Why Am I Not Receiving Alert Notifications?

Why Am I Not Receiving Alert Notifications?

If your monitor goes down but you didn't receive an alert, work through this checklist to find the cause. Most cases have a simple fix.

Checklist

1. Does an incident actually exist?

Check Incidents in the left sidebar. If no incident was created for the failure, an alert rule may not have matched the check result — alerts are only sent when a rule fires.

If no incident exists:

  • Go to Alerts → Alert Rules
  • Confirm you have at least one active rule covering the affected monitor
  • Confirm the rule's condition matches what actually failed (e.g., check if the monitor returned a status code the rule watches for)

2. Is the alert rule active?

In Alerts → Alert Rules, find the rule that should have fired. Confirm the Active toggle is on. A disabled rule never fires.

3. Is the monitor within the rule's scope?

If the rule is set to Endpoint-specific scope, confirm the affected monitor is in the selected endpoints list. A team-wide rule covers all monitors; an endpoint-specific rule only covers the ones you explicitly selected.

4. Does the rule have notification channels assigned?

Open the alert rule and look at the Notification Channels field. If it's empty, no notification is sent when the rule fires — even though an incident is created. Add at least one channel.

5. Is the notification channel active?

Go to Alerts → Notification Channels. Find the channel assigned to the rule and confirm Active is toggled on. An inactive channel receives no notifications.

6. For email: check your spam folder

PulseAPI emails can end up in spam or junk folders, especially from new alert rules. Check there first.

If you're using Gmail, also check the Promotions and Updates tabs.

7. For Slack: is the PulseAPI app still installed?

In your Slack workspace, go to Settings → Integrations → Installed Apps and confirm PulseAPI is listed. If it was removed, you'll need to reconnect the channel (see Setting Up Slack Notifications).

8. Is the cooldown period still active?

Alert rules have a cooldown period that prevents repeat notifications for the same ongoing failure. If the rule fired recently and the cooldown hasn't elapsed, no new notification is sent.

Check the rule's cooldown setting. If the cooldown is very long (e.g., 24 hours) and the rule fired earlier, that's why you didn't get notified again.

9. Send a test notification

Go to Alerts → Notification Channels, find the channel, and click Send Test Notification. If the test doesn't arrive, the issue is with the channel delivery itself — not the rule.

Still Not Working?

If you've worked through all of the above and still aren't receiving notifications, contact support with:

  • The name of the affected monitor
  • The alert rule name
  • The notification channel type and recipient
  • The time the check failure occurred

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Still have questions? Contact support.

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