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Set up downtime alerts

UptimeHawk sends a DOWN alert when a website or server stops responding, and an UP alert when it recovers. Contacts decide who receives those alerts, how, and for which tests.

Contacts > Contacts lists every contact. The first one, marked Master, is the email address on your account; change it under Account > Account Settings.

Add an email contact

Section titled “Add an email contact”

  1. Open Contacts and select Add New Email Contact.

  2. Enter a Name and the Email address marker 1, then choose the settings below.

    The Email Contact Information form. Marker 1 is beside the Email field, marker 2 beside the From time list, marker 3 beside the Notify list, marker 4 beside the Persistent Notification list, marker 5 beside the Notification Template list, marker 6 beside the ALL websites and servers box and marker 7 beside the Daily email report box.

  3. Select Save.

Choose when and how often a contact is alerted

Section titled “Choose when and how often a contact is alerted”

These settings are the same for email, SMS and push contacts.

Setting What it does
From and To marker 2 Only alert this contact between these times, in your account’s time zone. Leave both on any time to alert around the clock.
UP Notification Also send an alert when the website or server recovers
Initial Down Notification If an outage started outside the From and To window and is still going, send the DOWN alert when the window opens
Notify marker 3 Alert immediately, or only after 2 to 11 failed checks in a row. With a 5-minute interval, after 2 consecutive errors means the site has been down for 5 minutes before you hear about it.
Persistent Notification marker 4 Repeat the DOWN alert on every failed check, or every 2nd to 10th one, while the outage lasts. At most 9 repeats are sent for each outage.
Notification Template marker 5 The wording of the alert; see Customize alert messages
Receive Notification for marker 6 ALL websites & servers, or only the ones you tick. A contact on ALL also covers tests you add later.

Get uptime reports by email

Section titled “Get uptime reports by email”

Under Email Report marker 7, tick Daily email report (uptime only), Weekly email report or Monthly email report (uptime and performance). Choose whether the report covers all websites & servers or only websites & servers the contact subscribes to.

Add an SMS contact

Section titled “Add an SMS contact”

SMS alerts use SMS credits from your account. Account > SMS Usage shows your remaining credit, lets you buy more and sets the level at which you are emailed a low-credit reminder.

  1. Open Contacts and select Add New SMS Contact.

  2. Enter a Name, then the phone number in three parts: the country code (for example USA & Canada (+1)), the network prefix (for a North American number, the area code) and the rest of the number.

  3. Choose the alert settings described above and select Save.

Do not use an email-to-SMS gateway address as your account’s master contact. Add it as an extra email contact instead.

Add a push contact

Section titled “Add a push contact”

Push alerts arrive in the Pushbullet, Pushover or Prowl app on your phone or computer. Set up the app first, then add the contact in UptimeHawk.

  1. Create an account with the push service, install its app and sign in to it on your device.

  2. Copy your key from the service’s website:

    • Pushover: the user key under Your User Key.
    • Prowl: create a key under API Keys and copy it.
    • Pushbullet: the email address of your Pushbullet account.

  3. In UptimeHawk, open Contacts and select Add New Push Contact.

  4. Enter a Name, choose the Push Service and paste the key into User Key / API Key.

  5. Choose the alert settings described above and select Save.

Request Acknowledgement for keeps re-sending a DOWN or UP alert until you acknowledge it in the app, every Retry Interval, until the Expire After time passes. Not every push service supports acknowledgement; Which push service should I use? in the UptimeHawk FAQ compares them.

Pause alerts

Section titled “Pause alerts”
  • One contact: choose Pause Notification from the contact’s action list on Contacts and select Go.
  • Every contact: open Contacts, select Pause All Notification and confirm with Yes.
  • During planned work: schedule maintenance so alerts pause and resume on their own.

A paused contact receives nothing until you resume it: choose Resume Notification for one contact, or Resume All Notification for everyone.

Check which alerts were sent

Section titled “Check which alerts were sent”

Contacts > Notification History lists every alert from the last 30 days with its time, contact, type and message, and whether it was Sent or Not Sent. Use the boxes at the top to show only email, SMS or push alerts, or to search the messages.

Section titled “Related”