Alerts tell you when something breaks on one of your servers, without you having to open Aprox and look. Aprox checks your Proxmox VE clusters and Backup Servers itself and raises a local notification on your device. There is no Aprox push server: nothing about your servers leaves your device. Alerts are part of Aprox Pro.
Where to find it
- iPhone, iPad and Android: Sidebar › Settings › Alerts.
- Mac: Aprox › Settings… (⌘,) › Alerts.
Turn on alerts
- Open Settings and go to the Alerts section.
- Turn on Alert me about problems. On the free plan, the Aprox Pro screen opens first and explains the feature.
- Allow notifications when your device asks.
- Choose which problems you want to hear about. All four categories are on by default:
- A node goes offline
- A task fails
- A guest stops on its own
- A storage passes 90% full
To stop all alerts, turn Alert me about problems off again. The categories keep their settings for the next time.
Alerts you can get
| Alert | Notification | Category |
|---|---|---|
| Server unreachable | "<server>" — "Aprox cannot reach this cluster." | Comes with the main switch, not tied to a category |
| Node offline | "<node> is offline" — "<server> stopped hearing from this node." | A node goes offline |
| Task failed | "<task type> failed", with the details. This includes failed backups. A task that ends with "OK (with warnings)" counts as a success. | A task fails |
| Guest stopped on its own | "<guest> stopped" — "It was running, and nothing on <server> asked it to stop." | A guest stops on its own |
| Storage full | "<storage> is N% full" — "On <server>. A full storage stops backups and snapshots." | A storage passes 90% full |
| Backup Server datastore full | "<datastore> is N% full" — "On <server>. Backups to a full datastore fail." | A storage passes 90% full |
A storage or datastore alerts once it reaches 90%. It can alert again only after it has dropped below 85% and then filled up once more.
For example, if nas-backup on "Homelab (Demo)" reaches 92%, you get "nas-backup is 92% full" once, not every time Aprox checks.
How Aprox keeps alerts quiet
Alerts are designed to be safe to leave on overnight:
- Two bad readings in a row. Aprox reports a problem only after it has seen it twice in a row. In the app's words: "Aprox waits for a second consecutive bad reading before it says anything, so a dropped packet or an expiring ticket never wakes you at three in the morning."
- No old news. Opening the app never reports old news; Aprox tells you about changes it sees, not about the state it finds when it starts.
- Your own actions are not problems. A guest that stops within 15 minutes of any task touching it does not alert. Neither does a node you shut down from Aprox.
- One problem, one alert. When a node dies, its guests are reported as part of that one problem, not one by one.
- Unreachable means reached before. A server Aprox never managed to sign in to is a sign-in problem, not an outage, and does not raise "Aprox cannot reach this cluster."
When checks happen
How often Aprox can check depends on the platform:
| Platform | While Aprox is open | In the background |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone, iPad | Immediately | When the system allows it, at best about every 15 minutes. An alert can be minutes or hours late, and none arrive while Background App Refresh is off. |
| Mac | Immediately | Only while Aprox is running: "Alerts are raised while Aprox is running. Quit it and nothing is watching." The menu bar extra keeps Aprox running with no window open. |
| Android | Immediately | About every 15 minutes while the device has a network connection. No alerts while battery optimization restricts the app. |
On every platform, background checks need a saved password (Save password to Keychain) or an API token for each server, because Aprox has to sign in without you. A server that asks for a two-factor code cannot be checked in the background. Sign in to it in the app first.
Important
For reliable background alerts on iPhone and iPad, keep Background App Refresh on for Aprox. On Android, exempt Aprox from battery optimization in Android's app settings.
Open an alert
- iPhone, iPad and Mac: alerts are grouped per server. Tapping one opens Aprox.
- Android: tapping an alert opens the server it is about.
Choose how alerts look on Android
On Android, each category has its own notification channel, so you can set sound, vibration and importance per category in Android's app settings:
- A node goes offline (high importance; it also carries "Aprox cannot reach this cluster.")
- A task fails
- A guest stops on its own
- A storage passes 90% full
If notifications are turned off
If you have switched off notifications for Aprox in the system, the Alerts section shows a warning such as "Notifications are turned off for Aprox in Settings › Notifications…". Nothing is delivered until you turn them back on:
- iPhone, iPad: Settings › Notifications › Aprox.
- Mac: System Settings › Notifications › Aprox.
- Android: Android's app settings for Aprox › Notifications.
Good to know
- Alerts cover Proxmox VE clusters and Proxmox Backup Servers alike.
- There is no alert for a scheduled backup that never ran. A backup that runs and fails is reported through A task fails.
- On Android the built-in demo never raises alerts. On iPhone, iPad and Mac the demo follows the same rules as a real server.
- Alerts are separate from the progress display for tasks you start yourself. That one is free; see Live Activities.