Softphone inter-operability / Difference in branded sp's

[TheHardy]

I know that for accounts that have not purchased their config files, that they are locked to the FPL softphone.

My question is, as a user registered via FPL directly, would I be able to use, say, the BudPhone softphone instead of the FPL one?

Furthermore (and I guess this is a highlevel question), is there any difference (other than the skin, branding, ads) in the workings of the softphone client?

My reason for asking is that I did a little more research on the internet this afternoon, and the website for FPL-powered softphones (Zphone, Budphone, etc) list incoming caller ID as being able to be displayed on their softphones. Without downloading and installing (and therefore potentially fking up my working set up), I am unable to tinker around too much.

I know that the current FPL softphone (3.0.3.0) does NOT display incoming CID until after the call is answered (either directly or to voicemail).

Thanks for any insight/replies.

[Jake]

The different skinned versions of the phones are all registered on separate databases, so you can't use one softphone when you have signed up for another one as you won't be able to log in.

They should all have the same functions, but I believe there is a glitch on the current FPL version that shows all calls incoming as anonymous.

You can run a bud phone at the same time as the FPL one without messing any of your settings up, they are for all intents and purposes, different programs.


Even though all the different versions are powered by FPL, they are to be considered separate to each other and not interchangeable.

[TheHardy]

Thanks Jake. Kind of thought that it might be you that had an answer to it. I shall 'giver a try' and report back to this thread!

Of course, as I will have to re-register, I am going to have to come up with another telephone number to use during my re-registration process!

[lauren]

Please do let us know how it goes and if you have any problems at all registering. Good luck.

Lauren
Support Specialist
www.freephoneline.ca

[TheHardy]

Well, here is what has happened.

I created a BudPhone account, using my nephews information, selecting an Edmonton-based number for him. He has relatives and friends in Edmonton, so I thought this would be good for him and save a few pennies in LD, as he could then use the forward feature for incoming calls from them as well, to his Surrey number.

So I signed up and registered, downloaded and the whole 9 yards. However, when I launch BudPhone, and enter the email and password, I get an invalid email address/wrong password error. Uninstalled and tried again, still without success.

Logged into the account via the interface (have to go via BudPhone and not FPL), changed the password, just in case there was a conflict. No go.

Now I should state, that I have done this on my laptop, which is the same one that I have a working FPL line on for myself.

I am still getting errors. I know that there was a post somewhere about how to wipe and do it again, so I will try to find that before I go on any further with it.

So, I am having problems and cannot test things out yet to see how it all will "work" or not work.

[TheHardy]

So I re-read all the posts that I could search, found that the registration servers for budphone/fpl/zphone etc are all separate. I deleted and reinstalled all of the budphone software and other files that I could find, cleared my browser cache (although I am unsure what that has to do with logging into the softphone). Even re-downloaded the softphone file and did a reinstall. Still no luck. Officially have no clue now. Have emailed support, but if there is anything else that someone can suggest, I am all ears!

[TheHardy]

Okay, so a few trips down the tech support lane dealing with not being able to log into the BudPhone app (more later!), and I finally got it up and running. The BudPhone app does indeed have working incoming CID support ... which is a huge thing for me. To the point of where I am seriously considering cancelling my FPL main account and re-registering thru BudPhone, as there seems to be no real timeline for when the default FPL softphone app will be patched to properly support incoming CID.

The BudPhone app and the FPL softphone app do successfully co-exist on my machine, and I am able to swap between them (although I can cause a good hang up if I try to load both of them at the same time!).

The install issues ... wow, I manually installed and uninstalled that damn BP app well over a half a dozen times, each time still getting a login error for invalid account/wrong password.

About a week after I emailed tech support, I got an email back suggesting a 3rd party UNINSTALLER (complete with URL, thanks!) and a suggestion to also completely UNINSTALL java, several reboots etc.

For whatever reason, the 3rd party uninstaller actually cleared up the problem (without the need to play with java). Burning question is, why does the BP 'self' uninstaller NOT work correctly, and I have to rely on 3rd party software to clear up this problem??? That one totally blows me away! It worked, but then again, why question it?

[TheHardy]

Below is the text of the email I got back from Tech Support regarding logging in to the BudPhone softphone app and getting a username/password error. The 3rd party uninstaller worked WITHOUT the need to uninstall/reinstall java -- IE I only needed to crush BudPhone and redo it.


-- quote --
One recommendation for this error would be to download a free version of Revo
Uninstaller, here:
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uni ... nload.html Install this
program and run it, select the Budphone application and uninstall. For each
screen, please click 'Select All' then 'Delete' to remove the leftover files.
When complete, you may also want to search your computer for any Budphone
folder leftover. After this process is finished, please uninstall any version
of Java on that computer through Revo Uninstaller, and restart your computer
when finished. After reboot, please install the latest version of Java, as well
as reinstall the Budphone application from our website. If these steps do not
resolve your issue, we do have a new release of our Budphone application coming
out soon to resolve this issue.
-- end quote --