Documentation
Table of Contents
2 Problems
Overview
In Monitoring → Problems you can see what problems you currently have. Problems are those triggers that are in the "Problem" state.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Time | Problem start time is displayed. |
| Severity | Problem severity is displayed. Problem severity is originally based on the severity of the underlying problem trigger, however, after the event has happened it can be updated using the Update problem screen. Color of the problem severity is used as cell background during problem time. |
| Recovery time | Problem resolution time is displayed. |
| Status | Problem status is displayed: Problem - unresolved problem Resolved - recently resolved problem. You can hide recently resolved problems using the filter. New and recently resolved problems blink for 2 minutes. Resolved problems are displayed for 5 minutes in total. Both of these values are configurable in Administration → General → Trigger displaying options. |
| Info | A green information icon is displayed if a problem is closed by global correlation or manually when updating the problem. Rolling a mouse over the icon will display more details: The following icon is displayed if a suppressed problem is being shown (see Show suppressed problems option in the filter). Rolling a mouse over the icon will display more details:  |
| Host | Problem host is displayed. |
| Problem | Problem name is displayed. Problem name is based on the name of the underlying problem trigger. Clicking on the problem name brings up the event menu. |
| Latest values | Latest value(s) of the items in the underlying trigger expression of the problem are displayed. This column is only displayed if the Show latest values option is selected in the filter. Supported since 4.0.3. |
| Duration | Problem duration is displayed. See also: negative problem duration |
| Ack | The acknowledgment status of the problem is displayed: Yes - green text indicating that the problem is acknowledged. A problem is considered to be acknowledged if all events for it are acknowledged. No - a red link indicating unacknowledged events. If you click on the link you will be taken to the problem update screen where various actions can be taken on the problem, including commenting and acknowledging the problem. |
| Actions | History of activities about the problem is displayed using symbolic icons: - comments have been made. The number of comments is also displayed. - problem severity has been increased (e.g. Information → Warning) - problem severity has been decreased (e.g. Warning → Information) - problem severity has been changed, but returned to the original level (e.g. Warning → Information → Warning) - actions have been taken. The number of actions is also displayed. - actions have been taken, at least one is in progress. The number of actions is also displayed. - actions have been taken, at least one has failed. The number of actions is also displayed.When rolling the mouse over the icons, popups with details about the activity are displayed. See viewing details for the explanation on icons used in the popup for actions taken. |
| Tags | Event tags are displayed (if any). |
Negative problem duration
It is actually possible in some common situations to have negative problem duration i.e. when the problem resolution time is earlier than problem creation time, e. g.:
- If some host is monitored by proxy and a network error happens, leading to no data received from the proxy for a while, the item.nodata() trigger will be fired by the server. When the connection is restored, the server will receive item data from the proxy having a time from the past. Then, the item.nodata() problem will be resolved and it will have a negative problem duration;
- When item data that resolve the problem event are sent by Zabbix sender and contain a timestamp earlier than the problem creation time, a negative problem duration will also be displayed.
Since Zabbix 4.0.4, negative problem duration is not affecting SLA calculation or Availability report of a particular trigger in any way; it neither reduces nor expands problem time. See also: known issues for 4.0.0-4.0.3.
Mass editing options
Buttons below the list offer some mass-editing options:
- Mass update - update the selected problems by navigating to the problem update screen
To use this option, mark the checkboxes before the respective problems, then click on the Mass update button.
Buttons
Buttons to the right offer the following options:
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Export content from all pages as a CSV file. Note that before Zabbix 4.0.15 only the currently selected page is exported. |
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Display page in fullscreen mode. |
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Display page in kiosk mode. In this mode only page content is displayed. The kiosk mode button appears when the fullscreen mode is activated. To exit kiosk mode, move the mouse cursor until the  exit button appears and click on it. Note that you will be taken back to normal mode (not fullscreen mode). |
Using filter
You can use the filter to display only the problems you are interested in. The filter is located above the table.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Show | Filter by problem status: Recent problems - unresolved and recently resolved problems are displayed (default) Problems - unresolved problems are displayed History - history of all events is displayed |
| Host groups | Filter by one or more host groups. Specifying a parent host group implicitly selects all nested host groups. |
| Hosts | Filter by one or more hosts. |
| Application | Filter by application name. |
| Triggers | Filter by one or more triggers. |
| Problem | Filter by problem name. |
| Minimum severity | Filter by minimum trigger (problem) severity. |
| Age less than | Filter by how old the problem is. |
| Host inventory | Filter by inventory type and value. |
| Tags | Filter by event tag name and value. Several conditions can be set. There are two calculation types for conditions: And/Or - all conditions must be met, conditions having same tag name will be grouped by Or condition Or - enough if one condition is met There are two ways of matching the tag value: Contains - case-sensitive substring match (tag value contains the entered string) Equals - case-sensitive string match (tag value equals the entered string) When filtered, the tags specified here will be displayed first with the problem, unless overridden by the Tag display priority (see below) list. |
| Show tags | Select the number of displayed tags: None - no Tags column in Monitoring → Problems 1 - Tags column contains one tag 2 - Tags column contains two tags 3 - Tags column contains three tags To see all tags for the problem roll your mouse over the three dots icon. |
| Tag name | Select tag name display mode: Full - tag names and values are displayed in full Shortened - tag names are shortened to 3 symbols; tag values are displayed in full None - only tag values are displayed; no names |
| Tag display priority | Enter tag display priority for a problem, as a comma-separated list of tags (for example: Services,Applications,Application). Tag names only should be used, no values. The tags of this list will always be displayed first, overriding the natural ordering by alphabet. |
| Show suppressed problems | Mark the checkbox to display problems which would otherwise be suppressed (not shown) because of host maintenance. |
| Compact view | Mark the checkbox to enable compact view. |
| Show details | Mark the checkbox to display underlying trigger expressions of the problems. Disabled if Compact view checkbox is marked. |
| Show latest values | Mark the checkbox to display latest value(s) of the items in the underlying trigger expression of the problem. Supported since 4.0.3. |
| Show unacknowledged only | Mark the checkbox to display unacknowledged problems only. |
| Show timeline | Mark the checkbox to display the visual timeline and grouping. Disabled if Compact view checkbox is marked. |
| Highlight whole row | Mark the checkbox to highlight the full line for unresolved problems. The problem severity color is used for the highlighting. Enabled only if the Compact view checkbox is marked in the standard blue and dark themes. Highlight whole row is not available in the high-contrast themes. |
Event menu
Clicking on the problem name brings up the event menu:
The event menu allows to filter the problems of the trigger, access the trigger description (if available) and the trigger configuration. Access to simple graph/item history of the underlying item(s) is also available.
Resolved values of {ITEM.VALUE} and {ITEM.LASTVALUE} macros in trigger descriptions are truncated to 20 characters. To see the entire values you may use macro functions with these macros, e.g. {{ITEM.VALUE}.regsub("(.*)", \1)}, {{ITEM.LASTVALUE}.regsub("(.*)", \1)} as a workaround.
Viewing details
The times for problem start and recovery in Monitoring → Problems are links. Clicking on them opens more details of the event.
Note how the problem severity differs for the trigger and the problem event - for the problem event it has been updated using the Update problem screen.
In the action list, the following icons are used to denote the activity type:
- problem event generated
- message has been sent
- problem event acknowledged
- comment has been added- - problem severity has been increased (e.g. Information → Warning)
- - problem severity has been decreased (e.g. Warning → Information)
- - problem severity has been changed, but returned to the original level (e.g. Warning → Information → Warning)
- remote command has been executed
- problem event has recovered
- problem has been closed manually