[asterisk-users] OT: Problems with Linksys IP Phone SPA 942

[Shanon Swafford]

>Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 5:52 PM
>To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>Subject: [asterisk-users] Problems with Linksys IP Phone SPA 942
>
>Hi people,
>
>I'm having problems of connection with a Linksys SPA IP PHONE 942 when I
use the WAN port, most of the time when I try to connect to the network or
restart the IP >Phone I can't get internet connectivity . I tried using both
static IP and DHCP, but the problem is the same. Some have had similar
problem with this brand of IP >Phone?
>
>Thanks for the help and attention.
>
>Hugs
>
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First, have you tried a known working ethernet cable?  Also, if you have
VLAN enabled on the phone, it will send out a DHCP request, but then ignore
the reply unless the reply has VLAN in it.

If I where you, I would sniff the packets using www.wireshark.org and a true
hub (or switch capable of mirroring ports).  If you have it set to DHCP and
you don't see it send out any DHCP requests, I would call Linksys and see
what they say about troubleshooting it.
This is the filter to use in WireShark to only see Linksys device packets:

eth.addr[0:3] == 00-0e-08

Optionally you could add " && bootp || sip" to the end make Wireshark only
show DHCP and SIP activity.

One of the companies I work for pre-provisions Linksys phones and blind drop
ships them for ITSPs.  We also handle the ITSPs "returns".  Anyway, we have
booted, pre-provisioned, shipped, and handled returns for almost 10,000
SPA942s in the past year and had 47 that were actually bad and Linksys
replaced them all.  Maybe 10 of those where what I attributed as the WAN
port was broken, the other 37 where mainly hung firmware and won't power
problems.

About once a week though we do get a phone back where the end user says it
won't connect to the network and the ITSP just replaced it without hassling
the customer to troubleshoot.  We boot it behind our DHCP server, and it
works fine.  Then we reset it to factory defaults, re-provision, and re-ship
it and normally don't get it back a second time.  Sometimes it looks like
the end user has mucked around in the VLAN settings or it is set to static
IP and we have to change these before DHCP actually works but I can always
get it back.

I'd be interested in hearing what you find out as I have always been curious
about why those "once a weeks" don't work at the end user but have no way of
finding it out.  I'm sure Linksys would like to know as well.

One thing made be feel dumb the other day.  We boot these phones 10 at a
time and a new guy had accidentally plugged in one of them using the LAN
port.  This caused all sorts of problems in the network for some reason.
After chasing my tail in the DHCP server and power cycling the switch and
this and that for 2 hours, I found that one, changed it to the WAN, and am
still too mad at myself to actually investigate why that broke the whole
system.

Regards,

Shanon Swafford
Cell: 972.989.3242
Email: shanon at dfwavc.com
http://www.dfwavc.com/
http://www.ntxinternet.com/
http://www.ntxinternet.com/shanon_swafford.html