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Partner Messaging R1 in test mode 1

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CurGeorge

MIS
Oct 2, 2003
13
US
Have an office here that is running Avaya ACS R5 with Partner Messaging R1, PC card is 4-port. Problem is last week the system suddenly stopped ringing to extension 10. Well actually you hear a quick ring from extension 10 and the caller hears "Your call is now being transferred". Then the caller hears the phone rings back to extension 10. Normally calls go directly to extension 10 and after 4 rings it goes to the hunt group for another 2 rings before the caller gets to leave a voice mail. So if nobody answers the phone it will continually ring. I can't help to think the voice mail may have something to do with this problem. If you try to go into voice mail, you get the prompt "Welcome to Avaya Partner Messaging, the system is in test mode...". At this point I can't log in to the administrator mailbox or anything. I've gone through some of the Avaya docs and haven't found anything that would help me under troubleshooting. I've also tried to do a system restore and it didn't make any difference. Removed the Partner Messaging PC card, turned off the ACS, no difference. Could I have a bad card?

 
Shut the system down and reseat the PC card in the voice mail, it has unseated itself.
 
If you're referring to the PC card then I have shut down the system, pulled out the PC card then reinserted and turned back on. If you're referring to the Messaging module, then I haven't done that.
 
I'm referring to the voice mail 4 port license card that goes into the voice mail module. That is usually what causes it. you may want to reseat them both.
 
To update I've also removed the module out of it's ISA looking slot along with the PC Card and still no luck. Partner Messaging seems to want to stay in test mode. Any other ideas?
 
Has anyone else been playing with the programming? I would double check voice mail ports assigned in hunt group 7, Go over your program settings to see if all is correct. There is always a chance that it has gone bad but I would go over all the programming to make sure that it hasn't been changed. I won't take long and that way your sure everything is programmed right.
 
Assuming someone played with the programming (doubtful), wouldn't restoring a backup that was done about a year ago take care of that problem?
 
If the program was changed and you have Backup/Restore set to active then at the 1st of the month it will back up the current system programming. I would still look at Hunt group 7 to make sure the voice mail ports are right.
 
Backup is NOT set to auto which I believe is the default. And there was only one restore to choose from which I believe is dated like June '02. I will look into the hunt group tomorrow.
 
The voice mail unit has probably gone bad. Have you had it less than a year? If so, you can get it replaced under warranty. Had you done a backup of the voice mail unit anytime recently? If so, you will be able to restore the announcements and auto attendant settings from the card. If not, you will have to start over from scratch. You might want to set the ACS's auto backup feature to on, and make a point to backup the voice mail every time you make changes to the auto attendant or add/delete mailboxes.

 
When you say the unit, do you mean the PC Card or the Partner Messaging R1 module? The system is more than a year old. I have checked the hunt group and it does show extensions 26-29 in hunt group 7 for automated attendant for the 4 lines they have here. This was checked through PC Administration v6.0.0.9. Am I SOL at this point? Should I just take out the hunt group so that it will ring through to extension 10 so the callers won't hear the "transferring your call..."?
 
It sounds like it's gone bad, take the ports out of the hunt group and let station ten and who ever else ring, What Tommy was saying is that if the Voice mail module is less then a year old it's still under warranty. More that likely the PC license card is still good.
 
Well guess I'll have to speak with the local people that installed the phone originally and ask them if they can test the card and/or module to determine which one is bad or both. Thanks for the help everyone even though it wasn't the planned result.
 
Hi George - yeah it's time to get someone local to swap parts out to find out what failed. The port license card is probably OK, the Messaging Module is what most likely failed. It you indeed keep the module in the carrier, but take the ports out of hunt group 7, go into centralized programming and set the ringing for all lines assigned to _ALL 6 PORTS_ to No Ring. When the module is in the test mode, all 6 possible ports will answer anything that rings to it.
 
Funny you mention this as I had problems getting the AA to stop answering the calls. I had considered taking out the module since I was having trouble figuring out what to do. I'll try out on Monday your directions to see if I can get it to answer properly. Now the assessment here seems to contradict the person I talked to on ebay that is selling a hard drive to fix Partner Messaging R1 modules. He thinks it is the 4-port card that is the problem. Gave me an estimated price of $500 for the 4-port and $300 for the 2-port. Considering the hard drive is cheaper than both of these items, I don't think it was in his best interest to give me bad advice. He did say it was one or the other but most likely the card rather than the module that was causing the problem. I did tell him that I did hear the HD chugging along and not clicking as most hard drives do when they start to fail. Can anyone recommend a place to get new or used parts at a better price shown above?
 
I have had at least on R1 go bad by a surge where it would not recognize a valid license card. Unfortunately, the way to verify it is with another card, which you don't have. My bet is a bad module. Whether it's a corrupted software image on the drive is a question I couldn't address, but it would be a 50/50 shot that it's still in warranty.
 
There is the possibility that a surge did do something as it isn't even connected to a surge suppressor. I'm in the process of getting a UPS for the server that is in the same room so that would be a good time to plug the phone system in with one of the designated surge connectors.

Now assuming that the hard drive went bad (or corrupted), if I was to get a replacement that I found on ebay, could I image this drive to avoid future mishaps? I read in another thread of people trying to ghost the drive without success but I then thought about using dd with Linux. When I did a search on google, I found I was back on this site through this thread . Granted it was for a Merlin system as opposed to Partner Messaging, I found the results somewhat encouraging.

Now if the problem is with the "license" card as many people put it, I feel as if Avaya should replace the card (system is older than a year) due to it being a license to use the Partner Messaging module. It sounds as if the card tells the Partner Messaging whether or not it can use 2, 4 or 6 ports only. Much like if you purchase software and you lose the disk or registration code. You contact the manufacturer and if you can prove that you own the software, they would send you a replacement. I shouldn't have to buy another "license" because the firmware stopped working on the PC Card or if the card went bad. But I do feel if the module went bad, that of course would be my responsibility; however, I feel that I am entitled to have a backup drive to avoid this mishap in the future. Am I offbase here?
 
I'm starting to think that all this troubleshooting is heading into the wrong direction. Rather than spend all this time and money trying to figure out what the problem is, should I look into something like Partner Messaging 2x4. They hardly use the voice mail boxes as is other than the general mailbox. They only have 4 lines total and and have a 4-port card for this purpose. Staff consists of 5 people as one recently left. I could then yank the Partner Messaging module out for a PC Card replacement for less than $125 on ebay.
 
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