Google Voice Account Won't Configure With OBi200

[mkhomer]

Just got a new OBi200 yesterday.  Attempted setup and everything went perfectly until I tried to add my Google Voice account (which is brand new and hasn't been used - I followed all of the steps set forth in setting up this account in the Obitalk tutorials).  The Obitalk website gave me a Setup Not Configured message.  I tried several reboots of the device (removing and adding it to the obitalk website), a factory reset, and I even tried to create a new Google Voice account using a different e-mail address and nothing worked.  Today, when I logged into the Obitalk website, I got a message indicating that the Google Voice account I was attempting to use was an "old" account and I needed a more recent gmail username and password.  I have no idea what this meant (perhaps implying that only a Google Voice account with an associated gmail username would work? -- I did set up the accounts with a hotmail e-mail username and then a yahoo e-mail username).  I tried to setup a new account with Google, using a new gmail username, but I couldn't create a new Google Voice associated account because my forwarding phone (my current mobile number) was shut out (apparently, once you've associated it with two other accounts, you can't use it anymore -- might have been nice if Google told me that before accepting the number for the third account).  Anyway, before I try a different number, I wanted to get insight into this problem.  I did see a thread on this site indicating that you needed to send at least one chat message with your Google account for it to work with Obi devices (problem is that I have no idea how to do so because none of my friends use Google chat); but, I'm not sure if that's true (since I didn't see it anywhere in the setup instructions on the obitalk website).  I tried sending an e-mail to Obihai support (no response yet) and I called their support number and stayed on for about an hour and nobody answered -- get the feeling I'll be getting no joy from them.  Does anybody have any ideas?

[SteveInWA]

You have royally screwed yourself with all that churning of non-Gmail accounts.   

Yes, use a Gmail account.  Yes, you will need to use a forwarding phone number that has not been previously used to claim a Google Voice phone number.  There are no workarounds for this; it's an anti-fraud/abuse measure.

If you did already successfully set up a Google Voice account using a non-gmail domain, then you might be able to transfer its phone number to a gmail based account; I know this works between one gmail account and another, but I haven't tested it to transfer a number from a non-gmail account.  Here are the instructions:  https://support.google.com/voice/answer/3527591?hl=en&ref_topic=1708124

Here are my step-by-step instructions for setting up Google Voice on your OBi:

http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=8560.msg56460#msg56460

[mkhomer]

Thanks for the input; I'll try it with the new g-mail account I set up and see what happens.