asterisk users - Oct 2008 - problems with some incoming/outgoing calls

Hi,

I've been very puzzled lately. I installed a phone system for a friend
a few weeks ago, and they're having a problem that I can't get rid of,
actually 2 problems. Before I go into the problems, let me tell you
about the setup. It's a pretty small setup with only 4 handsets, all
Polycom 320s, the server is a Dell SC440 with Intel E2180 CPU (dual
core, 2GHz) and 512MB Ram. Internet Connection is an ADSL2, with a not
so reliable ISP in australia. For incoming calls, I had a Digium
TDM410P with 4xFXO modules and HWEC. Because of these problems, i
replaced the Digium card with a Sangoma A200D, but it didn't make any
difference to the problems. All phones are hooked up to a Netgear PoE
switch.

Almost forgot to mention that this is not my first Asterisk setup, and
in fact it is my 4th, and I used various SIP handsets before, and also
different cards (Analog and Digital), so I'm not a total noob.

Let's get to the problems...

1) Some incoming calls cannot be picked up
Sometimes, incoming calls, coming through the analog card, cannot be
picked up. All handsets are set to ring at the same time on incoming
calls. and most of the time, calls can be answered on any of the
handsets, but maybe 3 or 4 times a day, all handsets will be ringing,
and you go to one handset to answer the call, you pick the handset,
and it doesn't answer the call, it keeps ringing, then you go to
another handset, and still can't pick up, sometimes, you can even try
all 4 handsets, and no luck. but, at other times, you can't answer on
the first handset, but you can on another, and it is totally random.
but people are pretty pissed off for running around to answer a call.
and what puzzles me is that you can sit around watching logs for
hours, and it won't happen, other times, it happens 3 times in a row.
any ideas?

2) Delay on outgoing calls via SIP
People have been saying that when they call people, there's a delay
for the call to be answered. For example, caller dials a number,
callee answers the ringing phone, but caller is still listening to a
ringing tone, and after a few seconds (up to 15 seconds) it sounds
like the callee has just answered the call, when in fact, he had
already answered a few seconds before. Problem with this is that some
callees will hangup before the caller starts talking. These calls are
going via pennytel, in australia, which seems to be a pretty good VOIP
provider around here, and I've been using it on other setups and never
had these issues.

Well, sorry for the long first post, but I would really appreciate any
suggestions you have.

Cheers,
Fernando

Hi, which version of asterisk are you running? Perhaps if you post your  
extensions.conf and others related files you could get more accurate help.
If you answer a ringing phone and you can't answer the call, there you  
could have a network or sip config problem, that means that the SIP packet  
is not returning to the pbx.
Regards.

Lucas


On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:30:29 -0200, Fernando Serto <fserto at gmail.com>  
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been very puzzled lately. I installed a phone system for a friend
> a few weeks ago, and they're having a problem that I can't get rid
of,
> actually 2 problems. Before I go into the problems, let me tell you
> about the setup. It's a pretty small setup with only 4 handsets, all
> Polycom 320s, the server is a Dell SC440 with Intel E2180 CPU (dual
> core, 2GHz) and 512MB Ram. Internet Connection is an ADSL2, with a not
> so reliable ISP in australia. For incoming calls, I had a Digium
> TDM410P with 4xFXO modules and HWEC. Because of these problems, i
> replaced the Digium card with a Sangoma A200D, but it didn't make any
> difference to the problems. All phones are hooked up to a Netgear PoE
> switch.
>
> Almost forgot to mention that this is not my first Asterisk setup, and
> in fact it is my 4th, and I used various SIP handsets before, and also
> different cards (Analog and Digital), so I'm not a total noob.
>
> Let's get to the problems...
>
> 1) Some incoming calls cannot be picked up
> Sometimes, incoming calls, coming through the analog card, cannot be
> picked up. All handsets are set to ring at the same time on incoming
> calls. and most of the time, calls can be answered on any of the
> handsets, but maybe 3 or 4 times a day, all handsets will be ringing,
> and you go to one handset to answer the call, you pick the handset,
> and it doesn't answer the call, it keeps ringing, then you go to
> another handset, and still can't pick up, sometimes, you can even try
> all 4 handsets, and no luck. but, at other times, you can't answer on
> the first handset, but you can on another, and it is totally random.
> but people are pretty pissed off for running around to answer a call.
> and what puzzles me is that you can sit around watching logs for
> hours, and it won't happen, other times, it happens 3 times in a row.
> any ideas?
>
> 2) Delay on outgoing calls via SIP
> People have been saying that when they call people, there's a delay
> for the call to be answered. For example, caller dials a number,
> callee answers the ringing phone, but caller is still listening to a
> ringing tone, and after a few seconds (up to 15 seconds) it sounds
> like the callee has just answered the call, when in fact, he had
> already answered a few seconds before. Problem with this is that some
> callees will hangup before the caller starts talking. These calls are
> going via pennytel, in australia, which seems to be a pretty good VOIP
> provider around here, and I've been using it on other setups and never
> had these issues.
>
> Well, sorry for the long first post, but I would really appreciate any
> suggestions you have.
>
> Cheers,
> Fernando
>
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On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 11:30:29PM +1100, Fernando Serto
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been very puzzled lately. I installed a phone system for a friend
> a few weeks ago, and they're having a problem that I can't get rid
of,
> actually 2 problems. Before I go into the problems, let me tell you
> about the setup. It's a pretty small setup with only 4 handsets, all
> Polycom 320s, the server is a Dell SC440 with Intel E2180 CPU (dual
> core, 2GHz) and 512MB Ram. Internet Connection is an ADSL2, with a not
> so reliable ISP in australia. For incoming calls, I had a Digium
> TDM410P with 4xFXO modules and HWEC. Because of these problems, i
> replaced the Digium card with a Sangoma A200D, but it didn't make any
> difference to the problems. All phones are hooked up to a Netgear PoE
> switch.
> 
> Almost forgot to mention that this is not my first Asterisk setup, and
> in fact it is my 4th, and I used various SIP handsets before, and also
> different cards (Analog and Digital), so I'm not a total noob.
> 
> Let's get to the problems...
> 
> 1) Some incoming calls cannot be picked up
> Sometimes, incoming calls, coming through the analog card, cannot be
> picked up. All handsets are set to ring at the same time on incoming
> calls. and most of the time, calls can be answered on any of the
> handsets, but maybe 3 or 4 times a day, all handsets will be ringing,
> and you go to one handset to answer the call, you pick the handset,
> and it doesn't answer the call, it keeps ringing, then you go to
> another handset, and still can't pick up, sometimes, you can even try
> all 4 handsets, and no luck. but, at other times, you can't answer on
> the first handset, but you can on another, and it is totally random.
> but people are pretty pissed off for running around to answer a call.
> and what puzzles me is that you can sit around watching logs for
> hours, and it won't happen, other times, it happens 3 times in a row.
> any ideas?
Could you please enable 'sip set debug' in the Asterisk CLI and provide 
a trace?
> 
> 2) Delay on outgoing calls via SIP
> People have been saying that when they call people, there's a delay
> for the call to be answered. For example, caller dials a number,
> callee answers the ringing phone, but caller is still listening to a
> ringing tone, and after a few seconds (up to 15 seconds) it sounds
> like the callee has just answered the call, when in fact, he had
> already answered a few seconds before. Problem with this is that some
> callees will hangup before the caller starts talking. These calls are
> going via pennytel, in australia, which seems to be a pretty good VOIP
> provider around here, and I've been using it on other setups and never
> had these issues.
Maybe this is a dialplan issue? Any chance you use freepbx? To see if
there's a dialplan issue, use: 'core set verbose 3' in the Asterisk
CLI.

-- 
               Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755              jabber:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406           mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
http://www.xorcom.com  iax:guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir