[Resolved] OBi100 fails to register

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[Resolved] OBi100 fails to register

Postby Beeknight80 » 05/21/2020

My FreePhoneLine just stopped working this morning. The phone does not receive or make phone calls; although the standby tone is still there.

OBI100 reports there is no response from server (server=208.65.240.44:5060; retrying). FPL SIP reports that my account is still connected. (Also, a little shocked to find that every 911 call from my FPL costs $35 :shock: )

I haven't changed any setting for years since initial registration. Tried restarting the ATA, modem and router to no avail.

I understand there is still pay-per-incident support (how much do they cost anyways?). Is there something else I should try?
Beeknight80
Just Passing Thru
 
Posts: 2
Joined: 05/21/2020
SIP Device Name: OBi100
Firmware Version: 1.3.0 (Build:2872)
ISP Name: CarryTel Cable (Rogers)
Computer OS: Win10
Router: Archer C9

Re: ATA fails to register

Postby Liptonbrisk » 05/21/2020

Beeknight80 wrote:
OBI100 reports there is no response from server (server=208.65.240.44:5060; retrying).


I have no issues registering on voip.freephoneline.ca. The problem isn't the server.

FPL SIP reports that my account is still connected


After logging in at https://www.freephoneline.ca/showSipSettings ?

And are you positive you're logging into the exact same FPL account you have provisioned on your ATA?


Are Freephoneline’s SIP servers down? My ATA isn’t registered.


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 Obihai ATA or at Obitalk.com, whichever method your normally use (don't use both), 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 use 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.

C. Double check your Registration timers. For RegistrationPeriod use 3600, and
RegisterRetryInterval 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 your ATA, the ATA is attempting to register again.

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.

D. If you don't believe you're IP banned, and if the ATA is completely unable to reach FPL's Proxy Servers, you may want to try specifying alternate DNS servers in your ATA. Google DNS is one example: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/. You should only need to do this if you're experiencing a DNS issue.


E. You can also try rebooting your modem–>router (wait for it to be fully up and transmitting data)–>ATA (in that order).



Also, a little shocked to find that every 911 call from my FPL costs $35


The fee was introduced years ago. It's been that way since 2015 at least. Other SIP service providers typically charge monthly fees for 911 access.


I haven't changed any setting for years since initial registration.


Unfortunately, corrupted NAT associations can develop in routers without users doing anything.


I understand there is still pay-per-incident support (how much do they cost anyways?).


https://support.freephoneline.ca/hc/en- ... al-Support
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: 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

Re: ATA fails to register

Postby Beeknight80 » 05/21/2020

Update: Read a previous thread on similar issues. Changed SIP server to voip2, retry interval to 120 (previous default was 30) and issues resolved. Thank-you LiptonBrisk
Beeknight80
Just Passing Thru
 
Posts: 2
Joined: 05/21/2020
SIP Device Name: OBi100
Firmware Version: 1.3.0 (Build:2872)
ISP Name: CarryTel Cable (Rogers)
Computer OS: Win10
Router: Archer C9

Re: ATA fails to register

Postby Liptonbrisk » 05/21/2020

Beeknight80 wrote:Update: Read a previous thread on similar issues. Changed SIP server to voip2, retry interval to 120 (previous default was 30) and issues resolved. Thank-you LiptonBrisk



Thank you very much for updating the thread, and I'm glad your issue is resolved after following Step C (above).

If the ATA keeps try to re-register after 30 seconds (after a failed registration attempt), you can end up temporarily IP banned by the ProxyServer the ATA was trying to register with. The same issue can occur if you reboot the ATA repeatedly within a short interval.

As for the initial registration failure (before your ATA kept trying to re-register again every 30 seconds), NAT corruption is a likely cause. I'll post some general information below (refer to #4).


(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
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.
User avatar
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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