How to check network outages?

One of the easiest ways to get an overview when devices experience network outages is to use the network outages chart. With this chart, you can learn more about your whole network status at a glance. Moreover, detailed information can be obtained based on different time frames, statuses and device types.

To view this chart for all Access Points or Switches in a network, you need to:

1. Log into the Plasma Cloud console;
2. Select the Organisation and Network you want to check from the top right menus;
3. Navigate to Access Points or Switches from the main menu on the left; and
4. Select Outages from the third drop-down menu on the top of the page.

Next, you can select the parameters based on which the network outages chart will be generated for more granularity and control. You can use the two drop-down menus on top of the chart and choose between:

• a specific or all SSIDs; 
• a specific time frame (last day, last week, or last month).

The network outages chart will automatically update whenever you select another option from one of these two drop-down menus. Below you can see an example chart:

Network outages chart showing reported outages for all SSIDs during the last month

The number of devices belonging to your SSID(s) is indicated on the vertical axis, while the horizontal axis shows the time frame. Our console distinguishes between five possible network states, indicated by colors:

• Green: online device(s). Number of devices successfully connected to the cloud;
• Yellow: device(s) requiring pairing. Learn more about pairing issues here;
• Blue: device(s) experiencing DNS failure. Learn more about DNS failure here;
• Purple: device(s) in mesh recovery mode. Number of mesh APs which experienced mesh connectivity issues and entered recovery mode to regain cloud access.
• Red: offline device(s). Number of devices not connected to the cloud. There may be a number of possible causes which can not be determined via the cloud. Please check if your device is properly powered, your firewall permits connections to Plasma Cloud (learn more about setting up your firewall here) and whether the device MAC address was correctly entered.

A color legend referring to the aforementioned networks states can be found below the chart.

Example: The above graph shows the network outages chart from June 24th till July 23rd of the current year. There are 8 devices in total belonging to all SSIDs. Six out of eight devices are online with no reported issues most of the time, while 1-2 devices often experienced DNS failures. On July 4th, five devices went offline (could be due to a power outage, or other reasons). From July 18th onward, most devices went into mesh recovery mode, indicating that the mesh was suffering from some issues. There were no devices with pairing issues. 

To view a single device status in comparison to the whole network, you can click on the related device row in the table below the graph. A second chart will appear below the network outages chart, representing the status information of the selected device. 

Device outages chart for all given SSIDs during the last month

The health status of the selected device is represented by a dot chart. The dot color indicates which of the five network states the device was in at a specific time. The five levels on which dots can be positioned help to differentiate between the reported network states. 

Example: We can see a continuous green line from July 9th to July 13th, showing that the selected device was online and experiencing no issues during this period of time. In a some occasions, the device experienced DNS failure (blue dots around the end of June). By comparing this data to the chart above - which refers to all Access Points in the network - you can see that in quite a few instances, it was the selected device experiencing the reported DNS failure.