problems registring ATA

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problems registring ATA

Postby volenin » 12/13/2018

I've been using Freephoneline forever (over 10 years at this point i think?..) Switched only 2 adapters. Been using SPA112, 2 FXS for the last 2-3 years. I'm travelling quite a bit and not using phone line too often. Realized today that the phoneline hasn't been registring for the month or so - keeping on getting 'failed' registration state...

Has anything changed recently on the Freephoneline side?.. My setup hasn't been changed in years. The only thing i can think of that might have changed recently is switching of the cable modem, but that was a while ago and i'm pretty sure everything worked after that.

Vlad
volenin
Active Poster
 
Posts: 100
Joined: 07/14/2009

Re: problems registring ATA

Postby Liptonbrisk » 12/14/2018

volenin wrote:

Has anything changed recently on the Freephoneline side?


No.

A. Visit http://status.fongo.com/ to check server status.

B. If the service status website doesn’t note any issues, then chances are the problem is on your end. In
your ATA, navigate to Voice-->Line (whichever one you use for FPL)-->SIP settings, and change SIP Port to a random number between 30000 and 60000.

If changing the local Sip Port works, you were dealing with a corrupted NAT association 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. In your ATA, navigate to Voice-->SIP-->SIP Timer Values (sec)-->Reg Retry Intvl should be 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, 10, 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. Also, 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. Mikrotik routers also allow users to change both Assured and Unreplied UDP timeout settings as well: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/recomme ... 2115672/2/.

The keep alive interval for FPL is 20. The SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time is 120. I use 10 for
UDP Unreplied Timeout and 117 for UDP Assured Timeout.

C. Double check your Registration timers.
https://support.freephoneline.ca/hc/en- ... redentials

i) Voice-->Line(FPL)-->Proxy and registration-->Register Expires should be 3600

iii) Failed Registration Re-Try Interval: 120 seconds

Voice-->SIP-->SIP Timer Values (sec)-->Reg Retry Intvl should be 120


If your ATA makes more than 5 registration attempts in 5 minutes,
you may end up being temporarily IP banned by the specific FPL server the ATA was sending
registration requests to (each time you reboot the ATA, it's attempting to register with FPL). 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)."

D. If the ATA loses registration for any reason, incoming calls won't work on it. 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. 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 the above link. 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.



E. Navigate to Voice-->Line (FPL)

i) NAT Keep Alive Enable should be Yes
ii) NAT Keep Alive Msg should be $NOTIFY


F. Navigate to Voice-->SIP
i) RTP packet size should be 0.02
ii) NAT Keep Alive Intvl should be 20
iii) Handle VIA received should be yes (for 1 way audio issues)
iv) Handle VIA rport should be yes (for 1 way audio issues)
v) Substitute VIA Addr should be yes (for 1 way audio issues)

G. SIP ALG in some routers has been known to cause problems. You may want to try disabling it: https://www.obitalk.com/info/faq/sip-al ... ter-failed.
If you were issued a modem/router combo or gateway by your ISP, please contact your ISP for assistance or refer to the device manual.
Typically it's best to have your own router and stick the modem/router combo into bridge mode.

H. Latest ATA firmware is found here: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/u ... -downloads.

I. I don't know whether this T1 bug has been fixed in the latest firmware for SPA112/SPA122 ATAs: https://community.cisco.com/t5/atas-gat ... -p/1930651.
Basically firmwares were using 10% of the value for T1 that was listed.

a) If that bug still exists, navigate to Voice-->SIP-->SIP Timer Values-->T1
Change SIP T1 to 10.

b) If that bug doesn't exist, change SIP T1 to 1.


For an explanation of this issue, visit http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r294151 ... SIP-T1-bug, and read Mango's posts.


J. You can also try rebooting your modem–>router (wait for for Wi-Fi SSIDs to appear first; wait for the router to be fully up and running)–>ATA (in that order). This is always the proper device reboot order.
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: 2764
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

Re: problems registring ATA

Postby Liptonbrisk » 12/14/2018

(Generic info)
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
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, 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, 10, 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 ... 2115672/2/

The keep alive interval for FPL is 20. The SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time is 120. I use 10 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.
User avatar
Liptonbrisk
Technical Support
 
Posts: 2764
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

Re: problems registring ATA

Postby morrisan » 01/17/2019

Hello,

Like the original OP, my service was working fine form many years. I have a HT-701 but needed to reset it recently and installed the latest firmware 1.0.10.3.

I'm having registration issues, whereby I enter one of the 3 voip SIP addresses and it registers (as shown on FPL SIP Settings) after hitting "Apply" but then the registration drops sometime later. I have an ASUS RT-AC66U but this is unsupported for Merlin. If this is router NAT issue, should I install Merlin and take my chances or would I be compromising my router's stability". Our power was out for days due to the Ottawa tornados, but using IP binding on the asus I gave the ATA the same IP as before. I could post a PDF of my ATA settings if that will help.

Cheers,
Andrew
morrisan
One Hit Wonder
 
Posts: 1
Joined: 01/12/2019
SIP Device Name: Granstream HT701
Firmware Version: 1.0.10.3
ISP Name: Rogers
Computer OS: OSX 10.11.6
Router: Asus RT-AC66U

Re: problems registring ATA

Postby Liptonbrisk » 01/17/2019

morrisan wrote:Hello,

Like the original OP, my service was working fine form many years. I have a HT-701 but needed to reset it recently and installed the latest firmware 1.0.10.3.

I'm having registration issues, whereby I enter one of the 3 voip SIP addresses and it registers (as shown on FPL SIP Settings) after hitting "Apply" but then the registration drops sometime later. I have an ASUS RT-AC66U but this is unsupported for Merlin. If this is router NAT issue, should I install Merlin and take my chances or would I be compromising my router's stability". Our power was out for days due to the Ottawa tornados, but using IP binding on the asus I gave the ATA the same IP as before. I could post a PDF of my ATA settings if that will help.

Cheers,
Andrew



Your ATA is different than OP’s. Check to ensure your settings conform to those listed in this PDF guide: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18839#p74000. The PDF guide is based on the user using factory default settings.

Check all settings, especially

a. Enable SIP Options Keep Alive: Yes
b. SIP OPTIONS Keep Alive Interval: 20
c. SIP REGISTER Contact Header Use: WAN Address
d. Use Random SIP Port: Yes
e. Register Expiration: 60 minutes (default)
f. SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time: 120 seconds



Some other things to keep in mind include 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 5 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 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 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 (60 minutes in your ATA) and failed retry timer of 120s in the ATA are important.
If the ATA loses registration for any reason, incoming calls won't work on it.


With respect to your router firmware question, there appears to be a Merlin fork that continues to support your router: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork- ... 7ea.18914/. I refuse to be held responsible for any problems you may encounter, but I would lean towards using it, provided it lets you adjust UDP timeouts (it should since Merlin firmware does). If you need help with that firmware (including installation), ask at https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork- ... 7ea.18914/. You can also ask questions about official Merlin firmware over here: http://www.snbforums.com/forums/asuswrt-merlin.42/. Alternatively, I believe Tomato firmware is also available for your router, but I don’t use it and will be unable to assist with Tomato.
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.
User avatar
Liptonbrisk
Technical Support
 
Posts: 2764
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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