atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Panasonic Telephones & Systems School Phone System KXTVA50 KXTAW848

I am hoping someone will throw me a bone and help out a bit. I help out at my son's elementary school with the networking and computer lab stuff. The other day the principle comes up to me and says, we need some of the names on the phone system changed and a few of the passwords reset. I say no problem, thinking to my self how hard can it be. She handed me this huge binder of all the manuals for the phone system. So I downloaded a maintenance console for the TVA50 thinking that using a computer would be the easiest way to do what they needed. I installed the usb driver on a XP laptop because most of the school system uses MAC. I plugged in the USB cord on the TVA50, started the maintenance console and got NOTHING. Windows says there is a hardware problem and has a yellow exclamation point on the USB driver.
I tried a few different things like re-installing the software, drivers, rebooting, changing usb ports but still got nothing.

Now here is the kicker. I figure no harm done. Never got into the system, never unplugged any phone lines, never flipped any dip switches. The next day they call me and now the voicemail is not working?? Keep in mind that I do not work there, just volunteer whenever I can to help out. They are a small non profit public charter school with limited funding.
I go in to see what happened and now the TVA50 has a red alarm light on? The assistant said they shut it off and restarted it, but no help. I looked at the phone book sized manual but found nothing. All I can find is stuff about initially installing the system and a lot of stuff related to the maintenance console.
I did a complete shutdown on both the TVA50 and TAW848 so they could start up together but still nothing.

I left today with the phones working as they should, but still no voicmail. You call in and all it does is ring ring ring non stop. The TVA50 just has a Green Run blinking light, and maybe switches to red alarm when someone calls in??

If anyone has any input, what so ever, I would be extremely grateful. Yeah, Yeah, I know, call the tech support or local dealer. At least I am looking to find out what I did wrong? Plugging in a laptop USB cable will mess up the system even if you don't/can't log in?? Can someone at least tell me how to get the voicemail system up and running again? Even with the wrong names on the extensions, at least it was working.

Thanks in advance

if the green light is flashing steddy it means it not seeing the system check cable. if flashing in a pattern like 3 flashes it could be a unit fault

is any of the switches on?

Connection between PABX and TVA ,is it okay?.Is there communication?.You may have accidentally moved a cable while connecting to the system and disconnected the two from each other.

Crosscheck.

OBT- Yes, its a steady flash of the green light. As for the dip switches, they all are in the up position, which is the way I found it. I never flipped any of the switches as I did not want to mess up the system. Looks like I did anyway.

Otoni- Besides checking the cables, how else do I check for communication between the two? It only has two phone cables going from the tva50 to the taw848. I will double check them to make sure they are well connected.


Any other ideas?

Thanks again for the help

I'll try not to be mean. You negelected to put in your location, so getting help in the open forum is not going to happen. You've clearly lost the syncronization between the phone system and the TVA. The TVA and 848 are end user systems, so you could, in theory, set one up from scratch. However, one of the things you forgot was in the fine print, you needed to load ALL of the maintenance consoles for the TVA system, starting from 0.027 to 3.5 or whatever the latest is. I'm guessing from the time frame, you are below 2.0 and there's a bug in the software that ignores those models if you try to jump into the 3.5 software.

No matter, try posting your location and maybe someone will take pity on you and guide you through the resync.

Carl

Carl- OK, I did not know that you had to load multiple versions. The console I loaded is this one KXTVASetupVer0010R06_Dealer.exe Which is version 0.010 from May31 2005.
Would that be a reason that Windows would not recognize the TVA50? Shouldn't it pick it up even if I did not have the software running? When I plugged it into the laptop, I got the popup that loads the drivers, just like any other USB item you plug in. After its loaded, you go into "Device Manager" and the TVA50 has a yellow warning next to it. When running the console, click on "connect", select USB, the popup is the stop sign. "The system cannot find any USB device" that's as far as I got. I reloaded the software, found different drivers TVAUSBDrivers.zip, KXUSBINS.exe, spent a good solid day reading, looking on the net, loading, reloading, rebooting, ect and that's as far as I got "The system cannot find any USB device"

I have just about given up on trying the maintenance console. Can anyone help just to get them back online so at least the voice mail works again?

I think you guys are right, I think that they lost sync between each other. How can I resync them with out resetting the entire system and loosing every phone in the school? Can it be done without using the Maintenance Console?

I have the installers, managers, subscriber, and programming manual. I have no problem reading the book, but when its as big as a phone book, it takes me some time. This is a school, their phones are always ringing, and somehow I screwed it up.


I am in Redland, OR about 45 minutes from PORTLAND OREGON

Are the cables connecting the TWA to the TVA reg phone cords or Hand made with colered wires?
If the latter, just moving them around could cause disconnection.
Move them around and check the Green light at the same time, any reconnect the light will go solid. A lot of bad installers Jury rig these connections. If the top plug on the TVA goes directly into a plug on the TWA, try a new cord ( must be four conductor).
I don't believe trying to connect with usb would cause a problem, but crappy wiring will.

I would contact the provider to see if its under warranty. It should not have been installed in a manner that touching wires to get to the USB port would cause a problem . If out of warranty it would only take less than a 1 hour service call to find if its wiring related (99%)
Trouble shooting 101: a good tech first thing would get a known good 4 conductor line cord and plug into the #1 port on TVA, take other end and plug into the Main voice mail port of the TAW.(which you would find by looking in the system programming of the TAW)

Thanks for the info Brokeda

As far as I know, they had it installed when the school first opened in 2003 by some guy they can no longer get a hold of. I was told he stopped returning their calls and had frequent no shows.
Everything has been working fine until this year when a few teachers moved on and did not leave passwords for their voicemail. Now the new teachers don't have voicemail for their class.

Could it really be as easy as a bad connection in the wiring?? I REALLY HOPE SO! I will be back in there Tuesday to recheck and I will bring my own phone lines that are known good. Suppose I could do a OHMs test on them for continuity. Its a very good possibility that is whats wrong. I did have to take the unit off the wall to get it close enough to get the 6ft USB cable to my laptop. The unit is mounted in a storage/supply room that is 12ft tall with walls lined with shelves all the way up. Of course they are mounted in the farthest top corner of the room. Standing on the top step of the ladder they have, with my laptop, trying to figure this out has definitely tested my patience....

"I did have to take the unit off the wall to get it close enough to get the 6ft USB cable to my laptop"

Moving the unit around could caused disconnection between the TAW848 and the TVA VPS.

As Brokeda put it "just moving them around could cause disconnection.
Move them around and check the Green light at the same time, any reconnect the light will go solid"

Simply check the connection between KX-TAW848 and the TVA.I highly suspect there is a disconnection between the two.If need be,do a continuity test on the cables.

To connect to a unit whose version you are not sure of, i normally install the old versions of the Maintenance console and upgrade upto the latest.In that way, you can connect to all easily.