Callers get silence, then busy signal when calling

[Cheryl]

If I have the desktop application open, I can receive a call, or if I miss it, the call goes to voicemail just fine...
however if I close the desktop application, then callers get a l-o-n-g silence followed by a busy signal, rather than my voicemail.

Although this doesn't seem to have anything to do with my setup, since the problem is when the Ap is not active... I was told to write in the forum for help... so please help

It was also having difficulty if set to 'follow me' to another number. It does forward alright, but if no answer, it doesn't revert back to it's own voicemail as it should (it goes to the forwarded to number's voicemail instead)

Looking forward to suggestions.
Thanks in advance.
Cheryl

[TheHardy]

First issue ... odd ... is that with FOLLOW-ME off, or on??

Second Issue -- so this is what you are doing ....

FPL--followme'd-->OTHER ... I assume you have set "Fwd not-avail" rather than "always"

You are then getting it to fwd properly, but you are saying that it is getting OTHER's vmail .... when what you want is it to get FPL vmail ... have I read your problem correctly?

If this is the case, make a test call to your OTHER # --- take note of HOW MANY RINGS it takes to trigger vmail.

Go back into your FollowMe settings, and EDIT the # of rings that the OTHER number has to be LESS than the number of rings it takes to trigger OTHER's vmail; your Follow-Me'd FPL # will then ring OTHER, get no answer (as vmail has not picked up) and then come back to your FPL # where the vmail will activate.

Does that make sense? Let me know if you need more help or if another explanation or something more is needed for that part of things!

[fizikz]

I was just about to report the same problem. I was testing my FPL account and with the softphone running, everything is normal, but without the softphone up, there is a long silence (10-15 seconds) and then a busy signal. It does not go to voicemail. This was done using a landline to call my FPL number. I tried the same test by using Google Voice to call my FPL and I just get endless rings but no voicemail (when the softphone is not running).

EDIT: This is with the 'Follow me' feature off.

[TheHardy]

Hmmm ... I may have to do some more testing on my end as well and see how mine behaves -- I have very little opportunity to call myself, and I have very few people that call me ...

Perhaps a mod will drop by soon and chime in, or we will have to PM Mike or Neil ...

[fizikz]

I've been testing it some more and I find that after about an hour of closing the softphone, things behave normally again, with calls being picked up immediately by the voicemail. If I run the softphone once again and quit it, the problem reappears. So, I can consistently reproduce the issue. I wonder if it's a bug where the softphone is not disconnecting properly from the servers, or there is some confusion about its state, and then the servers time out the connection on their own after a certain amount of time.

I also find it odd how during this issue, a landline gives a long silence followed by a busy signal, compared with Google Voice ringing indefinitely. Perhaps the different infrastructures interpret and react to this buggy phenomenon differently, and perhaps that could be a clue as well.

[TheHardy]

Ah --- reproduceable results -- a favourite thing for troubleshooting! GREAT JOB!! I am sure this will prove useful.

Now, are you using FPL or DV? The "x" button to close DV just minimizes it, you have to click CLOSE/EXIT from the menu ....

Not sure if this will make a difference.

In my apt, where I use FPL (and also DV), I have such horrible cell coverage, that my company phone (which is the only one I have) is a BRICK ... literally no service unless I stand at the window or on the deck in a "Statue of Liberty" pose with TINFOIL on my head ... (but then the MotherShip cannot contact me ... ) So my testing ability is somewhat limited as it is hard to place incoming test calls to my VOIP lines ...

[fizikz]

Exact steps to reproduce the silence/busy bug:
1. Call FPL (using landline, Google Voice/Talk, etc) while softphone is not running to verify that the account works, and reaches voicemail
2. Run FPL softphone
3. Call FPL
4. From the FPL softphone, refuse the call
5. From the calling device, note reaching the voicemail
6. Quit the FPL softphone (exit, not minimize)
7. Call FPL again. The silence/busy bug should be evident now.
8. Wait 1 hour to verify that calling FPL reaches the voicemail again without the silence/busy bug.

Note: the silence/busy bug happens when using a hardline to call FPL; if using Google Voice/Talk, it 'rings' indefinitely without ever reaching voicemail.

This is using the FPL softphone. I do not have a Dell Voice account, so I have not tested that.

Hardy, you could use Google Talk's call to phone feature to test, if you use that service, or some other voip service that allows calling phone numbers.

[TheHardy]

I am aware of Google-call feature.

I can give it a shot here and see what I can produce based on your above DETAILED account ...

question: Step 4 ... is there any difference if you just let it ring naturally to vmail rather than REFUSE?

I'll give it a go both ways a little bit later --- dinnering right now!

[fizikz]

I was going to test your suggestion of letting it ring until reaching the voicemail, but just starting the softphone and exiting it with nothing else happening in between already caused the bug to manifest on the next call. I'm not sure if that was always the case before, but it'll have to be at least another hour or so before I can test it again.