure zabbix is collecting data. even when im getting values for all the other keys (graphs are being drawn, etc.), i usually dont get anything from the "status" key right away. the graph tells me "no data is available for this period," and a hyphen shows up in the web interface in place of the "latest value." but shouldnt it say 0?

as a test, i created a trigger to alert me when status=2 (ie: agent is unavailable). when i stopped the agent, the trigger definitely got "triggered" (i saw it listed under "view -> triggers"), but i never got the email alert, nor did the alert show up under "view -> actions." however, i noticed that the "latest value" of status became "2," and i started getting data on the graphs. so i started the agent again, and this time i got the alert, and the "latest value" became 0. now, i get the alert whether status is 0 or 2.

so to summerize, it seems like the value of 'status' has to change before zabbix will actually record anything for it. and for what its worth, i reproduced this behavior several times on both the win32 and linux agents.

[Alexei]

Are you running 1.0?

In 1.1, it's assumed that initial value of all triggers is FALSE, therefore ZABBIX will generate both alert and notification when trigger changes its status to TRUE for the first time.

[mconigliaro]

thanks for the quick response alexei. this is 1.1alpha10.

i guess its possible that i screwed something up on these hosts by mucking around in the database directly (ive been doing a lot of mass changes with my own custom scripts due to current limitations with hard-linking), but when i add something new, ill update this thread with my results.