Topics

1

Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / Help with Edgemarc and the 3300?

« on: September 28, 2023, 10:42:07 AM »

As per usual, the documentation from Mitel regarding how to set up an Edgemarc with the 3300 stinks.
I am trying to set up an Edgemarc 2900 to work as the gateway between a 3300 and a SIP carrier that uses the Metaswitch.
I am aggravatingly close, I believe, but I still can't seem to get the gateway to properly authorize with the carrier for outbond, and incoming calls don't route properly to the 3300,even though the carrier appears to be connected on the incoming connection. 

Anyone have the "quick and dirty" guide to setting this up? 

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Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / Standalone Nupoint and later versions of MiVB

« on: March 01, 2023, 05:16:39 PM »

I have a Nupoint that has gone as far as it can go in software versions.  The price tag for moving to MiCollab is pretty shocking.

Meanwhile, the customer is needing to go from 7.x on the MiVB to a later version due to issues with IE.

Will we be able to update the MiVB and still have functionality with the NuPoint?  Tech support won't officially commit, because, of course, they don't support the standalone anymore...

3

Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / Question about the possibility of editing a database not on a live system

« on: July 19, 2021, 11:42:16 AM »

So, this weekend, attempted to do an upgrade from 8.x to 9.1
This was an upgrade that had been delayed for months, and at the time we originally planned it, we had run an audit and found one device that needed to be removed.

I had THOUGHT that this device had been removed.  It was not.

So, we stupidly ran the upgrade, and of course, it would not accept the database, because of the bad device.

We had not choice that I could see but to roll the upgrade back to 8.x, and restore what we had.

So, this brings up two questions:

In what reasonable universe would an upgrade refuse to complete, simply because of a device that could easily just be ignored in the upgrade process.
and, more importantly,
Has there ever been a tool that would allow someone to edit a database to correct or remove something like this, before attempting to upload?  For years I have been working on Axxess and Mitel MiVO databases, where you could load a database on your desktop and fix issues, without the need of hardware to do it, but you can't seem to do it with MiVB (which, IMHO, is STOOPID.).

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Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / T.38 faxing on MCD with TDM and with SIP trunks: questions

« on: August 28, 2020, 09:34:54 PM »

I have a customer who is wanting to replace a fax server that is currently connected to an MCD using PRI channels.  The new server will use SIP.  The provider of this server has got my customer convinced that he needs to use T 38 for the connection to the MCD. 
Currently, the customer has outside trunks that are connected with PRI. So to my way of thinking, T 38 isn’t going to even work for these connections to the outside world. I don’t believe that the provider is going to be using T 38 over these lines.

Plus there is the added factor that they will need to purchase a DSP II Card and T.38 licensing.  Additionally, The incoming trunks are located on one MCD and the current fax server is connected to a second MCD.  The calls are routed using IP networking. 
According to tech-support ( who I am beginning to doubt),  I would need T 38 licensing and DSP2 cards on both MCD ‘s. Now the price is jumping to over $7000 for a feature that may or may not work.

Additionally, the customer is talking about switching over to sip trunking. I know that SIP provisioning Does Support T 38. But the way I understand things, the audio transport would actually be between the MBG and the Fax Server (point to point), and the MCD doesn’t actually get involved at all with audio.  So, if that is the case, do we actually need to invest any kind of money in T 38 licensing and hardware?  In all actuality, if this phone system was a virtual server, I wouldn’t have any DSP hardware involved in this after all.

If anybody can help me clarify any misconceptions, I would greatly appreciate it. I’m all for selling stuff and making money, but I also like to do it ethically.

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Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / Monitoring the MCD after upgrading to Linux

« on: April 24, 2019, 10:43:25 AM »

It used to be, that if you Secure Telnet into the system on port 2002, you could see the processes of the system, during things like upgrades, database saves, etc.

With the new Linux upgrade, that port no longer works

Is there a new way to peek inside and watch the processes, without having to physically connect to the serial port?  I liked having this feature when I needed to see what was going on, from a remote location.

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Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / Recommendations for SIP gateway to analog for Fax

« on: August 30, 2018, 01:35:21 PM »

Cisco and Grandstream ATA's are great...if you don't plan on doing anything more than have voice conversations.  They just don't seem to be the best at fax transmissions, especially in the medical field (hospitals, doctors offices, etc).

I need to know, from the collected experience out there, what is the recommended device that you would use for providing fax dial tone?  Adtran? 

And, in addition to the device, any place where I can get a good template for recommended settings on the device?

Thanks in advance!

7

MiVoice Office 250/Mitel 5000 / Aastra phone on the 5000/250

« on: March 22, 2017, 11:35:23 AM »

In our office, we have a couple of boxes of Aastra phones that we had to take back from a cloud customer. 
On a whim, I decided to see how difficult it would be to install one on our phone system.
It took 10 minutes.
Using just the keypad interface.
In the phone system, I created a SIP phone, and programmed the Inbound Authentication in the SIP profile with the Extension number, and a password.
On the phone itself, I set up the SIP connection with the Proxy Server and the Registration Server both set to the IP address of the phone system, and the Phone Number,Caller ID, and Authentication Name to be the extension of the phone, and the password to be the authentication password set up in the phone system.

Boom, it was done.

The model I installed was the 6867i
Firmware Information
Attribute   Value
Firmware Version   4.2.0.2023
Firmware Release Code   SIP
Date/Time   Jun 16 2016 03:47:55
Boot Version   Boot2 1.0.1.A Jun 16 2016 03:40

The phone system is running 6.2

I really like the look and feel of this phone.  It doesn't have full features, but in some scenarios, I can see this being very handy. And since we have incentive to get these devices off of our shelf, I can see us undercutting Amazon and other internet stores for customers interested in a cheap "IP phone".

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MiVoice Office 250/Mitel 5000 / Mitel 5000/SIP-Cautionary Tale (Sailor!Don't let this happen to you!)

« on: February 21, 2017, 12:42:38 PM »

So, here is our story:

Our company started reselling a SIP trunk provider service, one that has been working well for our customers, and we finally committed ourselves to primarily use SIP trunks once our contract with Cox and our PRI service expired.

And we started experiencing weird problems.

We would be working just great, making and receiving calls, when suddenly!  all our connections would drop, and the trunks would go down, sort of. We would receive multiple connections for the same call, but we couldn't answer them, and when we tried to dial out, we would get long pauses, before being told that the call could not be routed.
This condition would last for 10 minutes or so, and then the connection would restore automatically.
This was not a problem that our other customers had experienced.
We went to tech support.  Tech support said that the SIP logs showed we were sending data out, but we were not getting a response back.  The SIP provider said THEY were sending information to us, but not getting a response back.
Back and forth we went.
We thought it was our router.
Brought in outside help.  They claimed it was the type of router we were using, which was a Fortigate.  The guy said that Fortigate had some built in SIP trunking capabilities that would interfere with our use of SIP on the phone system.
Ultimately, we switched to a Microtik router.
Did NOT fix the problem either!

Head-Desk.  Repeatedly.

Started the wheel over again, this time with a Mitel tech who was smarter than their average phone monkey over there.
Had us turn on Wire Shark captures at the switch port for the phone system, and had us turn on ADD and we would freeze the system when the next incident occurred.


And he caught the problem.


"Why do you have your IP connection Audio Stream Receive Port set to 5004?  It needs to be 6004"
When the IP phones on the system initiated calls, the system would use an Audio Stream number, the next one that was available.  The numbers would increment through the day, until we hit 5060. 

5060

Which is the same port number as SIP trunking.

So, when the phone system started seeing Audio Stream data coming in on the SIP port, it was deciding it was "under attack", and would shut down communication on that port for about 10 minutes, until the condition was clear again.

So, why was the Audio Stream value set to 5004?

Because:

Before we were using the 5000 system, we were using an Axxess system in our office.

And, years ago, when we migrated, I simply used the upgrade tool to migrate the existing database from the Axxess to the 5000.

Some old timers here may recall that the Axxess used a default value for Audio Stream at ....(wait for it)

5004.

When we did the upgrade, that value migrated over with rest of the data.  And we never noticed it-

until we started using SIP trunks.

The older 5000 software version also used this default value, but later on, changed the value to 6004. Why?  Because they didn't want to interfere with SIP traffic.

And this is why our other customers (all newer customers) did not experience what we were dealing with.

So, the lesson for today is:

If you are working on a 5000, and it's an older system (or an upgrade from Axxess), MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE that the Audio port value starts at 6004, and NOT 5004.

Also be warned, if you have to change it on a live system, the system WILL reset, so be cautious when you do so.

I hope this cautionary tale helps others out there in the field.

9

Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / TFTP on Upgrade

« on: September 15, 2015, 11:55:43 AM »

Okay, file this under: "What the hell happened here?" This weekend, I was upgrading the equipment on an existing customer. We migrated from an MXeII (not server) running 7.0 to an MXeIII (not server) running 7.1

So, while prepping the new equipment to turned on, I decided to speed up some downtime by attempting to preload the latest endpoint software to the phones.
The phone system uses the built in DHCP server to assign options to the phones. So, we set up a separate TFTP server, copied the TFTP server folder from the new software, and moved it to the separate TFTP server.
I then changed the option on the DHCP to point TFTP requests to the separate TFTP server.
I tested by rebooting a few phones, and watched as they found the TFTP server, loaded the new builds, and rebooted with the latest software. The logs on the TFTP server showed the requests were successful, and the phones worked fine.
So, emboldened by this, I updated a few more, and they worked to, and so, ultimately, I did a LOAD IP DEVICE command and updated a hundred at a time. I got 750 phones updated with the latest endpoint software.  The whole process took about 15 minutes.  Very fast.

Hooray, I thought. Now, when the new system comes online, the endpoints will already be updated, and everything will come on line fairly quickly.

So, ultimately, we turned off the old system, replaced it with the new system, and waited for the phones to come back online....

And watched as they immediately said "New Software, Rebooting".

And so, they rebooted, and then gave the message "TFTP Redirect, please wait". And not one TFTP request ever went to the TFTP server. After waiting for a while, I finally changed the DHCP request to point back to the phone system. And, after about an hour, all the phones came back up, after (once again) going through a load that I though I had already done.

So, what gives? Will the phone system not allow TFTP to go elsewhere after an upgrade? At least this new hardware was faster than the MXeII when it did this (the last time we did an upgrade, it took about 3 hours for all the phones to come back online), but it´s still too slow of a process. I could not even force a phone manually to point to that TFTP server. It dutifully waited its turn until it got its load from the phone system.

Anybody have any success doing this?

10

Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / D4-AMI problem with trunks releasing

« on: July 09, 2012, 10:52:19 AM »

I have a customer that is connected to a Milsoft IVR using a D4-AMI trunk.
99% of the time, it works.  However, at random times, a channel on the 3300 side will hang, and the line will not clear.  On the Milsoft side, the channel is idle, but on the 3300 side, the channel is busy.  After a few days, several channels on the 3300 will be in this state, and we have to manually go in and force idle those channels.  Breaking and remaking the connection clears the channels as well.

Tech support will not help, as Milsoft has never gone through the certification program, and they don't want to get involved.

If I can't figure out what is happening to cause the lockup, I would like to now if there is a way to set a timer in the trunks COS to force clear the line after a maximum time (say, 10 minutes).  I have tried to do this by playing with the timer, but nothing seems to help in that regard. 

I had similar issues with D4-AMI on another 3300 that was connected to another PBX.  Channels would lock up as well, and it became a daily thing to clear them.  Fortunately, we finally go to turn off the other PBX when the transition was over.

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MiVoice Office 250/Mitel 5000 / The "People Gadget" on the 5360: Some of my 5360's have them, other don't

« on: June 07, 2012, 12:21:44 PM »

On the 5360, there is a sidebar on the upper right called the "gadget sidebar".  One of the gadgets is an icon that looks like a phone book.  It allows you access to the built in directory on the phone.
I have noticed that some of the phones do not have this icon.  In my office, I have two phones in the demo room that have this feature, but my receptionist's phone does not.
I find nothing in the manuals that state that this is a flag setting.  Is this a revision issue?  I thought this stuff was loaded by the software obtained from the tftp in the phone system.
Called tech support, but had to hang up after the "technician" wanted to know how to spell "gadget", then proceeded to read the user's guide out loud to me, after I had told him repeatedly that this wasn't something you could find in the user's guide.

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Mitel MiVoice Business/MCD/3300 / Linksys SPA2102 for Fax works great

« on: August 25, 2011, 11:53:29 AM »

Had a situation where a customer is moving several users that had analog connections for fax machines to a building that only has a fiber link, no copper between the phone system and the new location.

They opted for and purchased SPA2102 Sip to Analog devices to provide the dial tone needed.

Set up is a breeze on the 3300, and slightly less easy for the device, but not complex or difficult.  Mitel even provides an installation guide to set this up. 

Voice and fax both work splendidly with settings as laid out in the guide.  There is no painful time period of adjustment to make this work.

Just thought I would pass the word along to others!