When I go into "Portals -> Diagnostics -> Technician Alerts", my machine always reports that everything is fine. I know that some switches have been problematic, however. The left ramp (treehouse) entry gate switch was unplugged for the first two months I owned the machine but was never reported as a problem. I also recently (accidentally) caused the Itchy and Scratchy drop targets switches to never close, but everything was still reported as OK in the Tech Alert menu.

Any ideas? Does anyone's work correctly? I'm on ROM 5.00.

Thanks,
Tom

I just found some relevant bits on the ROM changelog on Stern's website. http://www.sternpinball.com/downloads/sppROMreadme.txt

Version 2.04 made the following change:

Tech Alert removed. Now your game just magically works all the time.

Later, version 3.00 made the following change:

Added Standard Adjustment 49 - Show Tech Alert. Default for now is NEVER. This adjustment controls where/when the Tech Alert message will pop up: POWERUP shows the message after booting and before games can be started; COIN DOOR OPEN shows the message when the coin door opens up; POWERUP AND COIN DOOR for both of the above; NEVER will never show Tech Alert Alert.

This leaves me more confused about whether or not this should work. Can anyone please provide some input!

My other audits, settings, and high scores are good.

I changed adjustment 49 to 'coin door open', thinking it would tell me when there were tech alerts when I open the coin door. That never happens because there are never any tech alerts...

I go into "Portals -> Diagnostics -> Technician Alerts" all the time thinking it might have something to report, but it never does.

I put up with it when I knew that one gate switch wasn't working, but after I accidentally prevented all three drop target switches from working and it still couldn't figure it out, I decided to try to get help.

Thanks for your thoughts, phishrace! I know false positives are inevitable. But... when one of my switches was disconnected for a couple of months, I expected the tech alert to catch it.

I have a CFTBL, and one of the center standups (ice cream) occasionally causes a credit dot. It cracks me up because it's right in the middle of the playfield, but you aren't likely to hit it, even on missed shots. As soon as the dot appears, I can usually aim right for that target and the dot goes away. In my mind, that's exactly how the tech alert should work.

I agree, but if I didn't have super low standards for pinball on location, I don't think I'd ever play. I've played exactly one game with no credit dot on location and it was a Fish Tales with the sound off. Grrr...