[Solved]Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

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[Solved]Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby jawsont » 03/21/2020

Hi there, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but seeing as fongo owns freephoneline.ca:

I've used an Obi100 and freephoneline.ca combo for years and suddenly a week ago the Voicemail indicator and stuttered tone appeared after my wife missed a call when she was already on the phone. There was no voicemessage for the missed call (if that matters). In the past the odd "voicemail phantom light" would resolve itself inside of a day. It hasn't this time. I don't have google voice so all the threads about that I've read don't apply. I turned off the indicator checkboxes in all the suggested spots and rebooted the OBI many times. I've pulled power to the unit completely for a few minutes to let the capacitors die and no dice.

To boot, we've noticed now we can't leave a voicemail on the phone at all. Nothing appears to have changed with the unit, or with freephoneline.ca as far as I can tell. And freephoneline is the voicemail "carrier" so I assume it has to do with them.

Thoughts? Thanks!
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby bridonca » 03/23/2020

You might have to submit a request to get it cleared out. https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

I always considered the Freephoneline voicemail indicator as wonky, and found it better to bypass it completely by setting the voice mail to go directly to email.
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby hanke » 03/23/2020

Mine was working fine as well. I had rec'd a msg 5th of March, via indicator,email and stutter tone. I cleared all and all was fine. On 17th of March I again got a notification of new message, but only this time with the Visual indication and stutter tone. I dialed in to listen to it, and it was the same message again from the 5th of March. I deleted it again! The stutter tone and visual indication remains today. I have since logged into my ATA and turned the VMWI and MWI setting to off. I dont mind doing this since I will obviously get an email if I get a voicemail message. I sent this info via a Support Ticket for their information but have not heard anything back. I am sure they are trying to sort the issue out as indicated on their Status Page (degraded performance). Will just have to wait for this to be sorted out.
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby jawsont » 03/26/2020

Thanks guys. I'll try the request route and update you all.
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby hanke » 03/31/2020

This is the reply I rec'd from Fongo Support today -

Fongo Support (Fongo Support)

Mar 31, 2:11 PM EDT

Hi We are still working with the switch vendor to get this resolved. We will post updates on status.fongo.com as they come in.
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby jawsont » 04/04/2020

I got the same message Hanke. Lo and behold a few days later my stutter tone and voicemail indicator cleared up. Business as usual for a couple of days. Now - however, I can't dial out - and people calling in go to voicemail. When I try dialing a number I get "the number you dialed has not received a response from the service provider" or something to that effect. :/
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby hanke » 04/04/2020

jawsont wrote:I got the same message Hanke. Lo and behold a few days later my stutter tone and voicemail indicator cleared up. Business as usual for a couple of days. Now - however, I can't dial out - and people calling in go to voicemail. When I try dialing a number I get "the number you dialed has not received a response from the service provider" or something to that effect. :/


I just read your post and have since turned my VMWI and MWI indicator back to (yes) in my SPA3102 settings and the stutter tone/visual indication for voice mail are not there either. So they either reset our accounts or perhaps corrected the issue.

Thanks for posting and we shall see how long it will work.
hanke
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby jawsont » 04/04/2020

Do you have the ability to dial people though? Seems like my choices were
before:the ability to use my phone to call/receive - but no voicemail and a constant mesage waiting tone/indicator
now: no ability to use my phone to call/receive - NO indicator, but I receive missed calls via. email.

I'm on the fence about the change :)
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby hanke » 04/04/2020

Yes I have no problem making or receiving calls. Nothing has changed with regards to that function. I dont know about voicemail since I dont get that many in the first place. I gather you have done a proper reboot of your hardware in the proper order by powering everything off, and then starting with your modem, router and then ATA, waiting for each device to settle before doing next device. See if that changes, if not then check to make sure your registration exists via the web portal at freephoneline. Not sure what else i can suggest, sorry. Also you cant have any other device using your ID for freephoneline, like the soft phone app.
You could also try to switch to the other voip server to see if that makes any difference. If it doesnt then there is most likely something has gone wrong with your ATA configuration.

Good Luck
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby jawsont » 04/08/2020

Glad to hear your voicemail cleared, I'm still stuck with no calls in or calls out. I updated the ticket with fongo and they said there was an issue on their end but it should be cleared up. That said it hasn't cleared up. I can ping VoIP. Freephone line.ca from a command prompt, but when I boot up my obihai I can see it trying to access free phone line - but no connection is made clearly. Yes I've hard cycled the device, the switch, the router and my modem with no luck. I've double-checked all of my original sip settings and they're the same, so unless the device is broken - it must be something on the other end.
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby Liptonbrisk » 04/08/2020

jawsont wrote: it must be something on the other end.


Well there could be an issue with your account (and you can test it yourself by configuring your account on a SIP app or by using the FPL desktop app) after migration.

But all servers are working this morning. I've tested all of them. I have no issue with incoming or outgoing calls on any of them using any of my FPL accounts. And I've been testing voip.freephonleline.ca since yesterday evening until 9 a.m. EST this morning. It's worked perfectly fine.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19793&start=25#p77370



1) When you login at https://www.freephoneline.ca/showSipSettings,

a) what does SIP Status indicate?
b) what does SIP User agent indicate?

2) a) Dial ***1. Enter the IP address you hear into a web browser.
b)Log into the ATA (default username and password are "admin" without quotation marks).
c)Navigate to Status-->System Status-->SP(FPL) Service Status

What does the registration status indicate? Please copy and paste the status here.

3) What brand and model modem are you using?

4) What brand and model router are you using?

5) If you used the Obitalk web portal (http://www.obitalk.com) to configure your ATA, keep in mind that you must continue using it to configure your ATA. Otherwise whatever settings you change will eventually be overwritten by what you previously entered at obitalk.com anyway. If you wish to disable this behaviour, dial ***1. Enter that IP address into a web browser. Navigate to System Management-->OBiTalk Provisioning-->select Disabled for the method. Save. Reboot ATA. Now obitalk.com won't overwrite whatever changes you make via the device's interface (via IP address).

Pick one method (obitalk.com) or the other (IP address of device) for changing device settings. But do not use both methods.

(In Obitalk.com, you will need to enable and enter expert settings to do the following, if you want to use Obitalk.com. You do this by selecting Edit Profile-->Advanced Options-->check Enable OBi Expert Entry from Dashboard-->submit))

Keep in mind too, that if you're using the Obitalk.com web portal, after you submit a new setting, it take several minutes before Obitalk.com pushes the changes you've made to your ATA. Your ATA should reboot automatically after the changes are submitted.

In your Obihai ATA or at Obitalk.com (whichever method you normally use; don't use both methods), navigate to Voice Services-->SP(FPL) Service-->X_UserAgentPort. X_UserAgentPort should be a random port number between 30000 and 60000. Just pick a port number in that range. Change to a new port number in that range. Click the “submit” button, and reboot the ATA. (If you use Obitalk.com to change settings, you will need to continue using Obitalk.com).

If changing X_UserAgentPort 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 (RegisterRetryInterval with Obihai ATAs). 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; for Obihai ATAs this is X_KeepAliveExpires) < UDP Assured Timeout (in your router) < SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time (or RegisterRetryInterval in Obihai ATAs)

“<“ 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, X_KeepaliveExpires is supposed to be 20 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, third party firmware for 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.

RegisterRetryInterval can be found by navigating to ITSP Profile (whichever one you use for FPL)-->SIP-->RegisterRetryInterval (should be 120 seconds or higher if need be)

X_KeepAliveExpires can be found by navigating to Voice Services-->SP (whichever one you use for FPL)-->X_KeepAliveExpires


6 a) Note that too many registration attempts within a short period can result in a temporary IP ban with the server you're attempting to register with. 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 RegistrationPeriod of 3600 seconds in addition to the RegisterRetryInterval of 120 seconds are important settings in your ATA),
you may end up being temporarily IP banned by the specific FPL server the ATA (and/or desktop app) was sending
registration requests to.

RegistrationPeriod can be found by navigating to ITSP Profile (whichever one you use for FPL)-->SIP-->RegistrationPeriod (needs to be 3600 seconds)
https://support.freephoneline.ca/hc/en- ... /212430746


If you're temporarily IP banned, you could then try switching ProxyServer 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 buggy 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)."


b) Also 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 and incoming calls will not work on it.



7) As hanke mentioned, you can also try rebooting your modem–>router (wait for it to be fully up and transmitting data; wait for Wi-Fi SSIDs to populate first)–>ATA (in that specific order). That's always proper device reboot order.

8) You can try to eliminate your router as being the source of the problem by briefly connecting the ATA directly to your modem. If that works, the issue involves your router.


If the issue still persists afterwards, you can try to submit a ticket asking for a "forced registration." Freephoneline doesn't normally offer free technical support, but if your account has been affected as a result of the server migration, it doesn't hurt to ask.
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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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby jawsont » 04/08/2020

lol, i should have read this earlier today. I found a post on redflagdeals with the same info. In the end it was a corrupted NAT entry on my router I gather since after a reboot after putting in a new port it worked fine. Go figure.

https://forums.redflagdeals.com/freepho ... #p32378232

Thank you SO much for your help in all this.
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Re: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby Liptonbrisk » 04/08/2020

jawsont wrote:lol, i should have read this earlier today. I found a post on redflagdeals with the same info.


Gosh, I wonder who could have written that? :)

It was also posted over here, once I heard back that voip.freephoneline.ca was fixed: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19793&start=25#p77370.

In the end it was a corrupted NAT entry on my router I gather since after a reboot after putting in a new port it worked fine. Go figure.


A lot of users don't realize corrupted NAT connections can develop in routers without the user doing anything (refer to #4 below to help address the problem),

Thank you SO much for your help in all this.


You're very welcome. I hope the service continues to work for you, especially during this pandemic.
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: Combo of an Obihai 100 and Freephoneline.ca question

Postby Liptonbrisk » 04/08/2020

Here's some additional information if you're interested, since many people don't know what features to look for when buying routers for SIP services, such as FPL.


Typically, for VoIP SIP services, especially for freephoneline, you want

1) a router that does not have a full cone NAT,

Visit https://www.think-like-a-computer.com/2 ... es-of-nat/.
Mango from the Obitalk.com forums writes,
“Use a restricted cone NAT router, and do not use port forwarding or DMZ. Restricted cone NAT will only permit
inbound traffic from the service provider you're registered to. If you have a full cone NAT router, it will allow traffic
from any source. This is probably not what you intend.
If you have a Windows computer, you can test your router using the utility here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22292023. To run it, use stun stun.ekiga.net from a command prompt.”
Essentially, you download the stun-test.zip file; extract the stun.exe file from within the zip file to an easily
accessible location; use an elevated command prompt (visit
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-ru ... inistrator); change directory (cd) to the
directory or location where you extracted stun.exe (visit
http://www.digitalcitizen.life/command- ... c-commands); and type “stun stun.ekiga.net” without
the quotation marks followed by the enter/return button on your keyboard.
Asus routers, at the time of this writing, produce port restricted cone NAT routers, for example and are fine,
provided you’re using one with Asuswrt-Merlin, third party firmware installed.

2) a router that lets you disable SIP ALG if it's buggy,

To understand why SIP ALG often causes horrible problems, please visit
https://www.voip-info.org/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, 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) a router that allows you to set QoS or assign highest priority to your ATA or IP Phone over all other devices on your LAN (local area network),

For a very general description of what QoS can do for you, visit https://www.voipmechanic.com/qos-for-voip.htm.
The basic idea is if you're torrenting or have a bunch of other computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. downloading and uploading (hogging all your available bandwidth), you don't want
your ATA not to have access to enough bandwidth to make or receive calls properly. So QoS or a Bandwidth Monitor feature (which is just another form of QoS) is a really good idea for VoIP users.

I often get an occasional relative complaining to me, "Hey my calls sound choppy." And then when I go visit, some kids are playing MMOs on a computer, while another person is downloading a huge file,
and another person is backing up files to a cloud service all at the same time someone else is trying to talk on the phone. All those devices, without QoS enabled, are fighting over available bandwidth along with the ATA.

and 4) A router that lets you adjust both Unreplied and Assured UDP timeouts.

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; for Obihai ATAs this is X_KeepAliveExpires) < UDP Assured Timeout (in your router) < SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time (or RegisterRetryInterval in Obihai ATAs)

“<“ 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, X_Keepalives expires is supposed to be 20 with FPL.

(the above settings are making reference to those in Obihai ATAs)

Getting access to both UDP Unreplied Timeout and UDP Assured Timeout settings in consumer routers may be difficult, if not impossible. Asuswrt-Merlin (I would avoid any model below/less powerful than an RT-AC68U), third party firmware for Asus routers, does offer easy access to these two settings, which are found under General–>Tools-->Other settings. My understanding is that third party Tomato firmware has these two settings as well. So 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. Apparently, Mikrotik routers also allow users to change both Assured and Unreplied UDP timeout settings as well: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/recomme ... #p28056619.

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.



ISPs do not issue customers routers that can do all four things I just listed. Typically it's far better to have your own router with strong QoS functions and a restricted cone NAT firewall,
disable whatever SIP ALG feature is enabled in the router, and stick whatever modem/router combo your ISP gives you into bridge mode. For Bell Hubs, visit http://forums.redflagdeals.com/please-s ... r-1993629/. For Rogers, visit https://www.rogers.com/customer/support ... ridgemodem.
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: 2764
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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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