Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T)

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Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T)

Postby Scoponox » 02/18/2019

The setup have been working for 5 yrs no problem as suddenly about a month ago it stopped working where the phone says "Check telephone line". No settings were changed. An ATA (Linksys PAP-2T) is being used.
What could have caused the problem? Any help greatly appreciated
Scoponox
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Liptonbrisk » 02/18/2019

Unfortunately, many people don't realize it doesn't matter whether they've changed anything and whether something has worked fine in the past. Several things can happen without someone changing anything, and one of them is a corrupted NAT association developing between a router and an ATA. Another is getting hacked. And yet another is running into temporary IP bans. And then there are hardware failures. Those are all potential problems just off the top of my head.

The "check telephone line error" means that a telephone cable is loose or has become defective; your ATA's phone jack has become defective; or your ATA isn't registered for whatever reason. In other words, the telephone isn't receiving a dial tone.


1) What brand and model modem are you using?

2) What brand and model router are you using?

Typically it's best to have your own router and to shove whatever modem/router combo your ISP gave you into bridge mode. If your ISP did give you a modem/router combo and you don't have you own router, ensure that SIP ALG is disabled in it. Otherwise you may need to use voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 to circumvent buggy SIP ALG features. In your own router, you may also need to disable SIP ALG.

To understand why SIP ALG often causes horrible problems, please visit
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Routers+SIP+ALG (scroll down to the section on SIP ALG problems).

If you're dealing with a modem/router combo issued by an ISP or a router with SIP ALG forced on (with no way to disable it), you may have
to use voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 for the Proxy Server. The purpose of voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 is to circumvent
faulty SIP ALG features in routers.


3) What does registration status indicate after logging in at https://www.freephoneline.ca/showSipSettings?
Also what doe SIP user agent indicate? If you ever see something that you don't recognize listed under SIP user agent, you've been hacked.
While you're logged in you might as well double check your SIP Username and Password against what you've entered in your ATA. They should be the same.
Be careful not to copy and paste empty spaces.

4) What does registration state indicate in the ATA after logging in under Info-->Line (FPL)-->Registration State?

5) What do the LED lights on your ATA indicate?
Power light should be blue. If it's red, you've running into some sort of hardware malfunction. There are also tons of fake PAP2s, and the fakes are known to develop issues: https://www.ukvoipforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=565.
If the Phone LEDs are not lit, then the ATA has no registration.

6) Note that only one registration per FPL account is allowed at any time. When there are multiple devices/softphones using the same account, only the most recent registration is valid. The previous device will lose registration. This is especially important to consider if someone else is using your SIP credentials (username and password) that are found after logging in at https://www.freephoneline.ca/showSipSettings (or if you're trying to register your FPL account with a smartphone SIP app or with another device). Registration is required for incoming calls. It is not required for outgoing calls. If you simply want to make outgoing calls using your FPL number, configure, but don't register the account, on the SIP app being used, with Groundwire, for example, on a smartphone (there is no way to do this with the Freephoneline desktop application; the Freephoneline desktop application doesn't offer to option to not register). This is also important to consider if you're using Freephoneline's desktop application (don't have it running while using your ATA with the same FPL account). Additionally, keep in mind that if someone else is also attempting to register the same SIP credentials on another device where you live, too many registration attempts can result in a temporary IP ban. Always check registration status in the ATA and also your SIP status after logging in at https://www.freephoneline.ca/showSipSettings. If you see a device listed under SIP User Agent that you don't recognize, you've either been hacked or someone else is using your Freephoneline SIP username and SIP Password.

Each time you reboot the ATA, it's attempting to register with Freephoneline again. If you attempt more than 10 registrations in 5 minutes (this is why the registration interval is important),
you may end up being temporarily IP banned by the specific FPL server the ATA (and/or desktop app) was sending
registration requests to. If you're temporarily IP banned, you could then try switching Proxy to a different FPL server than the one you were previously using (voip.freephoneline.ca, voip2.freephoneline.ca, or voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060), unless you need to use voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 because you have SIP ALG forced on in your router. The purpose of
voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 is to circumvent SIP ALG features in routers.


https://community.freepbx.org/t/trunk-s ... ca/22479/8
"As May 2013, our servers will rate limit REGISTER requests to a maximum of 10 requests per 5 minutes. Each authentication round usually consumes 2 requests (digest auth), so it is a fair number given our guidelines. Also, it does not affect INVITES (which are also authenticated)…

This rate limit is applied per IP address as our service is tailored to residential Canadian users (ADSL/Cable)."

That's why the registration interval of 3600 seconds and failed retry timer of 120s in the ATA are important.

7) In your Line Tab (for FPL) in your ATA,
a)Register expires should be 3600 seconds
b) NAT Keep Alive Enabled should be Yes
c) NAT Mapping Enabled should be Yes

8) In your SIP tab in your ATA, under NAT Support Parameter, NAT Keep Alive Intvl should be 20 seconds.


9) Navigate to Voice-->SIP-->SIP Timer Values (sec)

a)Reg Retry Intvl should be 120 seconds

Mango suggests the SIP T1 default setting is too aggressive, and to help resolve potential registration issues, T1 should be set to 1.
b) Change SIP T1 to 1

10) In your ATA, Navigate to Voice-->Line 1 (or whatever you're using for FPL)-->SIP settings, change SIP Port to a random number between 30000 and 60000. Just pick a new number if that range. Save settings.
For security reasons, it's better to choose a local SIP port in this range regardless.

If changing the local SIP port works, you were dealing with a corrupted NAT connection in your router.
Possibly a NAT router connection was never disconnected or never timed out properly. And, then, the
ATA keeps the corrupted connection in a persistent state over and over again. (Credit goes to Mango for
this information). Possibly, this problem is due to the router's UDP timeout being in excess of the ATA's
Failure Retry timer. With FPL, that's 120 seconds.

Thanks to Mango, many of us now understand that in order for ATAs to remain registered and working
properly with a VoIP SIP provider like Freephoneline, in particular after power failures, the following
conditions must be met:

UDP Unreplied Timeout (in your router) < NAT Keep-alive Interval (in your ATA) < UDP Assured Timeout (in your router) < SIP Registration Failure Retry
Wait Time

“<“ means less than.

When a modem leases a new IP address, a problem can arise where prior associations using the old IP
address are maintained in the router. When the ATA attempts to communicate using the old IP address,
the response is unreplied, and then if the UDP Unreplied timeout is greater than the Keep Alive Interval
(and UDP Unreplied timeout is often set to 30 by default in consumer routers) a problem arises where
the corrupted connection persists. If UDP Unreplied timeout is, for example, 17, and the NAT Keep
Alive Interval is 20, then the corrupted connection will timeout or close. A new connection will be
created, and everything will work fine.

Another problem can occur when the Keep-Alive interval is greater than UDP Assured Timeout (often
180 by default in consumer routers): the NAT hole will close due to the ATA not communicating
frequently enough with the SIP server. In turn, incoming calls may, intermittently, not reach the ATA.
Again, NAT Keep Aliver interval is supposed to be 20 seconds with FPL.

Getting access to both UDP Unreplied Timeout and UDP Assured Timeout settings in consumer routers
may be difficult, if not impossible. Asuswrt-Merlin (https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/about), third party firmware for certain Asus routers, does offer
easy access to these two settings, which are found under Tools-->Other settings. However, my
understanding is that third party Tomato firmware has these two settings as well. Mikrotik routers do as
well: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/recomme ... #p28056619. If your
router supports Tomato firmware, that may be another option. Note that I will not be held accountable
any damage resulting from failed firmware updates.

The keep alive interval for FPL is 20. The SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time is 120. I use 17 for
UDP Unreplied Timeout and 117 for UDP Assured Timeout.


11) Your setup PDF guide is found here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=16294. You may want to double check your settings (the ones I've specified here are correct if there are any discrepancies in the guide, such as local SIP Port).

12) Proper device boot order is always modem (wait for it to be fully up and running)–>router (wait for it to be fully up and transmitting data with Wi-Fi SSIDs populated first)–>and finally ATA (in that order). You can try rebooting devices now (wait for each device to be fully up and running before rebooting or turning on the next device).
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
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Liptonbrisk
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Scoponox » 02/18/2019

Thank you for your help so far...Greatly appreciated

1) Bell modem is 2-Wire I converted to a bridge years ago.

2) Router is an Asus RT-N66U

3) sip setting are as follows:



Working on it still
Scoponox
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Computer OS: Win XP

Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Liptonbrisk » 02/18/2019

Scoponox wrote:Thank you for your help so far...Greatly appreciated

1) Bell modem is 2-Wire I converted to a bridge years ago.

2) Router is an Asus RT-N66U


Hi,

For security reasons, I've deleted your screenshot that included your Freephoneline phone number. It's never a good idea to expose your phone number or SIP Username online.


Okay, I see that the problem is the ATA is unregistered with Freephoneline. That's why you don't have a dial tone and are getting the "Check Telephone Line" error.

I would check the power LED colour on the ATA. If it's red, you may a power supply problem or some sort of hardware issue. If that's the case (red power led), going through the rest of the steps is pointless. You could try another power supply to see if that helps if you happen to have one. Hardware failures can also result from electrical spikes. A UPS is always a good idea. But if the power LED looks normal (green), then I would go through the rest of the steps.


With respect to adjusting UDP timeouts in your router (mentioned in the previous post in point #10), unfortunately Asuswrt-Merlin isn't available for your Asus router, but there is a fork for it that is supported: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork- ... 7ea.18914/. I'm not positive whether the fork supports changing UDP timeouts, but I suspect it does. If you have questions about the Merlin fork, I suggest asking in that thread. I've never used the fork.

There is Tomato firmware available for your router, but I'm also not very familiar with Tomato: https://gist.github.com/joshenders/3941269. Certainly, someone at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/voip will be familiar with Tomato and how to adjust UDP timeouts if you have questions.

I would do PPPoE login using your RT-N66U in order to completely bypass the Bell modem if you haven't already.

By the way, in Asus routers using official Asus firmware and Asuswrt-Merlin (and probably the fork as well), SIP ALG is called SIP Passthrough. That setting is found in your router after navigating to Advanced Settings-->WAN-->NAT Passthrough. However, I strongly suspect SIP Passthrough is not related to your issue, in particular if you've never changed it and if the problem just started occurring. If SIP Passthrough is a problem, you can circumvent it by using voip4.freephoneline.ca:6060 for the Proxy in the ATA. In Asuswrt-Merlin (and probably the fork as well), SIP Passthrough should be set to "Enabled + NAT Helper." Note that just because https://www.freephoneline.ca/showSipSettings indicates "voip.freephoneline.ca", that doesn't mean you're forced to use voip.freephoneline.ca.
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
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Liptonbrisk
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Scoponox » 03/09/2019

yep it has a red light. I think the adapter is fried. I happen to have another one but it didn't plug in...but I rigger some wire to touch it temporarily and it started cycling and the power light was green. I might cut the wires on both and just wire them together
Scoponox
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Posts: 63
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SIP Device Name: Linksys PAP2T
Firmware Version: 5.1.6(LS)
ISP Name: Acanac DSL
Computer OS: Win XP

Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Scoponox » 03/09/2019

So i wired it up as I mentioned...
the power light is gree
internet light keeps flashing
but no light on phone Line 1
and no dial tone no matter how I hook it up
Scoponox
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Posts: 63
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ISP Name: Acanac DSL
Computer OS: Win XP

Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Liptonbrisk » 03/09/2019

Scoponox wrote:yep it has a red light. I think the adapter is fried. I happen to have another one but it didn't plug in...but I rigger some wire to touch it temporarily and it started cycling and the power light was green. I might cut the wires on both and just wire them together


Given your description here of cutting wires, I'm uncertain of what's been done. I'm hesitant to start suggesting anything especially if there's a potential hardware failure involved.

You can look through pages 8 to 11 at the following link to look at commands to use to see if your ATA is getting an IP address (also check DHCP): https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/do ... t_user.pdf. If the ATA is working, you could try doing a factory reset and then re-provisioning your ATA. In the first reply in this thread, I listed the settings you should be using in addition to a link for the PDF settings guide for your ATA.

If nothing else works, I'd lean towards getting a new ATA (not one on eBay). The real successors to the PAP2 series are Obihai ATAs (OBi200 or OBi202 sold at Newegg.ca would be the most powerful choice in terms of features, with the understanding that Obihai has a bad online reputation for its support policies; these ATAs go on sale periodically at newegg.ca) and not newer SPA series ATAs. The engineers that developed the PAP2 series eventually left and designed Obihai ATAs.

Also, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is always a good idea to help protect your ATA from power spikes/surges. In my experience an UPS does a better job than most cheap surge protectors.

Beyond this, I'm unable to assist further.
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
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Liptonbrisk
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby hanke » 03/10/2019

Not sure if you are able to access the ATA from the interactive Voice Menu from a telephone handset connected to it. To do that input four STAR keys ( ****). You should now be able to input commands such as 110 which will tell your device IP address. To check your Internet connection type input 101 then 1 for DHCP, 2 for static or 3 for PPPoE.

If your Internet light is flashing to me it means it is not able to access the Web and it will never obtain any type of registration.

Generally the PAP2T default IP access is 192.168.1.1. If you were to connect the ATA directly to another computer (or your computer directly). you should be able to access the device and ensure settings are correct without even attempting to go out on the internet. The manual and interactive voice commands are in the below link. The default logins are either "user" leaving password blank or "admin" leaving password blank.


https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/csbpvga/pap2t/administration/guide/pap2t_user.pdf
hanke
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Liptonbrisk » 03/10/2019

hanke wrote:Not sure if you are able to access the ATA from the interactive Voice Menu from a telephone handset connected to it. To do that input four STAR keys ( ****). You should now be able to input commands such as 110 which will tell your device IP address. To check your Internet connection type input 101 then 1 for DHCP, 2 for static or 3 for PPPoE.


For reference, those commands are listed on pages 8 to 11 from the link in my previous response.

If your Internet light is flashing to me it means it is not able to access the Web and it will never obtain any type of registration.


With respect to light patterns, refer to page 4 from https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/do ... t_user.pdf
A blinking green internet light means "there's traffic moving through the port." If it's not lit, that's a problem. Blinking, however, just indicates activity.

No light on phone 1 means the ATA has no registration on that phone port. One possible explanation could be a temp ban (point #6 in my original response). Another may be a DNS issue (sometimes specifying DNS servers in the ATA helps). Another could be some sort of hardware failure, which makes troubleshooting a headache. If the ATA is working, I suggest trying a factory reset and then re-provisioning the ATA. In the first reply in this thread, I listed the settings should be using in addition to a link for the PDF settings guide for the ATA.
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
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Liptonbrisk
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby hanke » 03/10/2019

Sorry for giving duplicate details on how to check the ATA status or accessing it. Those are things I would normally do if I had encountered that to ensure the ATA is accessible and gaining access to the web.

I hope Scoponox gets it sorted out.
hanke
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ISP Name: Cogeco Cable
Router: DPC3848VM (Modem/Router)

Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Liptonbrisk » 03/10/2019

hanke wrote:Sorry for giving duplicate details on how to check the ATA status or accessing it. Those are things I would normally do if I had encountered that to ensure the ATA is accessible and gaining access to the web.


There's no need to apologize. Thank you for helping and contributing whenever possible. I agree with what you're writing about trying to access the ATA and checking status. I'm just stating that for reference the commands are found on pages 8 to 11. That would be the first step I would use as well. And provided the ATA is working, the next step is ensuring it's configured properly. I would probably start with a factory reset, so that I don't have to second guess what someone else (or a hacker) has done.
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
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Liptonbrisk
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Posts: 2763
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Router: Asuswrt-Merlin & others

Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Scoponox » 03/11/2019

Great news....its working. It was the adapter the whole time. Its working with the rewired adapter. Thanks for all your help Liptonbrisk...you were right when you said the power led was red was an adapter issue.
Scoponox
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SIP Device Name: Linksys PAP2T
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Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby hanke » 03/11/2019

Glad you got it working again. I just had an issue last week on my SPA3102 adapter on incoming calls it would reset, startup, register fine and allow out going calls. Incoming calls caused the ATA to reset all the time. I determined it was a weak power adapter, replaced it and now working fine again.
hanke
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Posts: 194
Joined: 06/09/2010
Location: Burlington, Ontario
SIP Device Name: SPA3102
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ISP Name: Cogeco Cable
Router: DPC3848VM (Modem/Router)

Re: Phone says "Check telephone line" - ATA (Linksys PAP-2T

Postby Liptonbrisk » 03/11/2019

Scoponox wrote:Great news....its working. It was the adapter the whole time. Its working with the rewired adapter. Thanks for all your help Liptonbrisk...you were right when you said the power led was red was an adapter issue.


You’re very welcome!
Please do not send me emails; I do not work for nor represent Freephoneline or Fongo. Post questions on the forums so that others may learn from responses or assist you. Thank you. If you have an issue with your account or have a billing issue, submit a ticket here: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check FPL/Fongo service status. Freephoneline setup guides can be found at viewforum.php?f=15.
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Liptonbrisk
Technical Support
 
Posts: 2763
Joined: 04/26/2010
SIP Device Name: Obihai 202/2182, Groundwire
Firmware Version: various
ISP Name: FTTH
Computer OS: Windows 64 bit
Router: Asuswrt-Merlin & others


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