Larry -
I found the following explanation in a case note:
If configuration changes are made to a processes probe profile, the probe will not clear any pending alarms per design.
That is the reason that it is recommended that once a profile is created, changes should not be made to it.
1. Explanation for Clear alarm not raised on Soft restart.
After making then applying changes to a processes probe profile if the probe is restarted (Soft restart mode), it does not maintain a list of already raised alarms to compare previous configuration thresholds against new configured thresholds (for example running instances against expected instances). No clear alarm issued in the following scenario:
• Create a monitoring profile for a process( e.g nimbus(logmon) and "set expected instances = 2"
• Alarm is raised as expected. “nimbus(logmon): Wrong number of instances of process g nimbus(logmon), expected instances equal 2 but found 1“
• Go back to probe GUI and update profile so that "set expected instances = 1" for same monitoring profile.
• Clear alarm is not generated.
2. Explanation for Clear Alarm on Hard restart.
When the processes probe is manually restarted (Hard Restart mode), the probe updates the “alarm.cfg” file and saves all alarms not cleared while stopping. When the probe restarts , it reads the un-cleared alarms saved in “alarms.cfg”, clears them, and removes them from the file. This way the probe is able to clear previous alarms on a manual probe restart.
Note: Pending alarms are saved only when probe is stopped.
If no alarms were raised by the probe before the hard restart, the probe won’t send any clear alarms when restarted.
Hope this explanation helps.