Just when I thought I'd seen all the problems possible on the DX80 8.5.11b in skin flash voicemail, I find a new one.
Background; the system is a year old with a few complaints about this all along, but recently adding a second cabinet and 7 phones and new people it is now being reported daily. I upgraded from 39 to 42 software and the trouble still occurs. Reception transfers a call to voicemail and intermittantly the caller will leave a message but the box doesn't record it. Playback and you get silence for several seconds then the caller ID, when we call them back they say they left a message. These are not all cell phone calls. I haven't spent a day there troubleshooting this yet, any ideas what to look for or how to troubleshoot it? We know it is happening with calls transfered to VM from an extension, can't say if it happens when transfering from the main greeting. I hope one of you wizards can give me a clue.
Mark

Expanded, or just 4 ports?

How long is the message that's being left. There is the "minimum message length" setting. I would check and see what that's set to. Also look at your seconds of silence/seconds of non-silence. It's obviously taking some sort of message, since it's playing back the CID. That right there rules out the minimum message issue, I guess, but still possibly leaves the possibility of talk-off.

Also, I would compare the VM.CFG entries to another CF VM, to see if your voice board type parameters are set the same. Maybe you got one that was a return, and had been tweaked before being sent back.

Another thing you could possibly do is turn on the monitor feature, to see what the mailbox is doing. A trace might tell you some, but the monitor feature will give you a better picture of what's going on.

I don't know about the "minimum message length" I'll have to look into that, where is that setting, I've never seen it. This only happens 10 to 20% of the time depending on who I talk too. Seconds of silence is set to 10 and non silence to 99.
I'm not familiar with the moniter feature, I'll have to look that up. Trace is a problem because I don't know how to go back after the screen scrolls past what I want to see. I haven't found an answer to that yet. I think it's going the seconds of silence setting then droping the call -even though they have been talking (as in not recording). If it would happen every time it would be much easier to troubleshoot. Tell me more about the moniter feature and I'll try to look it up after dinner.
Mark

I can maybe help you with monitor, but look it up. I learned how to use it from the book, basically.

As for the trace feature, I usually use the option to turn trace on to write to file, which then puts the info into trace.log. You would use Alt-F2 instead of Alt-F5. I believe Alt-F2 also makes it show on screen, but then also appends to the trace.log file as well.

As for Minimum Message, it is a VM.CFG entry (usually you would see something like MINIMUM MESSAGE = 2). As I mentioned, though (after talking myself out of it), I don't think this is the problem. If it were, you wouldn't get any message. You said they did get a message with CID attached, just no voice in the message.

Right no voice. ALT F2 I'll remember that. It appears to not be hearing the voice and timing out. I was also wondering if I could have failing sections on the flash card.
Mark

But since the very beginning? Possible, but not as likely as if it started up a while after install. You could try reloading the CF, or move them to a different one, but I'm not real sure that's gonna help.

Just to check, are you having the diskm.bat processes run every night, or only on the default day? If this is a really busy voicemail (full auto attendant, lots of boxes, etc.), this might help if you have frag problems. You could also look for corruption using the scandb82 d feature from a C:\VM prompt. If you get any
"Box 9999 Deleted" showing up, the database had some corruption. Corruption can do weird things, but I also have my doubts on this one too. Worth checking, though.

This is a new car dealership, they tell me now that this has been happening forever, I can't say that it's true.
I've yet to have any success reloading a flash card or moving files to a new one. And comical is no help, they "don't support" moving to a new card or ghosting or any of that, you know, we've been through this before.
I have not changed the defrag from the default but the system is not that busy and I had 3 people with vacant messages today after it just did it's batch file over the weekend so I doubt that's it unless the batch file has not been running for some reason, is that possible? I never even accessed it for anything.
Mark

I have pretty much mastered the flash card clone. If you like I can talk you through it or send a 512 card with a "as it came from the factory" image. You'd be faced with a re program but it would answer a few questions.
Dave

pm sent

I have a card reader but I use xp SP2 and I don't have an old 98 machine or the ghosting software, still think you could walk me through it?
Mark

I've done many of the flash card reloads, but never onto a store-bought card. I've only reflashed the originals, but with little problem (using Comdial's utility).

Dave, did you come up with a method to do it thru other means?

Comdial no longer offers that utility.

They also no longer support integration of their voicemail to switches other than currently-supported Comdial switches (according to what tech support told one of our techs the other day). That's what this board is here for!

I have only done it on store bought cards as the factory originals are trashed with CRC errors if they are failing in the field.

That's because the new verticle techs don't know the old equipment. It's the age old business plan, first we get rid of anyone who knows anything.

Are you not able to recover from the CRC errors simply by wiping and reloading?

Mark, the utility (the unavailable one) runs fine with my card reader and XP SP2 laptop.

Once the CRC errors show I can never get a successful reload. I just pop in a new 256 or 512 CF card.

Do CF2 cards work too, or are they a different animal?

Justin,
Is that utility on the ftp or somewhere that I can get it?
Dave,
I'm willing to try whatever you guys think has a chance, I will probably try another VM board at this site to see if it behaves better, then try to fix the original if it's the source of the problem.
I sure would like to make back up flash drives if possible, but that should probably not be posted here.
Mark

In response to Mark's original posting I have experienced a similar problem in the last four weeks. There are four customers that I know of that called me within a two day period complaining that callers left a message, they see a number on caller ID, and yet there are no messages. I dispatched techs. to each site and worked with tech support trying everything they know on a number of occassions and nothing has corrected the problem. Finally, I decided to replace the voicemail card and the same problem exists.

In the last ten days I was testing remotely calling into a customers site from an office in my home and found something odd. When calling from my line 2 where I have Verizon local and long distance the test fails and I get cut off at the sound of the voicemail beep prompting you to leave a message. However, from my line 1 where I have Verizon local and MCI long distance the test calls work every time and have never failed calling four sites where I'm having the problem.

I called Verizon and tested on line 1 and then the Verizon CSR switched my line 1 to all Verizon service and the voice mail failed when testing. She (Barbara from Verizon-a wonderful helpful woman) switched my service back to MCI and the tests all passed. I have worked with several Verizon representatives and they cannot find the problem or a solution. The problem we come up with after working with Vertical is that when the voice mail beeps after the greeting says leave a message at the sound of the tone, the tone is sending or causing the call to disconnect. We listened on the 66 block and after the beep the tech cannot hear me but yet the voice mail continues to record dead air.

At this point I'm not sure what I'm going to do to help solve the problem. Vertical tells me it's not their problem, Verizon is saying it's not their problem, and my customers (one being a law firm) are saying I sold them a system that is not compatible with Verizon's equipment. I do feel it's everyone's involved responsibilty and my customers have a point that Vertical should take ownership and resolve the issue.

I had one customer tell me I have a short window to solve the problem and if I don't he will buy another system from another manufacturer and if it works properly he will look to Vertical and East Coast Communications for a refund. And, he will look to help other business that have the same problem recover money paid. He also mentioned that each business has lost business due to the problem and there can be damages involved.---Now, how do I tell my customers it's not my problem? And, if another system from Norstar, etc is thrown up on the wall and works, we can say it's a Verizon issue all we want but that will be a tough sell to a judge when an attorney walks in and states he bought another system and it works fine.

If anyone else has had a similar problem, please PM me or post on the site. I would like to see if it's in an isolated area or widespread.

Any suggestions?

Yes, the voicemail continues to record dead air and shows a connection when viewing on a laptop. I called Mark K. last night after reading his posting and he has the same exact problem and it happens to be in Newtown Square, PA. I have a system with problems in Newtown Square, Media, Frazer, and Pheonixville, PA. All the same general area.

55 Years your PM box is full.

I believe the VM will record after a disconnect based on the "seconds of silence" setting in the system. I have mine set for 10 I believe default is 4. At any rate is just a short time.

You are correct re: seconds of silence accept Vertical had us change to 15 seconds thinking that was part of the problem. Also, they had us change non seconds of silence to 99.

If that were the case (seconds of silence), it would have cut off the message as it was being left, unless the person paused for that length of time before they began talking. It makes sense to me that this isn't the case. Am I right?

it cuts off at the tone to begin your recording.

Mark, look in your voicemail book under Config File. Look at "No Record Beep" (vm.cfg entry). Based on the description in the book, you could possibly try this. It will supposedly disable the beep that you hear after "please speak after the tone..."

If it is, in fact, the beep that's causing the problem, this should prove it (if the description in the book is correct).

If you disable the beep how will the caller know when to speak if the prompt says "please speak after the tone"? Haven't tried it..has anyone else?

If that entry does what the book says, he should at least be able to use it to test and prove the problem. If the beep is actually causing the telco to drop the line, I would say it's a telco problem, not a Vertical problem. This beep has been there for how long??

I believe that record beep is referring to a voice record or conversation record. I'm hoping Anthonyh can shed some light on the switch side.
Mark

Sounds like you proved it's a problem with Verizon LD. If the customer doesn't have Verizon LD, most calls would work fine until someone that does have Verizon LD calls.

Not sure if you can do it, but try changing the frequency of the beep.

I don't think changing the frequency of the beep is going to be possible.

Mark, I was thinking the same about that VM.CFG entry, but if you read the description in the book it makes me think otherwise. I guess the only way to know for sure is to try it.

Joe, I agree with you. I think the problem is now going to be PROVING it to Verizon.

Guys:

AnthonyH and I are working on this now. It's pretty obvious that the frequency of the record tone is being detected by Verizon's tandem office switch as being a fraud (blue box) tone, forcing the far-end switch to drop the call. These in-band tones date back to the TAFAS days and may still be detected by some older tandem offices. Anthohy is looking into this and hopefully will be able to get us the right terminology to use with Verizon.

It's nothing wrong with your systems or voice mail. Dexman and Pete Largo are pretty knowledgable with CO switches as well, so hopefully one of them will chime in.

You might want to alert them to the topic (if you haven't already). I've not seen them post in this forum before, so they may not even look in Comdial forum.

While working with Vertical support (Vic, Scott Downer, and Lidell Rush) they were not able to change the tone to correct the problem. Two weeks ago support gave us helped my tech disable the tone temporarily, the voice mail operated properely and the call wasn't dropped. We have worked with Vertical engineers and they do not have a solution at this time.

As for Verizon, we are meeting them at a customers site hopefully some time next week (they never got back to me Wednesday to confirm as promised) to run a protocal analyzer test that watches the call from point to point. To date, when they view the call from their office it doesn't give the appearance the call is dropped. We know different since the call is dropped when listening on the 66 block.

The good news is I have four customers making alot of noise at Verizon and they are continuing to work on the problem. I'll keep everyone posted after the test.

I can drop everything and be on site anytime if you need to test another site. I never heard back from Scott on Wednesday.
Mark

Thanks, I'll keep in touch.

Update; More sites in the Newtown Square area of Pa. have reported the same trouble, Verizon did not run their protocal test yet as of 3:30pm today. This is a trouble that may crop up in other areas.

Mark

Yep, and they will eventually trace it to a common 4ESS office associated with traffic in these areas. You wait and see. You might be dead and gone by then, but I am sure that's where the fault is. I just hope that when they do find (and fix) it that they will at least be willing to admit it.

Update:
Greg from East Coast Communication called me to say that Verizon did the vendor meet and testing today. Verizon did agree that they "own" the trouble. Audio is lost at the record tone as described in an earlier post. Verizon tech made a reference to "something in toll fraud" whatever that means. They are hoping to resolve it by Monday. I won't hold my breath. In the meantime, I had a client today some 40 miles west of that troublesome location, who has been experiencing the same trouble for the last few weeks. I will keep updating this thread until we have a positive resolution. If anyone out there experiences similar trouble please join in.
Mark

Amen! That's what I've been preaching! You have to prove them wrong even when they are "right"!

It's been inband signaling to alert of toll fraud in the nearest tandem switch the whole time. The tandem switch has been detecting the "beep" as some old-time pay phone fraud signal. The frequency of the "beep" was just right to be interpreted as such. The good news is that this single toll switch affects dozens of local central offices, even non-Verizon ones, so many problems have likely been solved with your collective handful of customers.

Think of the thousands of customers who may have had this same problem. I shudder to think of the ones who gave up and replaced their systems because........Well you know what I was going to say.

Got This From Greg at East Coast Communications;

I received a call late last night from Verizon saying the found the problem and they will have it fixed by today or Wednesday. I’m not sure what the problem was but it’s in the Easton trunking.

Easton, Pa. is a considerable distance from where this trouble is occuring, I'm now wondering why it's not more wide spread, or, maybe it is. ??
Mark

Finally, the Verizon rep called me and said they had a deadline to correct the porblem if they didn't find a solution. To date, they have not found a solution but they do know what the problem is and they're working on a fix. For the time being the trunks are going through the Market St switch and not the Softswitch. This has corrected the problem and all voicemail systems have testeed okay.

Tonight at 9PM Verizon has a conference call with Nortel to discuss the softswitch and what steps they need to take to solve the issue. After they find a solution they will transfer everything back through the softswitch.

Thanks Greg Great Job.
Don't be a stranger on the board, your exactly the kind of business owner that makes this such a helpful place.
Mark

Let this be a learning experience. When they claim that the problem is in your equipment, chances are that it isn't. You guys have plucked the proverbial needle out of the hay stack on this one. Make sure that Vertical knows about it since I am sure that this is happening all over the country. Good job! :thumb: