500v2 8.0.44 reboot issue 4

[Signo]

Hello everyone,

I have a system that has been in for about 3 months an has had constant issues. The issue I have is that the customer calls and says that all the phones are stuck, with either a "blank white" or I have seen them stuck on please wait or one moment please cant remember exactly. I have noticed that it seems like a power issue. The system is on a battery backup, but it does not seem to matter. Its like it rebooted and got stuck. I can pull the battery off the outlet and the system stays up and running fine.

The commercial power does go out regularly, and this only happens occasionally but the customer is naturally upset I have been out multiple times on a new system.

I think it is power related, but the system cant recover correctly from losing power. If you guys have some ideas I would love to hear them.

Thanks

 

[7deedtz]

What else is connected to the battery back-up source? Does this happen also when running on the commercial power outlet or only during power outages?

Mitel, Avaya, NEC, INDEX

http://www.vcs-sa.co.za

 

[tlpeter]

When it is a power issue then try to swap the IP500 and see if it fixes the problem.


BAZINGA!

I'm not insane, my mother had me tested!

 

[Signo]

7deedtz,

The IP office is the only thing on the battery all other equipment is on a separate backup. I have never had the system on commercial outlet without battery, and I think it has only happens during storms with power surging or out. But I don't live close enough to know it it is storming there for sure when it happens and the night shift workers are not there when I am to ask.

I have swapped IP office chassis and the problem persists. I was thinking about changing the battery backup, its new but that means nothing these days.

It just seems to me like the phones cant recover from power failure. If you call the auto attendant it will answer and you can call an extension with a blank screen and it will ring you just cant tell whats going on.

 

[Telecomboy]

If the system is set-up to be able to send emails, set yourself up to receive alarms emailed to you. If the power goes down, the system will send you an email and you know it lost power.

 

[7deedtz]

I will recommend swapping out the battery power pack, seems it is the only common factor so far since you said you changed the IPO chassis. Good lucky

Mitel, Avaya, NEC, INDEX

http://www.vcs-sa.co.za

 

[Signo]

I have a new pack in hand and am going to change it when they close for the day. I am in the mid-Atlantic area and it storms at least once a week this time of year. It wont take me long to know if it did or didn't work.

Thanks guys I will update when I know the outcome.

 

[Signo]

OK I replaced the battery the other day and had a storm this morning. I turned on the email notification and it tells me a lot. The system never lost power, but I got email notifications about most if not all of the stations being unplugged from the system.

The customer called and said they were just sitting in the office and all the phones rebooted and then sat for a minute or two then came back online. The system has two combo cards and a digital station 8 card. Its almost like all the cards reset for some reason, but I did not receive and email about it.

I have surge protection modules on all the lines and any station that leaves to small building they have offices in that is not attached to the main building. The protection is edco / emerson which we have used for years on our Nortel stuff. I am wondering it they are not sufficient or compatible with the IP Office in some way. What products do you guys use to protect lines and stations?

I am really grasping here for ideas or reasons.

 

[Telecomboy]

Are the phones that "unplugged" on the same cards or are they all over the board? Are all the phones that are in the small office on the same card or are they on separate cards?

 

[tlpeter]

Run monitor for a while and let the customer noting the times.
You will see a power failure or a lost connection to monitor.


BAZINGA!

I'm not insane, my mother had me tested!

 

[Signo]

The small external building is spread across the two combo cards. The digital station 8 only has to user on it and they are both in the same building as the IP office. All the phones that unplugged were all over the board in this case. Even phones that were not on cards with stations that leave the building.

I have been looking over every part of the install and just found that the chassis ground on the IP office is not hooked up at all. I would not think that is enough to cause these kind of problems, but I am trying to figure out how to get from the rack mount to a proper ground, which does not look easy and why I am guessing its not done. Have to discuss that with the installer later.

 

[Telecomboy]

I would definitely get it grounded since they have phones in other buildings and storm a lot. You would've received a reboot email if the system lost power so to me it seems like something is zapping the cards without causing the system to lose power (which grounding the system would help).

 

[Signo]

Yeah my jaw dropped to the ground when I found it not grounded. I was shocked, but every line does have grounding before the system too. Still no excuse not to ground it. Looks like I am heading into a rain filled crawl space.

 

[amriddle01]

Indeed, also grounding on the IP Office is a functional requirement as well as a protective/safety measure

 

[NYSTECH]

If you have replaced the IP500 already. And have grounded the system and it still happens it is likely either one of the cards in system causing it or one of the ports on a card.. I have had 1 bad set bring down an entire system before

 

[Signo]

NYSTECH

This all started when this site was hit by a major lightning strike, it took out multiple pc's, routers, most of the wiring in the building was hosed and needed replaced and a bunch of manufacturing equipment was burned up. The IP Office lost all its cards which were replaced. In the process of investigating this phone rebooting issue we have replaced the chassis, and the ground is now fixed we think. The building has had multiple additions and as we looked over all the wiring we are not sure the electrical grounds are proper, we grounded to what should be a proper ground, but it's in question as to the quality of the ground.

The bad phone makes me wonder since there was so much damage its vary possible that there is a bad phone, but its only happening when there is bad weather in the area. There is one phone that got stuck on the wait screen, might be the issue. How did you find one bad phone by the way?

Going to see how it goes tonight when the second wave of storms moves by. I have monitor setup on a laptop on site with email notification so that should give me a time frame to look at in manager when I get the emails.

I have never had so much trouble out of a single site. Their IT guy and I have got to know each other we are both there so much lol.

 

[NYSTECH]

By using the Monitor program.. Just before the system would reboot I would get some wierd message about the same extension over and over then Monitor would show contact lost. I unplug the phone and system stayed up..

Do you have any IP phones ? Just curious

 

[Signo]

Yes I have 3 IP phones that are remote through hardware VPN. I had a little bit of a storm roll through and the system stayed up and running and no phones dropped. I did have a weird thing on Sunday, the lan showed that it went up and down a few times. Not too worried about that though, it could have been there IT guy doing something in the off hours.

It looks like the ground really helped, I am not completely happy with the ground I am using, but it seems to be working. The customer is going to need an electrician to get the grounding system in the building up to code. With multiple additions to the building over the years some things are not right.

On a side not what do you guys use for time servers, I have been using the US nist servers but have been getting a lot of failures to reach them.

 

[amriddle01]

I have used a few time servers in the past, but I always get system errors that the time server was unreacheable. So now I always use the same one as it seems to be a system issue as oppose to the time servers themselves, I now just ignore that time server error

 

[Signo]

Thanks. I have two systems that give the error, and the time is always right so it makes sense it just a bogus alarm.