HD Phone FAQ

HD Phone FAQ

I have an IP330 on a gigabit switch and I am periodically having issues with connectivity from a PC connected through the phone. Is there anything I can do to resolve the issue?

On some older Network cards we have had reports of trouble when they go to sleep. This is apparently a common problem with an older RealTek network cards.

Here are the things that we have seen work in the field:

• Replace the cable with a gigabit cable. There are greater requirements upon the quality of the cable when supporting gigabit.
• In the hardware properties of the network card in windows, disable sleep. (In Win7 this is under Power Management -> Allow computer to turn off this device to save power).
• Set the speed to a fixed value in the PC, try 1000 or 10/100

How can I download logs from the HD phone?

Sometimes IPitomy will require you to get the logs from your phone so we can investigate an issue more deeply. Steps to accomplish this are:

1. Log into the IP address of the phone (username: root/password: root)
2. Navigate to Phone Maintenance=>HTTP Upgrade
3. Click the Download button next to All Config File:

NOTE:It may take a few minutes to download all of the files, be patient.

How do I configure my my HD Phones to use VLANs?

If you need to use VLAN to control what IP addresses the phones pull from DHCP you can modify the Phone Configuration Template in the PBX. VLANs logically isolate network traffic, they do not necessarily physically isolate it. It is typically going to be used because there are more devices on the network then there are IP Addresses in a single subnet. Or in order to implement security.

1. Navigate to PBX Setup=>Phone Global
2. Click Edit Current Template
3. Find the following section in the template pertains to VLAN, this is how it appears by default

 
<VLANs>
<Vlan LocalEnableVlan="0" PCEnableVlan="0" LocalVID="0" PCVID="0" LocalPriority="0" PCPriority="0" EnableVlan="0"/>
</VLANs>

Variable	Function	Settings
LocalEnableVlan	Controls if the LAN port is using vLAN tagging	0 = Disabled, 1 = Enabled
PCEnableVlan	Controls if the PC port is using vLAN tagging	0 = Disabled, 1 = Enabled
LocalVID	Defines what vLAN tag the LAN port is using	Set to the vLAN ID
PCVID	Defines what vLAN tag the PC port is using	Set to the vLAN ID
LocalPriority	Not Used	Leave at 0
PC Priority	Not Used	Leave at 0
EnableVlan	Global setting to toggle vLAN on PC and LAN port	0 = Disabled, 1 = Enabled

• In the following example the LAN port will use VLAN 5 and the PC port will use VLAN 8, allowing the Phone and PC to get different IP addresses from the DHCP server:

 <VLANs>
<Vlan LocalEnableVlan="1" PCEnableVlan="1" LocalVID="5" PCVID="8" LocalPriority="0" PCPriority="0" EnableVlan="1"/>
</VLANs>

• When done modifying the template Save, Apply Changes, and now any phones that are configured to the PBX will have their configuration file modified to match the template changes.

How can I set my Phone to use a static IP address?

IPitomy supports configuring phones using DHCP and this is the best option for almost every network. If you would like to statically set IP addresses, we recommend that you use DHCP reservations to do this. In the vast majority of routers and DHCP servers there is an ability to assign a static IP address to a MAC address. While this process of assigning may be tedious, it is no less so than going to each individual phone and manually configuring the IP address (Static IP). In the end it eliminates any difficult modifications that you will need to make to configuration files and is just a way easier method to use for accomplishing the same task.

If having this information, the phone still must be manually set to static IP addresses then you will need to understand the following information. You have several options for performing this configuration:

Configure then Disable Configuration Updates

1. Automatically Configure the phones using DHCP
2. Go to phone's web page (root/root to log in) Navigate to Phone Maintenance->Auto Provision and uncheck the box that says Auto Download Config File.
3. set the IP address to the desired static address
4. The phone should keep it's original configuration and any changes made to phone configuration will now have to be done through the phone web interface. The exception to this is that you can change the phone keys in this configuration, just do NOT press Save and Configure. Press Save then Apply changes. The phone will update the keys at night when it downloads it's key configuration.

Change Configuration File Template

Please read the section of the Documentation [Note on Changing the Global Template] to understand the implications of using this method.

The second option is more difficult to initially configure but is easier because you can still change phone settings. You should only do this if you are familiar with XML as you can break the configuration files by making changes here that lead to invalid XML.

1. Go to PBXSetup->Phone Global
2. Under "HD Phone Configuration Template" click "Reset Template to Default"
3. Now click Edit Template. Under Networks - delete the entire Node called "network"
4. Now phones should keep whatever you manually set them to.
5. Note with this method that when you upgrade the PBX software you should be aware that we may make changes to the default template and you may have to reset the template and remake the changes in order to support additional functionality that is added in future releases.

The final option here is to just manually configure the phone. This works but if you call tech support with an issue they will probably have you default and reconfigure the phone through the PBX as we change a number of options when we provision the phones to the PBX.

My BLF won’t light on my phone?

If you have a phone where a BLF will not come on when it is supposed to, there are several things you can do.  The most important thing is to understand is how a BLF is turned on or off.  When a phone goes off hook and connects with a call, it sends out a short status packet to the PBX.  The packet simply says that the status has changed from available to busy.  The PBX then updates all of the phones that have a subscription to the BLF with a status packet indicating that the status has changed to busy.

The packet ether got there or it didn’t.  If it didn’t, the status will not update.  The status should update automatically every 30 minutes or so.  If the packet was missed, everything should be back to normal the next time the phone re-subscribes (about every 30 minutes automatically).  

What can go wrong?

The packet might have been lost.  What do I do? Why would the packet get lost in the first place?  Is it magic?  Is it being controlled by “The Force”?  Probably not.  The packet may have not arrived due to many factors.  Most likely the flow of normal packets was disrupted.  In the world of SIP, signaling packets have a very short life.  They become stale if they are not delivered on time.  The SIP packets are delivered using UDP.  This protocol does not ask for a positive acknowledgement when a packet is received.  It is assumed that it has been received.  There are several things that can cause a packet to be delayed on a LAN.  All these things have the same symptom.  

Here is a short troubleshooting guide:

1. Perhaps you have recently restarted all services or rebooted your PBX.  You phones lose their BLF subscriptions when this occurs.  The phones will resubscribe automatically in time.  If you wish to have the BLFs work immediately then you will need to reboot the effected phones.
2. The packet might not be the culprit; maybe your lamp is broken.  Test this by going to the button on the phone and select diagnostics.  Select the option lights.  Did the light come on?  If it did, it’s not the light.
3. To narrow this down a little further, it is best to remove all doubt.  Restore the phone to factory defaults and reprogram it.  Test it and see if the problem happens again.  If it does, go to the next step.
4. Troubleshoot the network.  See this guide for assistance [Troubleshooting: Network]

There is no such thing as black magic.  The BLF did not turn on for a good reason.  If you want to go with the percentages, it breaks down like this:

Less than 1% light is out.  Check it anyway in diagnostics.  It does not take any time.

Less than 1%The phone is broken.  This is very unlikely for a BLF

85%Cabling – Loose connector – bad patch cord

13%QOS not set up or set up wrong

Moral of the story:

Carry a known good patch cable and some tools to re-connect the wall jacks.  Rule this out first and you will save a lot of time over the long run.