Major fax problems help?

[Irvineguy]

We’re experiencing intermittent fax issues with several of our remote offices out of state. Here’s the situation,

a) All analog fax lines are going thru a T1 then into our phone system
b) I’m located in California and our office cannot consistently receive or send out faxes from Chicago, New Jersey and other locations.
c) This problem is affecting several fax machines within our main office
d) When a fax is sent both machines are connecting and hand shake, but only for a few second. Then the out of state machine errors out, while the local fax machine prints out blank pages.
e) I’ve called our local and long distance carrier and they still haven’t found anything yet

What I’ve tested so far..
a) sending faxes between machines within our office going out to the public network and that worked fine
b) using a POTS line instead of a port from the phone system and that worked
c) sent and received out faxes to the out of state locations and within a location 50 miles from mine, results were inconsistent, but most did not work.

At this point I’m baffled and waiting form the carriers for some answers. I’ve ruled out fax machines and also the phone system because the fax ports are on different cards.

Any ideas?

 

[lopes1211]

Sounds like a timing synchronization issue in the PBX. Not sure what PBX you are using by try changing the synch source to a different T1 assuming you receive clocking from the network.

-CL

 

[doktor]

Technicians often forgets to ask what has happened just before someone got a problem with his/her PBX.
Sometimes it is the carrier (CO) that has the problem.
But sometimes it can be in-house.
Recently we had a similiar problem, because an electrician had disconnected the grounding cable from the PBX.
All lines were noisy, because of this.
Also check if someone has changed the configuration of the PBX (sync issue).
Grounding between T1 and the PBX should alo be checked.
Using ferrite cores on all internal and external lines reduces the noise level (if any).
/// doktor

 

[Irvineguy]

It's an Avaya G3r, and as far as I know, there had not been any changes on the PBX. I will double check, thanks!

 

[lopes1211]

Do a "display synch" to see what DS1 the system is clocking off of. Then check errors against that ds1 and/or change the synch source to another by "change synch".

-CL

 

[lopes1211]

Just to clarify, a synch issue with your source will cause timing issues and modem/fax issues with any device communicating outside of your system on all of your ds1's (not just the ds1 with the issue).

-CL

 

[Irvineguy]

We've reset the trunk group... will find out tomorrow if that did it.

 

[doktor]

If the problem persists, try to swap the fax with a standard analogue telephone.
Make some calls and listen for noise.

Hope that you will get it to work.

/// doktor

 

[Irvineguy]

Ok resetting the T1 did not do the trick.

And we did use a standard analogue line which did work.

So far we're back to talking to the carriers and are trying to pin point the route these faxes are taking to come in.

 

[ISDNman]

Hmm, my post yeterday somehow got lost.....

If local faxes really do work, do you use the same trunk group for local calls or is it a sperate trunk group.

My unbderstanding is that you CAN make local faxes, correct.

Can your toehr sites get LD faxes form places other than your location?

Assuming the same trunk group for LD and local then you should consider the IXC as the problem.

IN that case try some calls with a maunal pic:

First check who the carrier is by dialing

700 555-4141. If this is not who you think it shoul dbe you may have been slammed)

Next do some test calls using some other carrier:

dial 101xxxx + 1 + area code + number

try

1010222 (MCI)

1010333 (Sprint)

1010288 (AT&T)

There are other to try as well. Try each one about 10 time and also try your default carrier 10 times

Of course it could be the tandem trunks in which case it would still happen.

For some additional tips on this sort of troubleshooting see the paper titled "Troubleshooting The Public Switched Telephone Network, or, How do you tell the Telco the problem is in their network?" (located on the left near the top)here:

http://www.telos-systems.com/techtalk/default.htm

Good luck!

 

[Irvineguy]

It looks like making faxes within the nearest CO works, ie faxing one machine to another machine within the same building.

However, incoming LD faxes are intermittent at arriving.

Is there a way to trace incoming faxes or is this a carrier feature?

and yes our other locations can receive faxes from other locations

I'll try the carrier test.

 

[rforgy]

If your system allows try raising the volume on the fax stations.

 

[Sympology]

This may be realted or not (Uk based so not up on how US systems work), but we had a similar the same issue on one of our sites when we reaplced carriers. We were blaming the hardware. The phones were working fine, but not the faxes, the would just ring out. When dialling out, the would dial, but not connect.

It was all down to the Ballands (dongles) that converted the lines from BT plug to RJ-45. Although they were lablled PBX Mastered, when I tried a different model, just labelled Mastered, they worked no problem. Both had a capacitor in them, but I didn't have a spare to break open and find the difference.

Hope this may help.

Stu..

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004