2 modems down and we're stuck

[flybynight]

Hi there,
We have a ticketing system that the bank and the credit card people dial in to. It is the same phone line and we switch over the modems depending on what we need to use it for. Overnight both of these have stopped working. We have checked the line and it works fine both in and out. The power supply has a surge protector and UPS. We just can't understand why two seperate modems and two separate systems have stopped working so suddenly. We can get as far as the modems - they are recognising the call but not answering it.
We have unplugged and rebooted everything but cannot find anything obviously wrong.
What are we missing?
Free theatre tickets for anyone that can help

F

 

[pansophic]

flybynight,

Boy do I have a lot of questions.

What applications are supposed to be answering the inbound telephone calls?

What OS are we running? Can you run a terminal emulator and communicate directly with the modem?

Try using a terminal emulator to see if you can make one of the modems work in a manual fashion. Open the modem and place a call (ATDT <local ISP #>). Does that work?

Set the modem to auto-answer (AT S0=1). Dial in to the modem. Does it answer? Does the terminal show RING?

Do you experience the same problems (or non-problems) when testing from both systems?

Drop some responses and we'll see what we can do.

pansophic

 

[flybynight]

Hi and thanks for the quick reply,

The box office uses databox - databox support dial in directly using a modem. They are getting the line ringing. For credit card transactions we use commsxl - the bank then dial in to this every night. They are getting an engaged signal. We have checked that they were doing it at different times!
Both computers NT.
We have since discovered a completely different problem - we have a system that allows people to book tickets online. This connection is through an ISDN and it isn't working either!
All of our support people say it is nothing to do with them. The phone guys say it is not a connection problem, haradware say there is nothing wrong with any of it, network support say all that software is fine and the ticket and bank people say there is nothing wrong with their stuff! But it is still not working!
I feel like that woman in that IBM advert who suddenly realised it is her job to get them all working together!
Any help much appreciated (baby steps please - I'm a bit new to this)

F

 

[pansophic]

Before we go into a long dissertation on how to check the modems, it definitely sounds like you have telco problems. You will have to break down each problem before going any further.

I would start with &quot;How do you know that the analog line into the modems is working?&quot; If you are satisfied with that response, then I would test the modems manually with Hyperterminal to verify that they can, indeed, dial out and receive incoming calls. If you get this far, then you had a miracle occur that made both of your applications stop answering incoming calls. Could be that the hardware was replaced last night, but no one has fessed up.

If I had to guess, someone was moving phone cords around, and accidentally plugged the wrong devices back into the jacks. Not really a big deal, but frustrating.

pansophic

 

[flybynight]

Thanks for all the help.
They have magically started working again. I have a suspicion that someone was fibbing to me when they told me they had checked all the cables. I think the guilty party has quickly reconnected something while my back was turned!
Cheers anyway,

F