5330e and 5360 Hang at Contacting Server

[Tim_Myth]

What follows is from another thread: http://mitelforums.com/forum/index.php?topic=6251.0

I am an end user in a remote office. I do not know what the Mitel mothership unit looks like nor what version it is or if it has a software version as well. I'm not sure the tech at the home office who is in charge of the Mitel mothership knows any of that information either. What I do know is that the way it is supposed to work is that I send him the MAC Address of a phone and the name of the person who will be using it, and he fiddles with some knobs and tells me it will work. This system worked just fine for the first 5 phones. We added 2 more people just before Christmas, and that's when the magic ended.

The first user was new so we sent the home office the MAC and name, plugged in the phone and waited. And waited. It boots, and I see all the version stuff and lots of numbers flash by. Eventually is says DHCP: Discovery Using Option 128+. Then TFTP Timeout flashes by (or something close to that...its quick) Then it sits at Contacting Server for so long I get bored and walk away. I asked our tech about it, but he asked me to make sure the network jack was working. So I took the phone to a known-good jack (that also has a 5330e plugged in to it) and the exact same thing happens. I take the known-good phone from the known-good jack and plug it into the "questionable" jack, and it works just fine there too. The issue definitely followed the phone. I got a different phone, sent him the MAC address, waited for him to say it was good to go, and tried again. Same thing: Hangs on Contacting Server.

The other user we added was an existing user that had her existing 5360 phone plugged in and working at a different remote location. When we plugged her phone in, it did the same thing...just hanging at DHCP Discovery. It too does not work when plugged in to a known good jack, and known good phones work just fine when plugged into the new jack. Unfortunately, we cannot go back to the old location and see if the phone would still work in it original, pre-office-move jack.

So, do I have 3 bad phones? Is there some programming that has to be done to the individual phones? Is there a factory reset or something I can do just in case these phones have bad/corrupt NVRAM or prior programming that is preventing them from working? The two 5330's were phones the home office had laying around, so ... help??

First, do you in fact have a model 5000?  If it's an MCD or 3300 instructions will be different.  Easy test: from any working phone dial 301...if display changes to Spanish it's a 5000.  If not, might be MCD or 3300.  Have you told the new phones where to find the phone system?  That's a manual thing.  Using a REMOTE phone that works, unplug the phone, then hold volume up and down buttons while plugging in. Don't release until it says NETWORK PARAMETERS, then release.  Press * for YES. Press * for VIEW CURRENT VALUES. # for NO through all the choices until you get to STATIC IPV4, then * for YES, * for VIEW IPV4 PARAMS.  Use volume up and down to scroll through the parameters, ignore PHONE IP, GATEWAY, SUBNET, but write down ICP IP ADDRESS and TFTP SERVER IP ADDRESS.  Scroll through the rest until you can exit.  Now do the same with new phone except skip VIEW CURRENT VALUES and skip through until you get to STATIC IP V4.  Say NO to VIEW, YES to MODIFY.  Plug in the two addresses from the other phone.  Then save, and blow through all the other options (# for NO).  That should do it.

It's a manual thing if you're not serving DHCP option 128 or 43.

I'm serving DHCP option 128 and have a few phones that randomly require me to reset them to factory defaults before they'll start working again.

First of all, THANK YOU for your help!

Second, I must apologize. The malfunctioning phone is not a 5330, it is a 5330e. I'm not sure if that makes a big difference, but I figure I better mention it. (I wasn't even aware there was a difference until I googled it)

Sadly, dialing 301 does not change it to Spanish (I tried before logging in to the phone, after logging in, and while drawing dial tone. 2 gave a busy signal and the 3rd just waited for more numbers). I was able to scroll through the different options by holding down the up and down volume buttons while booting. Both the ICP and TFTP Server addresses are blank on a working phone. I suspect it is like cholzhauer says: they are automatically set because we are using DHCP Option 128 (the phones hang at "DHCP Discovery using Option 128+" so maybe that means we're using it or maybe that means its tried everything else in its bag of tricks and DHCP Discovery using Option 128+ is the last trick)

One thing I did notice is that the Main Version on a working phone is 6.1.0.6 while the version on the 5330e and 5360 that aren't working is 5.2.1.7. Could that be causing our issue?

Sure sounds like you don't have a 5000.  Maybe try your question on the 3300/MCD board.

[ralph]

I saw a document on MOL just this morning.
Apparently there is a batch of phones that was manufactured with the wrong RAM modules.
I tried to pull that doc back up and found that I am now blocked from getting it.  (why?- dunno)
It only affects the 'e' models and were made during a specific period of time.
Mitel will replace them for you.

Ralph

[matthew]

Manufactured between and inclusive of weeks 2014-36 and 2014-42. See the bottom right of label under phone. Bulletin specifically mentions 5360 not affected by issue.

[Tim_Myth]

Thanks Ralph and Matthew. This doesn't appear to be applicable to me. My unresponsive 5330e was built in week 52 of 2012, and the other phone is a 5360 (which is not affected by this issue).

On a related note, our tech just got back to me today and asked me to plug these phones into a known good network jack and plug a working phone into the jacks these two phones were on. If you'll notice, this is what I already tried, and not surprisingly I got the same results today that I got on Monday: The issue follows the phones. On the bright side, its nice to know that he is only a few days behind me on his efforts to troubleshoot the issue.

[619Tech]

At this point, I would bypass DHCP altogether and try static addresses for the endpoints. I've been handed phones to install by customers that bought them used (ebay), and had similar issues. Once I static'd the endpoints (including ICP & TFTP), their firmware was upgraded and then they were able to work via DHCP as well.