[Asterisk-Users] Hint Priority for Polycom Phones

[Douglas Garstang]

I've been tearing my hear out trying to get hints to work with Polycom phones all day. I'm trying to get the buddy function to work so that an appearance can be aware of another appearances status, ie if they are busy or not, and light the light next to the button.
 
All the docs for the hint priority are pretty basic... most people don't really seem to understand what it is they are really doing.
 
It seems that when you create an entry in the <mac>-directory.xml file, and set <bw>1</bw> and <ct>extension</ct> that the Polycom phone on boot should send a SUBSCRIBE message to Asterisk so that Asterisk can send it back a NOTIFY when the status of a buddy changes.
 
Just exactly how to do you set this on the phone? My polycom's are not sending a SUBSCRIBE message to Asterisk... in fact I can't even find where to set the location to send SUBSCRIBE messages to in the phone1.cfg or sip.cfg config files. The Polycom admin guide is grossly inadequate.
 
On the other hand, when an extension receives a new voicemail, Asterisk doesn't need to have received a previous SUBSCRIBE message to send a NOTIFY when there's new voicemail. Maybe the status of a buddy is the same?
 
In any case, this is driving me nuts. Has anyone gotten this to work with Polycom phones?
 
Thanks,
Douglas.