The cause of 21(24) woes 1

[JayNEC]

IP Office stops responding to TFTP Requests
In the last few days Avaya SMBS tier 3 have received a number of field escalations regarding IP Office 2.1(24). The reported problem is that the IP Office Manager
application is unable to either send or retrieve a config.
At the same time there are also other symptoms such as the IP Office Phonemanager being unable to retrieve the user list from the IP Office, Voicemail Pro and Voicemail Lite
experiencing connectivity problems, as well as terminals being unable to change their divert or forwarding status.
This has now been confirmed as a problem related to the TFTP Reader/Writer in the IP Office running out of available TFTP sessions with which to handle the requests that these applications and functions require.
The root cause of this issue is a timing discrepancy that can occur when a TFTP read request and a TFTP write request occur simultaneously, resulting in the lockup of a
TFTP session on the IP Office. If all of the sessions available become locked, then the IP Office is unable to service any further TFTP requests.
The situation can be relieved by rebooting the IP Office Control unit.
If you believe that you are experiencing this issue, please contact your support
organisation referencing this technical tip.
The Avaya Tier 3 support team will be available to verify that the problem is valid and provide access to a temporary workaround whilst a longer term resolution is identified for inclusion in the next IP Office maintenance software release which is currently scheduled for November 2004.

 

[IPOUK]

Why haven't they come out with this weeks ago? I installed 24 at a site, 406 with DT modules. All was ok from Friday evening till yesterday afternoon when I got a desperate call from the customer saying first of all users couldn't disable themselves from the hunt group, using the group key. Fair enough, that shouldn't happen! So I got them to try and manually take them out using Manager. They logged in, did as I said, then tried to go back in, but couldn't - by this time I had gone into a meeting. Came out an hour later, and NO CALLS we coming in, and the whole system had screwed up. Got them to power cycle the unit and all was fine.

I can understand there being problems with releases...but when our DISTRIBUTOR hasn't heard of the problem (our first point of contact) and then has to log a call via the States who put it in the queue - I find this very wrong by Avaya - they should make it public immediately when they know there is a known problem with a release which is meant to fix a load of bugs. I shall be complaining to our account manager at Avaya and will ensure I am told of any release problems!

Cheers and rant over!!

 

[Telecomboy]

I have a cuatomer with a 412 R2.1 (24) that worked fine for a week. now their PRi's keep going up and down. any idea if this might be related to the software load?

 

[JayNEC]

The PDF I pasted this from was dated October 18th.

Business partners, FYI there is an online knowledgebase that is essentially the v2.1 HTML engineers tookit with additions and updates. You have to login to the Avaya VPN to get to it. That's where I got this new Tech Bulletin (number ~50 or so)

 

[Spanning]

The fix is 2.1.248901 , initialy they denied all knowledge,when i reported this fault.

Tier 4 were aware of this since 2.1 (11) and missed it in 2.1(15) and 2.1(24).

We have sites using this for the past 10 days so far so good, all our new installation will remain on 2.0 (18) until Avaya sort themselves out.

Tra

 

[JayNEC]

I have one site using this (2.1.248901) since Oct 15, so far so good.

 

[IPGuru]

do not be supprised if you start to get problems if your customer is using VM pro.

We have a cust that still experienceds the lockup problem on this setup. they are a heavy user of VM Pro.

 

[JayNEC]

I think we are having this occur now.
The TierIII tech said we may need to downgrade to VM 2.1(5) from (10)

 

[Morrack]

Jaynec what do you mean by the Avaya VPN? Are you referring to the (useless) BP portal website? I looked through that and it has nothing usefull as always, unless I'm totally missing a whole section or something. I miss the days when they first set that up and they had all kinds of usefull techie stuff, now it seems to all be for the sales types.

I have a BP SSO login, where do I go to get access to this knowledgebase you're referring to?

Thanks,

Peter

 

[JayNEC]

this website:

http://en3000svr08.emea.avaya.com/

is behind Avaya's firewall. You can get to it if you login to their VPN tunnel. The BP website has info on getting access to the VPN, usually used for GES configurator.

 

[JayNEC]

Here's the news flash on it from July

http://avao1.com/avaya_newflash/smbsbpflash_july12004_1.html

 

[Morrack]

Thanks JayNEC, I'll look into this right away, sounds like a great resource.

GEE it would be nice if these BP news flashes would get sent out to BP's.....

Maybe I should ask for the bridge to hawaii instead (will that be 2 lanes or 4?)

Peter

 

[IPOUK]

This 2.1(248901) release that people have been talking about - is it just new firmware for the main control unit, or is there a 8901 release for all the expansion modules too?

Cheers.

 

[JayNEC]

Just the main control unit. What I got from the Avaya tech was just a 412.bin file to place in the manager directory.

 

[IPOUK]

Excellent, thanks for that.

I managed to find the bin files and wanted to make sure it was just the main unit after their 406 kept locking up (our Disti would have had to log the call via the States and wait till the next day for an answer - really stupid process)

I hope the release isn't country specific - I'm in the UK and installed it at a client - since they have said some calls have been dropping and faxes not working - all randomly, so I think it is probably user error, I hope!

 

[Bill712]

I have a quandry...who wants to help?

Our crack sales team in my office is pushing me to "upgrade" our 403 and Small Office units to the latest and "greatest" 2.1.24. I am very reluctant to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. I would love to upgrade but don't want to spend my Saturdays in the office rebuilding or rebooting units because of the instability that I keep hearing and reading about. So to the question!!!

Do I upgrade and make the sales weasel's happy, regardless of the impending consequences to the customer, or tell em to bugger off until it's a better more stable upgrade???

I leave it to you, my peers, do or don't do it?

 

[Morrack]

Depends on your locale, my friend. If in the UK, tell 'em to bugger off (or a sheep, whatever their preference, I'm not here to judge).

If however you are in North America and NONE of your sites use DT ports, although I know IPGuru will think I'm a loonie, I would say go ahead with the upgrade...

Peter

 

[IPGuru]

Rule 1:

IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT!

unless V2.1(xx) offers you features that you dont have and NEED then why bother with the risk?

 

[IPOUK]

it's quite scary how many sites I have on 2.1(15) - forunately they are pretty standard setups, so hopefully they won't have too many problems! Most of our installs are DS rollouts, but these few sites are DT with 2030s - I dare put them on .24!

 

[photon33]

Just so everybody is on the same page, this 2.1.24 is absolutely affecting NA IPO using DS phones.
I don't know what the recipe is, but I have found it on an install using:
ip403 2.1.24 w/44xx
vmpro 2.1.10
Problem seemed to start when I added the "Queue ETA" action to my Hunt groups queued action.
Agents cannot login/out or go DND, cannot pull config from IPO. Reboot fixes for a short period.
The TSO wants traces, copy of config, etc. & to bill me 1 hr for the 2.1.248901 fix.
I am quite insulted being a paying BETA tester/debugger.