Ghost Voicemails 1

[Scotty_IT]

So after a recent upgrade of IP Office to 10.0 and VM Pro to 10.0, I'm getting several users stating they have voice mails. But when the users go to listen to them, suddenly they aren't there, although the VM light is on on their phones, and when they first log into the VM, it states "busy" for a second, then shows 1/0/0, but when they go into listen to it, nothing is there. I've checked on the Voicemail server as well and in there is show no new messages.

Is this an issue with the phone itself or something deeper? I've cleared the config from a couple of the phones but that didn't make a different.

 

[qtelcom]

Does restarting the voicemail pro service/computer make the problem go away, at least for a little bit? Is this an SCN? If so, are there more than 1 voicemail pro server as part of the SCN?

 

[Scotty_IT]

rebooting the phones itself made it go away for a few days, but it comes back. there is an SCN between all of our systems, but it's only happening in one location. we do have 2 voicemail pro servers, one for one location and another system for another site.

 

[qtelcom]

So you have multiple voicemail pro's in this SCN? Are you doing a distributed voicemail pro setup with the 2 voicemail pro servers (supported method by Avaya) or is it really just 2 separate stand alone active voicemail pro servers in your SCN? If they are just separate voicemail pro servers, you have an unsupported design for an SCN, and although it used to not cause problems, it does in the 9.1 and 10 releases, and one bug that shows up is the exact one you are describing. Avaya will not fix or support this unsupported setup.

No idea what your actual setup is, but if I where to assume you have a simple 2 site SCN, each with their own voicmeail pro server, you could either;
1. Change to a supported voicemail pro design within your SCN
or
2. Get rid of SCN features and change your SCN links to non-SCN simple H.450 links and create short codes for extn dialing between systems (if you don't need all the scn features and only want to have simple extn to extn dialing between systems)

If you have more sites in your SCN that depend on these 2 voicemail pro servers, then really option 1 is your only viable option.
If you have this problem on a supported SCN design, and are on the latest release, then fire up a ticket with Avaya.

 

[Scotty_IT]

The setup we have has 4 IP Offices, connected via SCN's. 2 of the systems have their voicemail pro servers and the other 2 have embedded voicemail (much smaller locations). The 2 systems with the servers have the voice mail type ( in the ip office config) as Voicemail lite/Pro, with their respective IP address below that.

Is that not a supported method? I've stepped into this role from someone else setting this up, so I'm learning more and more every day i look at this stuff.

 

[critchey]

Yes that is VERY unsupported. If you have a SCN you should not be using embedded on any systems. You should also not have two standalone voicemail pro servers. You should have one voicemail pro server and the rest set to centralized (or the distributed that qtelcom suggested). I will also bet that you have issues with same extension numbers or names or groups on each side complicating the issue even further. This can be checked in system status.

The truth is just an excuse for lack of imagination.

 

[Scotty_IT]

oh man. ok, good to know. surprisingly, we don't have another issues that you described. The reason for the embedded is because of the location of those sites compared to the main location (in other countries). Is there a particular reason why this shouldn't be done this way? what the difference between a centralized and distributed voicemail?

 

[IPGuru]

Is there a particular reason why this shouldn't be done

The obvious answer to this is be cause Avaya categorically state that it should not be done.

for those that have never seen a problem some of the more obvious fault scenarios are -

1) receptionist at site A tries to pass a caller directly to Mailbox at Site B using the Voicemail option on soft console, Caller hits VM on site A so that message is never delivered to the user on site B
2) Site to Site hot Desking, the user will not correctly receive VM messages that are left when he is logged on to site B instead of his Home site.

I am sure there are many other issues (such as erratic VM Lamps) but these are not easy to reproduce.

what the difference between a centralized and distributed voicemail?

Distributed VM IS Centralised VM with separate servers located at remote sites to provide local VM Ports. The IPO at each site needs to be correctly configured to know that this is the desired configuration & the VM Servers need to have SMTP Correctly configured so that they can exchange messages & pass VM recordings between them. Windows Servers need to have IIS correctly installed & configured before VM Pro is installed for this to work, Linux based servers are already configured correctly (another reason to use Apps server & No Windows for VM Pro)





Do things on the cheap & it will cost you dear

 

[Scotty_IT]

So it would appear I've really stepped in it.

We might not see those issues because we use an auto attendant as a receptionist, and we don't do any hot desking.

So basically, to solve this ghost voicemail issue, we need to re-design our whole IP office and vm pro setup?

 

[Westi]

You may want to break the VmPro's into centralized and distributed. THe embedded you can leave in a bind as long as you don't want to send messages around or transfer calls from another site to their mailbox directly.

Straight from the manual.
15.5.1 Centralized Voicemail Pro Server
Centralized Voicemail Pro uses a single voicemail server to provide voicemail services for all IP Offices in the Small
Community Network. Except for use of ContactStore, only the central IP Office hosting the voicemail server requires
licensing for Voicemail Pro operation and features.
15.5.2 Distributed Voicemail Server
For IP Office Release 6.0 and later, remote IP Offices in the Small Community Network can be associated with another
voicemail server in addition to the centralized voicemail server. The additional distributed server then provides all
voicemail services (except message storage and collection) for that IP Office. This requires the remote IP Office to have
licenses for voicemail operation and the features it requires.

Joe W.

FHandw, ACSS (SME)


"This is the end of the world, make sure to buy your T-shirt before it is too late"
Original expression of my daughter

 

[IPGuru]

Scotty
If it is an consolation we often take over maintenance on system that have been installed by another maintainer that have been configured like this. correcting the problem can often be a long hard fight as the customer often does not want the expense & it is only when a major unresolvable problem hits that we are able to force their hand.

Sometimes all that can be done i to issue the customer with a statement (backed up with a copy of the Avaya Documentation) stating that it is an unsupported configuration an VM issues will not be accepted under maintenance until it is rectified.




Do things on the cheap & it will cost you dear

 

[Scotty_IT]

Thanks IPGuru & Westi,

Would appear both my problems (sorting voiemails & ghost voicemails) may be related to this incorrectly configured system. I will need to get this all sorted out before moving forward. and by the sounds of it, some training is needed. Anyone know where the best place to get training on this systems is? i would assume Avaya learning, but i should never assume anything.

 

[Westi]

There was a thread a couple of days ago about that

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1779195

the short version of it is that you get cheaper and more to the point training if you find a local BP that can have a tech show you what the main things to know are and the gotcha's to look out for.

Look for a bigger BP if I can say so because we have sometimes contractors working for us that are certified and have no clue but there are also individuals out there that are really great.

Joe W.

FHandw, ACSS (SME)


"This is the end of the world, make sure to buy your T-shirt before it is too late"
Original expression of my daughter

 

[sizbut]

Sadly this at least the third post this week where it has become apparent that the original poster has multiple voicemail servers in a network but not configured properly centralised. Seems to have become an epidemic.

Stuck in a never ending cycle of file copying.

 

[intrigrant]

My advise is to use centralized VM and use one VM Server for the one site with a VM Pro and the two with Embedded VM and a distributed VM on the one left with a VM Pro.
The only advantage of distributed VM is to have less data traffic between sites if VM is used a lot, if voicamail usage is low then use only one VM Pro as a centralized server.
The setup is simple : in System>Voicemail select centralized VM and select the SCN trunk towards the system with the VM Pro server. A reboot is required though.