OCEMS showing offline: a checklist
Work from the outlet to the portal, one link at a time
When a board's portal shows your station offline, the fault can be anywhere between the instrument and the board's server. Checking in this order finds it fastest, and leaves a record you can show the board.
Check in this order
Power
Is the panel powered and the UPS charged? A tripped breaker, or a UPS that ran flat during a long power cut, is the most common cause.
Internet
Is the router or SIM online? For a SIM, check the data balance and the signal; for a LAN, the cable and the router's lights.
Data logger
Is the logger running and showing fresh readings? If it shows readings but the portal does not, the fault is further along; if it shows none, look at the instruments.
Instruments
Does each analyser and flow meter show a live value on its own display? A loose RS485 cable or a fouled probe can stop one parameter while the others continue.
Each portal separately
CPCB, HSPCB and PPCB are separate servers. Data can reach one and not another, for example after a board changes a station's credentials.
Record and report
Note when the gap started and ended and what fixed it. If the board asks, that note and the submission log answer the question.
Avoiding the next gap
- A UPS sized for your power cuts
- Enough backup to ride through the usual cuts at your site.
- A second network
- A dual-SIM logger, or a LAN plus a SIM, so one network failing does not stop uploads.
- Storage on the logger
- Readings stored on site are uploaded when the link returns, so an outage costs no data.
- Alarms before the board notices
- An alert when a station stops sending or data stops reaching a board.
Questions
Is data lost while the station is offline?
Not if the data logger stores readings on site: they are uploaded in order when the link returns. Readings older than a board accepts may be refused, so a long outage should still be fixed quickly.
The portal shows zero for one parameter. Is the station offline?
No. A zero usually means that instrument stopped responding while the logger kept running. Check the instrument's display, power and cable.
See it working
Station offline now? Call us and we will look at it remotely.