[Asterisk-Users] Polycom 501: takes calls, but fast busy on dial out?

[Doug]

At 10:24 10/4/2005, Doug wrote:
 >Hi,
 >
 >Has anyone seen this before?  The phones are
 >registered OK, and they can take incoming
 >calls, but all I get is a fast busy whatever
 >I dial.  I've tried regular numbers, *98, etc.
 >
 >Looking at the Asterisk Command Line Interface, I
 >don't see any text outputted when I try to dial out.
 >I wonder if it's even getting to the Asterisk server.
 >Where does it get the fast busy from--inside the phone?
 >
 >Another clue is the Flash Operator Panel.  The extensions
 >show up, but the "devices" are greyed out.
 >
 >Here is what "sip show peers" has:
 >
 >Name/username    Host            Dyn Nat ACL Mask             Port     Status
 >
 >15102/15102      XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX  D   N      255.255.255.255  1044     OK
 >(69 ms)
 >15101/15101      XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX  D   N      255.255.255.255  1043     OK
 >(69 ms)
 >
 >Do the ports matter?

Just to document the solution to this problem:

Essentially, we did nothing except confirm the settings,
reboot the phones, restarted Asterisk, rebooted the Linux
server it runs on, etc.-- many times.  During one
observation of the Asterisk CLI, we saw some sort of
registration message for one or both of the phones, and
they started working--able to dial outgoing calls, *77,
*98, etc.

It's a mystery.  I suspect it has to do with some sort
of behind-the-scenes housekeeping that Asterisk does
that finally finishes, and the phones start working.
It would be nice if the developers would look into
this.

To say the least, if someone is under a deadline to
get a system up and running and they are doing
everything right, it becomes a very frustrating
and stressful exercise when the software is so
fickle.