Obi/Google Voice disconnecting overnight
janice:
Dear SteveInWA, so am I to understand that the fact i upgraded the firmware hours prior to this happening, was concidental -- then running into all these issues was b/c google changed it's authenticaton methods out of nowhere, and then the firmware posted by Taosman (sp) which repaired the current problem was Obi responding to the problem?
I ask because if I understand you correctly i would retract my post prior to this and feel a lot better. thanks for your time.
vtsnaab:
Thank You Mango, for being so kindly helpful.
Quote from: Mango on May 19, 2016, 10:32:44 am
Yes, you can use ***01#.
Alternately, the SoftwareVersion (same thing) is displayed on the device's internal web server under Status >> System Status.
If the problem returns, try to dial ***6, 1. If that doesn't work, follow the instructions at http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=11256.msg73954#msg73954 . Let us know how things go.
As of later that day my Obi110 came back to normal and is fine.
My .02 in this matter is that essentially I agree with the poster named Janice - these folks have taken a very poor stance and show extreme disregard for their users IMO.
Using a forum to (mostly) get support from other users rather than having any direct support from the parent company is OK and not unusual, BUT:
Making users pay via indirect means and bricking devices are grand methods to make enemies IMO.
Also - like Janice, I am not averse to paying a small yearly fee; compared with a monthly landline bill it would be trivial - and if it became a large fee there are other ITSPs who offer very fair pricing.
The other spinoff of all this forum usage is that -IF- Obihai had properly scouted their territory as time went on, they would have realized that their users would find out about all the permutations of connecting with the world via VOIP far more quickly via exposure to other users than they would have if there had only been direct company support.
An ancient tale from me which relates:
Once upon a time I had a friend who was a real, geniune software genius.
He made a product that was unique and way ahead of its time.
It sold well and he made plenty from the sale of it.
Then the troubles began - here's why:
He was too cheap to create any support options from his own resources AND he despised doing it himself simply because he wanted to be writing code and NOT answering calls.
The moral of this story ??:
Bankruptcy, as his users got discouraged and simply turned their backs, no longer spreading word of his great software.
The customer is ALWAYS boss (as the old saying goes) and can easily fire everyone in any company right up to the owner - this is neither new nor is it likely to change.
Mango:
Quote from: janice on May 20, 2016, 08:43:29 pm
But nice people -- please have a great weekend and thanks again for getting me up and running until I find a replacement for this company.
There are plenty of great service providers besides Google Voice that are compatible with your OBi ATA. I see you're already familiar with Callcentric. As well, popular service providers include VoIP.ms and Anveo. If you don't want to use Google Voice or OBiTALK, I understand, but I urge you not to abandon Obihai's hardware. Their ATAs truly are the best on the market today.
Quote from: janice on May 20, 2016, 09:28:40 pm
running into all these issues was b/c google changed it's authenticaton methods out of nowhere, and then the firmware posted by Taosman (sp) which repaired the current problem was Obi responding to the problem?
I would not assume Google caused the problem, unless there is information suggesting that, that I'm not aware of.
Regardless of who caused the problem, Obihai certainly responded to it poorly. They could have pushed the firmware update automatically, or at the very least updated OBi-latest.fw and made ***6 operational. (Some users reported ***6 worked and some reported it did not.) I don't have a way of testing ***6, but OBi-latest.fw is still build 2872.
Taoman:
Quote from: janice on May 20, 2016, 09:28:40 pm
Dear SteveInWA, so am I to understand that the fact i upgraded the firmware hours prior to this happening, was concidental -- then running into all these issues was b/c google changed it's authenticaton methods out of nowhere, and then the firmware posted by Taosman (sp) which repaired the current problem was Obi responding to the problem?
Steve is more trusting of Obihai than I am. It is my belief this whole incident happened because Obihai released a new version of firmware for the 1xx series. Those people with an OBi1xx series device out of warranty and also having a Google Voice configuration began having issues. I have an OBi110 but do not have a Google Voice configuration and I had no issues at all with my device even with the older firmware. A similar situation happened when a new version of the 2xx series firmware was released although it wasn't as severe as this one apparently was. When the new 20x series firmware was released it seemed to only affect those who were trying to change their password or GV configuration and their devices were out of warranty. It didn't actually make the devices stop working if I remember right.
I am not saying Obihai planned for this to happen in the manner it did. I have no proof of that. But I am saying there was no "fix" released by Obihai. Google did not suddenly change their authentication protocol and Obihai had to quickly fix something. If that were the case why didn't it affect any 20x devices and why did this incident only happen to 1xx devices that were out of warranty?
What happened is Obihai released a new version of firmware for the 1xx series and it inadvertently, or on purpose, caused a lot of problems for a lot of people. The only fix was to update to that new firmware.
SteveInWA:
Quote from: janice on May 20, 2016, 09:28:40 pm
Dear SteveInWA, so am I to understand that the fact i upgraded the firmware hours prior to this happening, was concidental -- then running into all these issues was b/c google changed it's authenticaton methods out of nowhere, and then the firmware posted by Taosman (sp) which repaired the current problem was Obi responding to the problem?
I ask because if I understand you correctly i would retract my post prior to this and feel a lot better. thanks for your time.
It's likely coincidental that your prior update was the root cause of your problem. More likely, your update just happened to coincide with this outage, and by rebooting the device, you caused it to go into the failure condition.
Google didn't change it's authentication method "out of nowhere". This change was made more than 2 years ago. The new authentication method is more secure, and involves generating and exchanging secure access tokens, stored on your device, to authorize access to the Google Chat service for your Google account. Obihai released compliant firmware at that time, to allow all of its devices to continue to work with Google Chat.
An undisclosed, latent issue with the build 2872 firmware for 100/110 devices caused a failure to authenticate, starting the other day, with the OBiTALK portal's code that updates the keys. Obihai updated the firmware to the 2886 level, to fix this bug. This is the first such issue with the OBi/Google Voice authentication system since the new authentication method was introduced two years ago, and I don't expect it to be a regular occurrence.
Again, while this was poorly handled from a PR standpoint, they did promptly jump on the problem and fix it.
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