[asterisk-users] Trouble with Polycom phones

Kevin Smith kevin.smith at mercury.net
Tue Jun 3 17:02:05 CDT 2008


JR Richardson wrote:
>> I have been running into a few issues with Asterisk/polycom and I am
>> running out of ideas. This problem has been ongoing for the last couple
>> of weeks. I will try to be as detailed as I can, but I might leave out a
>> few details. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Our setup: Asterisk 1.2.22, Fedora 4. Co-located to our PRI providers
>> facility. Comes to us via a DS3 to our other co-lo, then is sent via
>> wireless to our office. We also have another office in another state but
>> the connection is pretty much identical (they may have different
>> wireless equipment) except the path it takes.
>>
>> About 3 weeks ago, our phones started to reboot randomly. Sometimes
>> within 5 minutes, and sometimes up to an hour, but they were pretty
>> consistent, and it didn't matter if the agent was on the phone or not.
>> Asterisk would only tell me that the phones were not reachable, which
>> clearly was the case since it was rebooting. At the time, they were
>> running I think SIP version 1.6.6. However, the odd factor to that, was
>> the office in the other state was not having this problem (running
>> 1.6.6) and my phone and my supervisors (which we were testing SIP 2.2.2).
>>
>> After having our phone company test the DS3, there were some errors
>> found, and correct and that solved the problem for a few days. Which of
>> course, it started to happen again. However, this time there were no
>> errors on the DS3, and again the same problems were occurring, but my
>> phone, my supervisors, and the other states were fine. So I decided to
>> upgrade all of the phones to version 2.2.2. So that at least solved the
>> reboot problem, but I ran into another problem.
>>
>> Now, the phones lose their registration with Asterisk. My bosses phone
>> does it every time he receives a voicemail. Most people can go a few
>> hours without having to restart, but then sooner or later, it loses its
>> registration. From what I can tell, there are no errors in Asterisk, no
>> errors in the logs from the phones booting. I can even ping the phones
>> from the asterisk box when this happens, but they just won't re-reg with
>> the system. Now my phone has been up almost 3 days now, but other phones
>> are still having this problem. Also the phones in the other state are
>> not having this problem AND are still on 1.6.6.
>>
>> Anyone have any suggestions on something to look at, test, try, etc? I'm
>> completely stumped.
>>     
>
> Here are some things to check from my experience:
>
> 1. The polycom phones are a bit sensitive to low power, more so on the
> older 301/501/601 models.  Say you have refrigerator plugged into the
> same power ckts supplying power to several phones, when the
> refrigerator compressor kicks on (randomly), it draws down the voltage
> on the line, the phones reboot.  So, if several phones reset at the
> same time, look at power, new equipment installed sucking down power,
> check the voltage coming in from the street, maybe you are getting
> brown-outs from the power company and don't realize it.  Summer time
> is a huge draw on the power grid.
>
> 2. Network congestion combined with poor phone performance, mostly on
> the older models 301/501/601, will cause the phones to randomly drop
> off from the PBX.  Sniff the network and ensure you don't have a
> broadcast storm or high network congestion, like pc's with viruses,
> when the phones drop off. If the phones become unreachable, then
> reachable within 10 seconds (look in the asterisk message log) then
> this points to network congestion.  Ensure the sip users are set to
> qualify=yes (2000ms).
>
> 3. Poor switch performance, switch going bad, not responding in a
> timely manner forwarding packets.  You can run an extended ping
> through the switch, pings are low priority so if the sip packets are
> latent, you will definitely see latent ping times as well.
>
> Good Luck,
>
> JR
> ---------------------
> JR Richardson
> Engineering for the Masses
>
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Thanks for the suggestions JR, I realized reading your responses that I 
left out some detail :-/ . All of the phones are 601's. Maybe this may 
make one of your suggestions valid, or trigger another thought.

Connections at our office.
Computer---[PC jack on the back of the phones]----Phone----Netgear 
Switch---Mikrotik Router--- Wireless Connection to router--ds3---asterisk

The Netgear switch is a fsm7326p PoE switch. Below is the current status 
of the PoE system (I removed the ones that are not using PoE). Now, I'm 
pretty sure this equipment is on it's own breaker, it used to house most 
of our co-lo equipment before we moved it to another office. Mainly I'm 
providing this information in case there is something that is a miss 
that maybe I am over looking that you may clearly see being a problem.

Max System Power Available     180  (Watts)
Current System Power Used     55.9 (Watts)
Slot/Port     Admin Mode     Class     Priority     Output Power (watts) 
    Output Current (mA)     Output Voltage (volts)     Power Limit 
(watts)     Status
0/1     Enabled     0     Low     4.18     82     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/6     Enabled     0     Low     4.18     82     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/7     Enabled     0     Low     4.116     84     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/8     Enabled     0     Low     4.18     82     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/10     Enabled     0     Low     4.116     84     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/11     Enabled     0     Low     3.871     79     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/14     Enabled     0     Low     4.704     96     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/15     Enabled     0     Low     3.871     79     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/16     Enabled     0     Low     4.18     82     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/17     Enabled     0     Low     3.871     79     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/18     Enabled     0     Low     3.871     79     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/19     Enabled     0     Low     3.871     79     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/20     Enabled     0     Low     4.18     82     49     18     
Delivering Power
0/21     Enabled     0     Low     4.18     82     49     18     
Delivering Power

 From a sniff point of view..where would the best place to sniff in your 
opinion? From the Asterisk server or from somewhere within our office, 
or both?

Also, I have combed through the configuration files enough to where I 
may be overlooking something, is there anything in the configuration 
that you could think of that may cause the problems?

Thanks again for the suggestions,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Smith

--- 
Mercury Network
Technical Support
Phone: 989.837.3790
Toll Free: 888.866.4638
www.mercury.net




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