Voicemail is gone...

[yozkan01]

After serious power outages (special thanks go to the city of atlanta construction team in front of our building) our voicemail is not working at all. I get "feature inactive" for all voicemail attempts (F981,F983,F986 etc..)

I checked the forum history. There is a recommendation for my case but I could not accomplish it completely (details below):...
My questions are:
1- How can I check if KSU can see the Star Talk Ports (All I know is the DN number of Startalk) Is there a menu for it?
2- Where is XFTEST? How can I remove the codes?
3- Is there a magic pill to recover the startalk?

Thank you,
Yinal.

++++++++++++++++++++++
Arr (Vendor) May 21, 2002
jjung1,
1st check in Maint (if you can) to see whether the KSU can see the Star Talk Ports.
2nd power down the Star Talk
3rd do an XFTEST (pwd 266344) at the KSU and remove all the codes.
4th power down and then restart the KSU
5th power up the Star Talk.
6th get into F983 any old way you can. Sometimes you may have to do a F981* then enter the Admin mail box. One time I got administration from mbox 100. At that point once in, I completely reinstalled the whole default software and started again. Then thing has been running perfectly ever since.
If the Vmail coding got scrambled from a power bump or similar, then you may have to repeat steps 3-6 several times until you get in somewhere.

Good luck

PhM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[Arr]

OUCH

OK. Did the vendor ship a second pwr supply with the second Flash?

A second PCMCIA card? If you have been working with just one card, the card may be blown from the first event.

Yes a UPS could output harmful spikes... it must be a consideration because it is in the circuit it is therefore a point of failure... for now remove it entirely. Have it checked/return to vendor... (address unknown)

If you have two non functioning power supplies, and you have a ATA2 or enhanced that is working, try it (same unit).

The above are the only points of failure you did not specifically mention.

PhM

 

[Arr]

Jacy,
One other mention here...

If the flash is not seen in "port status" in Maintenance, then all the feature manipulation will never help. So check first for both B channels recognizing the flash.

PhM

 

[westcoaster]

here's my .01 worth.... ( may not be worth much ) flash ver 2.0.02 has a known failure problem, just will stop and not come back. regardless of software version I have run into pcmcia cards that have failed ( as mentioned above ) the best way to trouble shoot is to connect a lap top to the serial port and watch the boot sequence. 1200 8,n,1 x on, x off, vt 100. It should tell you in plain english where it is failing.

 

[jacy7]

That was very useful info, westcoaster, thanks! I don't have a serial cable handy for my laptop but will root one out and have a go at it. Of course, that's the version we're running. :/

In the meantime... an update [with guarded good news] for the benefit of future searchers:

A friend of a friend who works for SBC dropped by to take one last look at this. Shortly before he arrived one of my DNs began to act funky and I lost line 001 entirely through the CICS. He moved 001 to 026 and that took care of the line problem but I haven't checked the DN/set yet. Either way, to me it was a red flag something more might be up.

Re: the Flash, for an hour he went through the whole swapping and rebooting shenanigans I've already mentioned and got nothing. He eventually acknowledged that perhaps the UPS might be flaky and had trashed the Flash, and now might be troubling the CICS. [I wasn't about to swap the trunk cards just yet to find out, having just done a startup last night.] As he was leaving I punched (literally) out a F983 one last time and lo! I got to the Flash. I could not believe my eyes.

It appears operational but I haven't had time to program much. FWIW, it's the replacement Flash unit that's working, and it's plugged into a power strip (not the UPS). I'm not touching a thing.

I'm still going to check out the UPS (a pal is bringing an oscilloscope) and swap the CICS trunk cards tomorrow to check out the line problem. I plan to take a look at the whole power issue in general, as besides the new UPS, we did add a few other devices (computers, monitors, etc.) on the floor and maybe the circuit is weak. Would like to rule out power as the culprit, and just go with westie's comment about the flaky version.

The moral of the story being... restart it a bazillion times (appears I'd stopped at a million) and it'll probably eventually come back up.

Thanks for everyone's patience with the lengthiness of this -- just hoping to provide some clues for the next person that comes along.

 

[hawkflorida]

Before you trash the Flash, short the quarter sized low profile CAP on the Flash mother board. With power off of course, do this on the none component side with a screw driver between the leads of the cap. Sometimes the Flash just gets so corrupted that this becomes your last resort. It does work. Be sure to wait a good 10 minutes after shorting the cap before using F903 and only F903. Then you are sure it's trashed if it doesnt come up, if your KSU and connections were good. And as suggested booting up with a computer attached really is a good suggestion. If you haven't shorted the capacitor though, you HAVEN'T done everything possible. But that is it. darnold@americaii.com

 

[jacy7]

An update...

Had our power checked out with a high-tech oscilloscope and everything passed with flying colors.

Although we were finally able to get into the Flash and get it operational, things were never quite right. Initially it was fine, but then callers started to get routed to the wrong mailbox, or the AA message wouldn't be from the greeting table, but rather someone's private VM greeting. Or it would spontaneously start answering at only one ring. Very wacky stuff.

I was afraid to turn it off, since that's how this whole thing started, but eventually did and on reboot everything seemed to be OK. For a while. The correct greeting from the table would answer for the first few callers, then it'd go wacky again. Someone else's VM greeting would answer my DN, yadda yadda.

Made it through one more reboot and now I'm back to my original 'inactive feature' problem -- the KSU can't see the system.

In the course of all this I've talked to as many people as possible and more than one has said that Nortel has little or no quality control at the manufacturing level. That it's cheaper for Nortel to replace rather than QC, and that the reason I'm having this trouble is I basically I bought a returned 'new' unit. That there are no REAL new units as this thing hasn't been manufactured in years. It might have looked sparkling and factory sealed and all that, but indeed it was someone else's nightmare first.

Anybody that can comment on that?

 

[westcoaster]

hmmmm I have not run into a voicemail that has done what you describe. here are a few..."tips". starting with the ksu... on an ( 8x24 ksu use ports 123&124 Minimum software compatable is 30MUL07 (Canadian ))(0x32 use ports 131&132) move phones if necessary. ensure there are no lines assigned to any of the flash ports. to connect to the flash from the ksu use telephone wire into a rj11 telephone jack and from the telephone jack use a proper telephone cord into the flash. Any short cuts taken with the connections WILL cause problems. You CAN NOT have the flash on a station module!!(really WEIRD things happen) If you are connecting to an 8x24 system there is a minimum software that is supported. In canada it is 30MUL07 as found in maintaince under system version (can someone post for the US??) The 8x24 will support all versions of flash software. There is no minimum version of software on the 0x32 that is required to make the flash run... however I don't think a lower version of flash will work with a higher version of mics IE: mics 5.0, flash 1.5.00.
I find it strange your replacement flash operated in the same manner as your origional flash. It would seem to me the problem is not with the flash unit but with something else on site or common between both units ( pcmcia, 4 port expansion or power supply )
Wednesday I powered up and initialized a new flash on a very old 8x24 ksu the two were not compatable, but they did work. Point being... you still may have a compatability issue. please post your software versions. the flash is easy, it is on the pcmcia. the ksu you may have to ask about.
I think the flash units that come back from nortel do go through some type of test procedure and are not someone's recycled crap.
best of luck...{
ps. your problems may not be in the flash but in the ksu. (the losing lines thing)