APC UPS Going on Battery During FreeNAS Boot

[p274868]

I currently have an APC Back - UPS NS 1080 USB and am having issues with Freenas 9.3 stable commanding it to go on battery backup during boot. The driver that I am using for this UPS is APC ups 2 Smart-UPS USB USB (usbhid-ups) found in the freenas UPS gui. Everytime I boot up my server with the UPS USB plugged in (during the UPS initialization stage on boot up while checking if the UPS is connected) the UPS kicks onto battery. I have tried all other drivers in the APC list and am still getting the same result. The only way that I can make it work (Not a permanent solution) is to start the server and let it fully boot. Then toggle the UPS services tab to OFF, plug in the UPS USB to the server, and then toggle the UPS service to on. I then pull the power outlet plug out of the wall on the UPS. Within 5 seconds the server recognizes that power has been lost and starts shut down. After the server is full shut down the UPS shuts off shortly after to conserve power. Powering the server back on (without unplugging the UPS USB cable from the server first) results in the server powering onto the UPS initialization portion of boot and the UPS kicks onto battery. Is there any way around this for my current setup?

 

[RommyAppus]

I know this is old but I wanted to post how I got it working.

I had to plug this into a windows pc and install their PowerChute software. Once it installed and connected the UPS functioned like you would expect in FreeNAS as well.

 

[rogerh]

I know this is old but I wanted to post how I got it working.

I had to plug this into a windows pc and install their PowerChute software. Once it installed and connected the UPS functioned like you would expect in FreeNAS as well.

I presume you disconnected the UPS from the Windows machine before connecting it to FreeNAS. Did you specifically change anything in the PowerChute GUI, or did it just do something behind the scenes to restore normal UPS behaviour? If the latter, it sounds like yet another APC scheme to make their proprietary systems fail with non-APC software, but it is definitely worth knowing about.

 

[RommyAppus]

Well, there really were no settings that pertained to how it behaved but I did run a battery test and adjusted the voltage sensitivity. Honestly though... It may not have been the powerchute software at all. Here is the sequence of events:
I Plugged in the UPS by my laptop, which was already on.
I connected the rj45 to usb cable to the windows laptop.
The UPS immediately switched to battery and shut off a minute later. Then turned back on.

After this point I began downloading the Powerchute software but it didn't shut down again after that point. Once installed I played with the settings and noted it was behaving correctly and gave it a try with freenas, where it worked fine.

It is entirely possible the windows drivers did something to switch its running mode also..

 

[rogerh]

Thanks. The cure is certainly something worth knowing if anyone gets this problem with a new APC UPS.