5302 IP Phones "dead"

[nibarge]

Hi .. I have just had a Mitel 3300 system installed ( not sure of OS release but assumption is that it's the latest ). When testing last week, all phones were working, yet during this week, several 5302 handsets have stopped working and go through the flashing light sequence, whereby I'm assuming they are trying to connect to the Mitel system. All phones are connected to HP ProCurve POE switchs, with VLAN 1 set to data and VLAN 2 set to voice.

If I swap the non-working phone and a working phone, the problem stays with the non-working phone so the assumption is that the issue is with the phone and not with the network port.

Any inputs to this issue will be greatfully accepted.

Nigel

 

[TheInstaller]

HI Nigel, There have been a number of issues with the new 5302 handsets. Do you have access to Mitel online. Worth looking at Release notes and TIB's to see if your issue falls into these.

 

[nibarge]

Thanks for the reply, but unfortunatley I do not have access to Mitel on-line .. how do I go about gaining that access ???

 

[nibarge]

I believe that my problems are related to my DHCP settings ( even though I have 35 or so other 5302 phones working ), but I'm unable to get these 6 rougue ones to connect .. phone goes through the flashing lights sequence and appears to hang at the DHCP discovery stage. Below is the string I have entered against option 125 on my DHCP server and is the only option I have set ( I have turned off 128,129,130,132 and 133 ).

Here is the string ...... id:ipphone.mitel.com;sw_tftp=192.168.2.2;call_srv=192.168.2.2;vlan=2;l2p=6;dscp=46;

and here is the HEX ......
000004035669643A697070686F6E652E6D6974656C2E636F6D3B73775F746674703D3139322E3136382E322E323B63616C6C5F7372763D3139322E3136382E322E323B766C616E3D323B6C32703D363B647363703D34363B

Thanks.

 

[Lundah]

What are you using for your DHCP server? If it's an older Windows Server (2003 or earlier) or Linux running ISC, try changing the Mitel option from 125 to 43.

 

[nibarge]

Windows 2003 for the DHCP server.

 

[tlpeter]

When using option 125 then follow the manual for the dhcp helper and manualy enter the HEX !!!

This way you will get it working with option 125

If you do not want to do that then use option 43


ACA - Implement IP Office
ACS - Implement IP Office
ACA - Voice Services Management
______________
Women and cats can do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea!

 

[Mitelpassion]

there have been numerous issues with the 5302. most notably the issue with phones' sudden deaths.

there is a problem with the dhcp helper tool. if you look at the 5th hex value 00 00 04 03 (5D) ...... it tells you the checksum in hex. the helper tool get this wrong. all in all you can almost always subtract 3 from this value and the checksum should be fine. another way is to count the bytes (count all the hex double digits excluding the vendor id of 00 00 04 03). if you get to like 88 or 90 or so, just convert to hex and fill it in after the last hex value of the indentifier.

hope this helps.
I know there is also some new firmware for the phones. guess you'll have to log call with mitel 3rd line support in your area/country to get that.

I believe a lot of fixes in UR 5. Good luck! this phone has been an absolute nightmare!

 

[LaminatorUK]

I would calculate the checksum value correctly for each of your strings and enter it in, the 5302's get very upset when it is wrong. It does not take too long to do, and will save a lot of grieff.

Configure your switch so you have a port that is in the voice VLAN with no tagging. Plug your 6 faulty phones into that port let them connect directly to the controller. This will leth them download the firmware again and fix them.

When that's done put them back out on your VLAN'ed enviroment after you have manually fixed the option 125 checksum and they shouldn't break again.

BTW when you reset the phones hold down the * key (maybe it is # i can't remember) when powering them on to clear their cache as they hold on to various settings. You will see the lights stay on for a brief period before the phone starts up as normal, although you probably already know this.

The theory is that having the checksum too long causes the phone to read more bytes than it has pre-allocated in memory. The extra bytes spill over into an area that is used for something else, breaking the phone....eek! The value of the bytes that spill over appears to determine whether the phone breaks or not, adding another factor of confusion! Because the phone can't now hop VLAN's to download its firmware it is completley cut off from the rest of the world.

When this spillover scenario happens you will see the phone get DHCP in the native VLAN and release the address as normal, it should then hop to the voice VLAN and ask for another address. When the phone breaks it hangs after this first stage and never appears to hop VLAN's, it just sits there forever, flashing its lights exactyl as you describe.

The only way to fix it is to let the phone connect directly to the controller and download its firmware again.

Hopefully a new firmware and fixed DHCP helper tool will be out soon.

The "proper" Mitel phones appear to perform better sanity checking on the option 125 information and can happily deal with the incorrect checksum as they appear to use the seperate checksum passed down as part of option 125 instead of the value embedded withing the string.

If you have not yet used it i would strongly recommend spending some time sitting down and using wireshark to sniff how these phones operate, the lack of display on the 5302's does not make fault finding easy. Wireshark lets you see exactly what is going on, and greatly helps with fault finding. Much head scratching can result when you have two phones with the same number trying to register!

 

[nibarge]

thank you all for your help ... the untagging of a port has fixed 5 of my phones - 6th phone just refuses to register (I have even tried a new phone and this won't register against this DN either ), so it's back to my third partt support for that one, but once again a big thank you for helping me "fix" my problem.

 

[LaminatorUK]

Glad i could help, the 6th phone that still won't work - have you tried deleting the extension from the system, resetting the phone by holding down the key and adding it again?

If it is still faulty and you send the phone back give strict instructions not to plug it onto a flat LAN otherwise the phone might fix itself, and they won't find the fault!

I have had a lot of trouble with the 5302's. They are quite a departure from a normal Mitel handset, they use a generic SIP hardware - an Infineon Inca.

 

[Mitelpassion]

LamintorUK,

You seem to have the same knowlegde of issues and fixes as I do? Did you happen to have a site with many of these phones failing.

Had one myself. installed over 300 of these things. what a nightmare. another issue is abandoned calls against a 5302 phone could cause the controller to freeze up. make sure you're on the latest version software.

 

[LaminatorUK]

Yep, we rolled out a number of them to test and got bitten with lots of issues. We did not have too many die with the option 125 problem, say 5/100 but it was the icing on the cake of whole host of issues.

I've never heard of one causing the controller to freeze, that's a little scary. We still have some at a smaller site to test, it is on the latest version so we'll see what happens.

I would not have liked to do a mass rollout with the 5302. The firmware and SIP implementation definitely needs work.