[Resolved] IS FREEPHONELINE STILL IN BUSINESS?

[jojapath]

Hi all,

After years without any problems, as of this morning my ATA (Grandstream HT802) cannot register with the server (voip.freephoneline.ca) and it has been close to 12 hours now...

I've tried rebooting multiple times to no avail. I also checked and I have the latest firmware installed.

Is freephoneline still working or does everybody have to switch to Fongo now?

[Liptonbrisk]

Is freephoneline still working

Yes

or does everybody have to switch to Fongo now?

No

voip.freephoneline.ca is working fine on my FPL accounts.

[jojapath]

Ok thanks!

Found the problem. My ATA's new firmware (V.1.0.19.8) is corrupted. I guess...

I re-installed a previous firmware (V.1.0.17.5) and all is good now.

[Liptonbrisk]

If you didn't try re-registering your ATA for awhile, it's possible a temporary IP ban cleared. Refer to point C below.
Also, changing firmware would have cleared any corrupted NAT association that developed between the ATA and router (point B below).


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

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. The real issue, though, is that multiple registration attempts can lead to temporary IP bans. The more devices being used can make the temporary ban happen more quickly. Note that each time you reboot or restart your ATA or SIP app, it's attempting to register with Freephoneline again. Multiple registration attempts within a short period can result in temporary IP ban. Each time you reboot your ATA it's attempting to register with FPL's proxy server. Refer to point C below.





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 Grandstream ATA, double check your settings. In particular ensure that

"Use Random SIP Port" is set to Yes.

For reference, use the settings listed in the PDF guide at http://forum.fongo.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 839#p74000.
I know that's a different model ATA, but the settings should be similar.


If changing "Use Random 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 SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time. 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) < SIP OPTIONS Keep Alive Interval < 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 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, Keep Alive Interval 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 a 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 Register Expiration use 60 minutes, and
SIP Registration Failure Retry Wait Time should be 120 seconds. 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.


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)."


If you're temporarily IP banned, you could then try switching Primary SIP Server 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). That's always proper device reboot order.