Incomprehensible "UPS ups battery level low" alerts

TrueNAS General
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1

Hi,

first a TL;DR: I am getting lots of emails about my UPS battery being low since updating to 25.10.3 - but it is not low and self tests are passing.

Long version:

For quite some time now I’ve had mails from my TrueNAS machine (specs in my signature) about my UPS (APC Back-UPS 700) being on low battery.

I’ve had this UPS since 2024 when it also received a new battery and it has been running a self test every midnight since then which has passed every time.

Since the 18th of April I’ve been getting emails about the UPS battery being low every now and then - which coincides with updating from 25.10.2.1 to 25.10.3.

Here’s a graph of the battery capacity over the last 25 hours from my monitoring:

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Today was especially annoying as I received ~50 mails about low battery.
Here is an example:

 
New alert:

  * UPS ups battery level low.  
 
UPS Statistics: 'ups'  
 
Statistics recovered:  
 
1) Battery charge (percent)  
    battery.charge: 100  
 
2) Battery level remaining (percent) when UPS switches to Low Battery (LB)  
    battery.charge.low: 10  
 
3) Battery runtime (seconds)  
    battery.runtime: 124  
 
4) Battery runtime remaining (seconds) when UPS switches to Low Battery (LB)  
    battery.runtime.low: 120  
 

The following alert has been cleared:

  * UPS ups battery level low.  
 
UPS Statistics: 'ups'  
 
Statistics recovered:  
 
1) Battery charge (percent)  
    battery.charge: 100  
 
2) Battery level remaining (percent) when UPS switches to Low Battery (LB)  
    battery.charge.low: 10  
 
3) Battery runtime (seconds)  
    battery.runtime: 136  
 
4) Battery runtime remaining (seconds) when UPS switches to Low Battery (LB)  
    battery.runtime.low: 120

I have my UPS service to shutdown when “UPS reaches low battery” after a timeout of 30 seconds - it has never shut down since updating to 25.10.3.
I had hoped, that the update to 25.10.3.1 might bring a fix but it didn’t.

Here are my complete UPS settings:

image
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Any ideas? Would you interpret this as a bug that should be reported?

2

How old is that battery?
Total watts used?

Did you see the Battery Run time?

Do you expect that you can request a longer uptime than what the battery has?
(Usually showing very optimistic uptime numbers, as it’s not easy or precise to measure battery charge with just the voltage available).

This means that either:

Battery is old and needs replaced, or,
UPS/battery is not big enough for the power needs.

If TN would simply show the output of upsc, in the GUI, non experienced users would have less issues and questions about this…

3

Almost two years now (may 24)

I can’t tell exactly. The output load is mostly about 40%.

Average battery run time about 3min40s currently.

I don’t understand what you mean.

battery.charge: 100
battery.charge.low: 10
battery.charge.warning: 50
battery.date: 2001/09/25
battery.mfr.date: 2019/12/15
battery.runtime: 256
battery.runtime.low: 120
battery.type: PbAc
battery.voltage: 13.8
battery.voltage.nominal: 12.0
device.mfr: American Power Conversion
device.model: Back-UPS XS 700U
device.serial: 3B1950X69564
device.type: ups
driver.name: usbhid-ups
driver.parameter.pollfreq: 30
driver.parameter.pollinterval: 2
driver.parameter.port: auto
driver.parameter.synchronous: auto
driver.version: 2.8.0
driver.version.data: APC HID 0.98
driver.version.internal: 0.47
driver.version.usb: libusb-1.0.26 (API: 0x1000109)
input.sensitivity: medium
input.transfer.high: 290
input.transfer.low: 150
input.voltage: 232.0
input.voltage.nominal: 230
ups.beeper.status: enabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 20
ups.firmware: 924.Z5 .I
ups.firmware.aux: Z5
ups.load: 39
ups.mfr: American Power Conversion
ups.mfr.date: 2019/12/15
ups.model: Back-UPS XS 700U
ups.productid: 0002
ups.realpower.nominal: 390
ups.serial: 3B1950X69564
ups.status: OL
ups.test.result: No test initiated
ups.timer.reboot: 0
ups.timer.shutdown: -1
ups.vendorid: 051d

Here is a current upsc output. What can you take from this?

And does that mean you think the update to 25.10.3 only correlates with this?

4

Did you add this setting in the UPS config screen?

battery.runtime.low: 120

Change it to something lower, say 60.

In the alert, the UPS actual max runtime shows as 124, and in your settings you are asking to shutdown when it goes below 120.

So the alerts are due to not having enough runtime (124 seconds) for your desired runtime.low (120 seconds).

That is a small UPS. Your power usage should be at least 100 watts. Such load can only be sustained for a few minutes with such little battery.

  1. Battery runtime (seconds)

    battery.runtime: 124

  2. Battery runtime remaining (seconds) when UPS switches to Low Battery (LB)

    battery.runtime.low: 120