Station Monitor - No Audio

[irongladiator]

Hello Fellow Mitel Techs,
I was curious if anyone has come across a situation where attempting to "Station Monitor" yields no audio (Dead Silence)? Just seemed to stop working. I get no errors when attempting to listen, it lets me dial in the extension and then.....nothing.

Thanks,
-Iron

[irongladiator]

All,
Just an FYI, the only thing I did recently was revamp the list as they say they were getting rejected from even doing it. Supervisor list went from 80+ users to 13 Users.

Thanks,
-Iron

[dwayneg]

Silent monitor does use conference resources, so conceivably that could be an issue if they're all in use.  Also I believe you can't monitor if the station and trunks are using peer-to-peer networking because the audio doesn't touch the pbx back plane.  But in either case I'd expect some sort of error on your phone display.

If I was troubleshooting on site I'd create a brand new HG with you as supervisor, someone else as member.  Then have them make a call and test to outside, then see if you can monitor (321, then his ext).  That might help narrow the problem down by reducing variables.  You could also temporarily turn on the system flag UCD/ACD STATION MONITOR INDICATIONS, see if station you're monitoring sees a display, which would indicate whether the system thinks monitor is happening.

[irongladiator]

dwayneg,
I should also point out this is happening intermittently too (Always fun times). I just tested with my test extension (I'm a remote tech), I had my customer on the line using my company's desk phone and trying to "Station Monitor" using the Customer Test phone I also have on my desk. I tried 5 times total and 3 out of those 5 times I could not hear anything, the other two, not a problem. Strange issue indeed huh?

Do you know of any logs I may be able to review?

Thanks,
-Iron

[irongladiator]

All,
Also, not sure if this has anything to do with it but... The system is an HX Cabinet w/PEC-1 module it also has 50 SIP Trunks and 100 IP phones. According to the handy dandy "Mitel 5000 System Calculator v6" it says Mitel recommends an additional PS-1. So my question is, does having a PS-1 assist with issues like this?

Thanks,
-Iron

[dwayneg]

If there's enough traffic that could make the difference.  But I suspect you'd also see some other failures such as slow connects, delayed voice mail or auto attendant.  Have you viewed the CPU load stats in the Mitel Sys Admin and Diagnostics app?

[darrel]

Intermittent audio would rule out network groups. Conference resources seems like a place to start. I scanned log files on my system. I didn't see anything that stood out for conference. I would think it would show up somewhere that all the conference resources are in use.
 If you stay on in the silence does audio ever come on ? I would try the same testing when call volume is low.

 Clear all the supervisor's out and reboot. Add them back in and try again.

[Tech Electronics]

Irongladiator,

Have you looked to see if the system is using the Basic or Advanced Conferencing?

In my thinking the PS-1 is needed, but not for this issue as Conferencing uses IP resources and that stays with the Base Unit and the PEC. You could possibly have a bad Base Unit or PEC.

Thanks,

TE

[irongladiator]

If there's enough traffic that could make the difference.  But I suspect you'd also see some other failures such as slow connects, delayed voice mail or auto attendant.  Have you viewed the CPU load stats in the Mitel Sys Admin and Diagnostics app?

dwayneg,
Agreed. Only we are not seeing those other types of issues, CPU load seems ok with peak times floating around 70%.

Thanks,
-Iron

Intermittent audio would rule out network groups. Conference resources seems like a place to start. I scanned log files on my system. I didn't see anything that stood out for conference. I would think it would show up somewhere that all the conference resources are in use.
 If you stay on in the silence does audio ever come on ? I would try the same testing when call volume is low.

 Clear all the supervisor's out and reboot. Add them back in and try again.

darrel,
I had also thought of the conference resources being an issue but had this happen to me when it is only me on the system doing the station monitoring (Per AD&D). I have tried waiting on the line while still monitoring and the sound doesn't ever come on (Waited about 1 min) I have rebooted the system last night and am waiting for feedback from the customer.

Thanks,
-Iron

Irongladiator,

Have you looked to see if the system is using the Basic or Advanced Conferencing?

In my thinking the PS-1 is needed, but not for this issue as Conferencing uses IP resources and that stays with the Base Unit and the PEC. You could possibly have a bad Base Unit or PEC.

Thanks,

TE

TE,
The system is set to "Ad Hoc - Advanced" as out of the features offered under that umbrella, station monitoring is pretty much all they do, maybe every now and then they invoke "Barge". The PS-1 being a costly addition, we are considering it. At 50 SIP Trunks and 100 Phones (and growing). It's getting kinda silly not to start thinking about it. I know that the PS-1 doesn't add more resources and that the max is 40, but was curious if it "Helps" should the "CPU Load" possibly be the issue. But you do have a point about a possible bad Base or PEC module. Maybe worth looking into. But again, I'm currently awaiting feedback from the customer since my reboot last night. (System uptime was at about 172 days)

Thanks,
-Iron

[Tech Electronics]

Irongladiator,

If the CPU Load is the issue then the PS-1 would alleviate that problem as you get a massive jump in processing power. Have you noticed how many calls were concurrently going on when they tried to do a silent monitor and it failed to work properly?

Thanks,

TE

[darrel]

It would be great if there was away to setup a PS1 on a site in a test/demo mode to prove to a customer they need it.

If during your test you were the only one using monitoring with no conference calls, you may have bad hardware as TE suggested. Time will tell on the reboot.