Monitor Status

All monitors have a status value, which is used to determine certain properties and shown in a number of locations - most notably, on any status pages in which it features.

There are two factors that determine the status (sometimes referred to as the overall or external status) - the internal status and status modifiers.

Internal Status

Every monitor always has one of the following values as its internal status: Online, Degraded, Partial, or Down.

The internal status is typically set by the results of our monitoring, but in the case of Manual Monitors is set directly from the dashboard, or using automation.

If no modifiers are present, the monitor's overall status is simply this internal status.

The logic used to assign a status depends on the monitor type, but the semantic meaning of each value is given below.

Online

There are no known issues with the monitored service; it is operating normally.

Generally, if a monitor shows this status then your users should also be able to access and use it as usual.

Degraded

The service is available, but the loading time is significantly higher than expected.

You may see users bounce due to the poor performance. It may also be a precursor to a failure, if the service is being overwhelmed with traffic.

Partial

The service is completely inaccessible in at least one region, but remains usable in others.

This status typically indicates that a problem has occurred, as at least some proportion of your users may be unable to use your service. It may also be a precursor to a global failure.

This status could also occur due to misconfiguration, if the monitor has a region setting of worldwide but your service is (intentionally) only accessible from certain locations.

Down

The monitored service is completely inaccessible from all regions.

A monitor in this status is likely observing a significant issue with your service, and most (if not all) of your users may be similarly unable to access it.

False positives are possible, but the chance of this can be greatly reduced with proper monitor configuration.

Modifiers

As well as the internal status, there are a few modifiers that a monitor may or may not have. These take priority over the internal status.

For example, a monitor with an internal status of Online but which is also Under Maintenance would display a status of Under Maintenance on its dashboard and any relevant status pages.

Pending

This is the initial status of all monitors.

For most monitor types, it means that we are still waiting for a check to succeed. To prevent false positives, we do not allow any alerts to be sent from a monitor until at least one check has succeeded. This avoids common misconfiguration issues.

For Heartbeat Monitors, it means that your background task has not yet called the provided webhook. To allow time for the relevant changes to be made to your task, we do not start this check until the URL has been called at least once.

For Manual Monitors, it means that the status has not been set yet. This can be done manually from the monitor's dashboard, or using the HTTP or email automation methods.

A monitor will never return to the Pending status after leaving it.

Paused

This status indicates that the monitor has been paused, which halts any background checks that the monitor performs. This effectively prevents the internal status from changing and means that no incidents will be opened or alerts sent.

For Manual Monitors, this value has a slightly different meaning. Pausing a manual monitor disables automation. Specifically, it prevents the status being updated using the HTTP endpoint and email address assigned to the monitor. The status may still be changed from the monitor's dashboard.

Unlike for other monitor types, a paused manual monitor retains its regular status. This allows for automation to be disabled (for example, if the endpoint had been leaked, to prevent abuse), without affecting the displayed status.

Under Maintenance

This status is set automatically when the monitor is subject to an active maintenance period.

It is typically used to indicate to users (and potentially other staff) that the service may experience some form of degradation or unavailability.

When shown on status pages, it is usually accompanied by a brief explanation of the maintenance, potentially with progress updates.