Not sure what to do...

[rushter]

Here are some of the issues that we are having with our phone system. There are definitely some gremlins in the works here.

We have 3 Aastra 57i's, 1 57ict, and 4 GXP2000's. We are running Piaf using an Orgasmatron II suggested Dell Server computer (thanks Ward for the great advice) but not using the Org II install. We are using Aretta for two of our lines and still using PTSN for our main number and fax.

Here are the issues -
1 - we had a long standing issue with all of our aastra's losing registration and had to contact aastra about this. They told us to increase the transaction timer setting. They have asked that I not publish the time publicly so I will not. It has appeared to resolve that issue but I am not sure if that is what is causing some of our other issues.
2 - it appears that a lot of our calls are getting dropped - example: the phone rings - caller id displays the number and handset is picked up. Most of the time there are no problems but sometimes after picking up the handset it continues to ring on through the picking of the handset up. Sometimes you have to pickup another extension for it to pickup and sometimes if you just wait it will answer to the first handset you pick up. Sometimes you just lose the call - lost calls = lost business. We cannot figure this out. It only appears to be happening on the Aastra's so I am thinking a config problem. We really do not have any of the bells and whistles going yet - boss says get the phones acting like phones first and then we can add the bells and whistles. Park is a funny button on the Aastra's - you have to press/hold it just a bit longer than usual. Anyone else seen this?
3 - Another, maybe seperate, issue is that recently we have found that our 'full' logs have been huge - when I say huge I mean HUGE - filling up our hard drive type log files - 13Gb and 23gb and sometimes 30gb. On average they are over 1mb when everyone else I talk to (when I say everyone I mean mainly John from cohutta.com ) anyways - when they are this huge I have no way of getting them when they are that big and even if I did - what would I use to view them?
4 - these issues are driving me, the shop phone guy, and my boss to the point of him saying that he may dump this for a more expensive system. I really want this to work and am stumped.
5 - I've been considering starting it all over from scratch to see what happens.

I know it seems like I am asking for a lot here and maybe there should be individual threads for each of my issues. I just need help because I don't know which way to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott

 

[jroper]

Hi

I've seen most of the symptoms you describe, and they have been down to network issues.

I'd start by investing in a switch and plugging the phones and PBX into the switch, and not connecting in the rest of the network while you are testing.

If you are still having problems, then unplug all the phones and plug in one at a time. I've seen grandstreams with dodgy network cards that flooded the network with traffic.

Secondly, consider separate broadband for your calls.

Lastly, you say you have big logs, what are they full of? There's a handy little utility in Webmin to view and filter the /var/log/asterisk/full log or you can use tail -n 1000 /var/log/asterisk/full to display the last 1000 lines or whatever.



Joe

 

[rushter]

Thanks Joe -
Here's what I can tell you so far.
1 - all of the phones are on a switch and we bought a new router and John from cohutta walked with me step-by-step on the router setup.
2 - not sure if I can take down a phone long enough to see when our logs get full so to speak - the problem appears to be a bit random. sometimes they are huge when no one is at the shop and other days it's when we are there. but i will try this if I can.
3 - separate broadband is not an option that the big guy will like - we are not talking about a whole lot of phones here or a lot of traffic just something filling up the full.* logs which brings me to...
4 - john and i tried this and it did not appear to show us much in the end. the problem is that I know there is an issue when the logs get huge but not sure if it will be seen in the smaller more readable ones. on a side note - in my messages log there was something about our time zone not being correct - that was the only message in our message log from one of the big full.* days. when I say it was the only message - it was the only message repeated constantly but I was told that it shouldn't be what is causing the issues.

 

[rushter]

No takers?

I did notice today that my Aastra's went into no service together but the Grandstreams still worked through it. Not sure if that sheds any light on anything.

 

[TheShniz]

You're describing both Aastra's dreaded SIP408 and DNS issues. I've found Aastra telephones can be very fragile with troubled Internet connections in terms of DNS issues especially. As far as I know, there still exists no solution and continues to plague Aastra since v2.x of their firmware.

Best advice is to install DNS w/ Caching, (temporarily) remove your Aretta lines completely, and reboot everything... best guess is you might find things working again. So it's time to check your ISP for issues (usually w/ their DNS servers).

 

[jmullinix]

Removing the Aretta lines for Scott is not an option. They are receiving incoming calls on them.

Could this problem be solved by installing bind on the phone server and pointing the Aastra's to it for DNS?

 

[TheShniz]

Well... the point of isolating/pulling the Aretta lines off isn't neccessarily to put the system into a failover state using his copper (which may be viable through forwarding w/ Aretta, idk)... the idea is identifying what it is that's causing the problem in the first place. If the problem magically disappears, then it is unquestionably an issue w/ the Internet Connection itself.

Unfortunately, if the problem is upstream, you may be sol as most ISP support people can't even identify/troubleshoot their own DNS issues. It usually gets mentioned to "level 2 or whatever" techs that are responsible (after you hang up w/ them), and then their DNS issues magically fix themselves a while later. I've seen this on several occassions w/ different ISP's.

Again, my best advice is to install DNS w/ Caching (i.e. bind)... caching is the key; while it may not help, it definately won't hurt. If anything, you'd find DNS Resolutions will speed up quite a bit.

Just do this...
yum -y install caching-nameserver
chkconfig --level 345 named on
nano /etc/resolv.conf
^^^ prepend everything w/ "nameserver 127.0.0.1"

Different phones for different people... each manufacturer has their own philosophies, and they are very evident in the telephones they produce (this is why I prefer to mix & match). In my mind, XML is the selling point for Aastra's. The sound quality is what you would expect from a telephone (i.e. normal), not outstanding like Polycom, and not above average as Cisco. I've long disliked their buttons & layout of the phones themselves, and the UI is not as intuitive as Cisco. They are a good, well-rounded telephone. Unfortunately for Aastra, this issue here is a very dark side that they've been dealing with now for over a year. No other manufacturer (Cisco/Grandstream/Linksys/Polycom/Snom/etc) experience the 'Out of Service' that Aastra's are subject to.

Updated:

It should be mentioned, that if you have two Internet Connections (1x for Voice, 1x for Data) from differing ISP's (Cable & DSL)... you *should* move the voice to your data connection (just change the gateway used by PiaF), and tell everyone to stay off the Internet (including email) if bandwidth is limited or no QoS is present. This should instantly fix the problem.

 

[jeremywillden]

I run a mixture of Polycom and Aastra (mostly Polycom - love the sound quality, especially the speakerphones). While I don't know the ins and outs of the issues above, I have seen the "no service" message on the Aastra, but only when there are legitimate problems with my internet connection. It's great, in a way, because the big red light on the phone is a nice flag to indicate when I'm having connection problems.

Both blessing and curse, I suppose.

 

[compuguy]

Hi,

Have you tried using opendns for your DNS servers? I have moved everything we use from our isp's DNS over to opendns and have noticed a vast improvement in speed of the internet.

 

[TheShniz]

Bind, OpenDNS, whatever... makes no difference. It's the caching that will noticably speed up your internet connection (as a pleasant by-product).

 

[rushter]

I followed what the Schniz said and I think that I have it in the bag. Well, at least the first day of no issues. Here is what I found out. I installed the caching as you suggested and you also suggested that I change the resolv.conf file and add "nameserver 127.0.0.1" to the beginning of the the file. Did that but also had "domain local" at the very end. I took that one out based on what I read about BIND. I read, not sure if it matters, that the resolv.conf file should have no more than three entries in it. So mine went from:

nameserver 192.168.1.nnn 
nameserver 4.4.4.2
domain local

to

nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 192.168.1.nnn
nameserver 4.4.4.2

I didn't use the "n's" - just not showing my server's internal ip. So with just these two things done and watching the phones all day this is what has been concluded so far. There is no longer a delay when dialing out - lines connect really fast. There is still a bit of static on some calls but it did not appear to drop any calls today. I asked everyone who uses the phones to keep me posted on any anomolies that they may notice.
So I thought that I would take this all a step further and let the forum know what else I did after things appeared to be working well. One of the very first issues that I had with our Aastra phones was that they would go into a 'No Service' state very often. Could not figure it out. So after researching online here and not having much luck I called Aastra tech support and spoke with them. They had me download a logging program and debug the phones and then send them the log files. After a day or so they called me back and suggested that I change the transaction timer setting to a number 5 times the default value of 4000. (I was told that I could not say that number to the forum - I think most should be able to figure it out here - hehehe - ) So I decided to take one of the Aastra's back down to the default of 4000 and see how long, if at all, it would take to go back into a 'No Service' state. I tested it for about half an hour or so and then went and changed out the other 3 Aastra's that we have. They all ran until we closed the shop with no issues whatsoever.
So bottom line - thanks for your advice The Schniz . I have something I want to figure out and will post in another thread. I would say this one is possibly solved - but only time will truly tell on this. So if one of the mods wants to close this for now - no problem.

UPDATE: 2 days with no major issues. thanks again.