atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Nortel Telephones & Systems MICS time not advancing

In advance, we're not (and have never been) Nortel dealers. I used to work for one, which makes me the closest thing we've got to a Nortel tech, and even then, it's been 10 year or so.

We have a customer (well, we're the local techs for the national account) that's come up with a neat little issue over the last year or so.

Pretty bloody heavily expanded MICS system (8 or 9 modules, if memory serves), 1.1 software, butt load of DID cards, analog mods, pretty much everything you could ask for. Note that. 1.1 software, ie: no way to back it up short of a pen and paper. And DIDs. If you feel like crying now, go ahead.

What's happening is that when they go to change the time (ie: daylight savings time, because 1.1 never had the new rules for it), they set the new time, and then the system never increments the time again. So we set it to Nov 25, 2:35 pm, and two weeks later all the sets are showing the date/time as Nov 25, 2:35pm. My initial thought was "oh, a reboot should fix that" but considering it's so old that there's no way to back it up short of handpacking the system, I kicked it up to the national account. They decided it's probably the software cartridge, so we sent someone out to manually back it up assuming (and having double-checked with two or three other Nortel techs, they had the same assumption) that the programming was stored in the software cartridge, power down, swap the cartridge, power up and reprogram from scratch. He was quite pleased to find that the programming stayed intact, customer was happy since the time worked, and we left it alone. And learned something.

Of course, come the next DST adjustment, they changed the time, and it stopped advancing again. It's gone back to the national support group, and I haven't the slightest idea what they're working on, but I'm curious as to whether anyone else has tripped over this, and what/if the solution was other than to sell a new system.

Definitely time for a new system, or maybe at least an upgrade to 7.1. Heavily expanded MICS systems (is it XC software?) have always been slow no matter what version in my experience. CAP modules seem to cause further complications.

It was many many years ago, I believe I saw this same problem. I am not 100% sure, but what I think was the problem was the cabinet itself - the MICS.
I don't think upgrading the software will do anything for you.

But when you replace the MICS I would upgrade the software too. Version 1 is pretty old. But then that can create another problem. What Voice Mail unit do you have and what version is it running?

I know that version 1 is old. If they don't want to upgrade everything, then just the MICS is what I would try. Not 100% sure, but that is what I would do with no clock running.

Before you go crazy, try this. Instead of using 2015 as the date back the year down to something in the '90's that matches up to the right calendar days. Off the top of my head I don't remember the formula.
Good luck. Let us know if it works.

you are thinking with the old software version 1 it may not know how to tell time in 2015?
Guess it is a possibility.
Try the year 1992.
Let us know.

1992 can't be right, you need to consider leap years & day of the week January starts on. What you need is to pick out a year from here.

https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/repeating.html

So 1998 would be the closest.

Sorry - I should have said 1992 will get you through Nov, Dec, & Jan and hopefully by then you have replaced the MICS.

Unfortunately it's a national grocery chain, which means any decisions about replacing equipment have to come from elsewhere. Never thought of maybe having an issue with the dates, so I'll suggest trying 1998 to the manager next time I talk to him.
Ideally it'll get replaced at some point, but I don't envy anyone it. No way to back it up, programming records from 20 years ago I'm sure have been lost. I don't recall whether they've got a voicemail or not. I'm thinking not, maybe a basic system for AA.

Most likely the clock crystal is shot on the MICS.