BCM 50 stations locking up

[frecomm]

Hey all,
I have a BCM 50 that I just installed. It is working well except I have 2 stations that just randomly lock up. The intercom buttons show in use, but they aren't, and you have no way to access any voice pathways. A maint. busy and release clears it, as well as a system reboot. This has happened several times. The first time only one intercom button showed in use and the other was avail for calls so it was just an annoyance. But today both locked up for the second time rendering the stations useless until I can get by and reset it. Has anyone run into this before? Thanks.

 

[pccal]

I would start by making sure that you have the latest system patch installed.

 

[snowman50]

If you are using Huntgroups on IP phones then they will lock up the intercom problem.
Known issue for some time now.
Patch the system up to fix the problem

 

[frecomm]

The phones are T7316E and they are in a hunt group. Sounds like I need to check for a patch.

 

[QueBall780]

We have been experiencing this on a fully patched BCM release 3 setup.

Nortel has loaded a debug version of the software with a patch to fix the bug in our configuration. It has not yet made it into a public release patch.

Not sure if the conditions that cause our problem are the same as what you describe. In our case these are digital sets not IP. They didn't tell us exactly what the problem they found was yet. They mentioned that they removed SIP support from our build to workaround the problem until they developed a better fix. In our configuration we have 3 BCM50 units in remote offices and a BCM400 in our main location. We transfer all inbound calls to the main office to be answered and we have centralized voicemail so there is some pretty heavy use on the IP Trunks in our case.

A temporary workaround we found that worked before the patch was delivered was to go into the Set configuration and reduce the number of Intercom lines to 0 and then set it back to 2 again which cleared the problem on that set without having to restart the whole system. So if a user in a branch office noticed that both or just one of thier intercom lights had the in use indicator lit up even though the line was not in use they would call us and I would go into element manager and remove their intercom buttons and add them back in again to clear the error temporarily.

I don't have the Nortel case number handy but I think they listed it in the known issue tracker. (Though the description they used wasn't very good)

Anyhow if you are running a patched release 3 BCM50 and having the problem you will have to phone Nortel to see if they can load the debugging version with SIP support removed to work around the problem until a proper fix is available.

Again I don't think this had to do with the earlier issue of IP Phones and huntgroups locking the intercom. This is a problem with Digital phones (T or M series) and IP Trunks.

 

[bidniss]

Is it always the same two sets or different sets? If they are the same two doing this, try unplugging the set and plugging a DIFFERENT type set in. If it is a T7316, unplug it, plug in a T7208 or whatever is handy, just so it is a different type of set. This will cause the system to restructure the template of the set. If there is a data bit corruption in the address of the set, the restructuring process will blow it out and re-write the template for the new type of set. After you do this and the "new" set comes up, you can reverse the process and put the old set back in. Again, the system will restructure the template of the set and re-write the address. This process will also work on a Norstar set that is doing quirky things.If this doesn't work, then it could be a patching issue. I know this works for some cases because I was the Staff Engineer for the Norstar technical support group at one time and have been involved in BCM since it was developed back in 1999.

 

[QueBall780]

If you are having the same problem as us here is the info from Nortel:
The case # is 090811-95902

Notes from Nortel on what they have discovered so far. Basically they have not been able to recreate the conditions themselves but they can see it happening when they enable debugging on our systems. We have 3 sites that all experienced the problem and it is thought this is due to the volume of calls we place that use the split line feature.

------
Based on log investigation and static code analysis we know that issue is
because of re-enabling of dead code as a part of SIP REFER feature
introduced in M50R3. The fix proposed was not the final fix it was kind of a
work around without any side effect especially for those customer who is not
using SIP REFER feature. We had initiated a code review with the Nortel
SME's and they had raised some comments in the Code Review. Since the issue
is not reproducible in lab its difficult to come up with the appropriate fix
even though we know the area where problem could occur. To come up with the
potential fix we need to understand the SPLI LINE Feature code which has
been re-enabled as a PART of SIP REFER in M50R3.We have received a SPLI LINE
design documents related to the SPLIT LINE feature and we currently we are
going through it to understand the feature properly and at the same time we
are involved in discussions with Noretl SME's periodically. As the issue is
because of the bug in SPLIT LINE feature code which is day one, it might
take some time for us to understand the feature.
From the investigations we have found that some call states are not cleared
properly while updating the Split Line Table which might be the cause for
the issue and we are trying to resolve this.

So Tentative date for the final solution : 24th December.

 

[frecomm]

Thanks for the great info. My situation is also on digital stations(T7316E). There are 3 in the hunt group and the condition is happening on all 3 stations. I have 3 other sets in another hunt group and they are not experiencing this problem, however I don't think that they have the call volume that the other group has. This system is not currently using IP trunks but will in the very near future. I have to connect some VPN routers first.

 

[QueBall780]

It has been a long time but I thought I should update this thread to report that the patch to our issue has finally made it into a public release.

The latest SU update contains the fix to this problem.
BCM050.R300.SU.System-224.201003


Software Update BCM050.R300.CORE-TELEPHONY-DSP-219 Description:
--------------------------------------

- Intercom keys locking up
Intercom keys on digital sets appear in a connected state with no actual connection. Keys will not function when depressed. No message is displayed on the set and it appears the lines are busy.
Q02071504