No dialtone on Obi202

[Milos]

I wonder if anybody would be able to help me with this weird problem with Obi202: With no action performed, both phone ports' status LEDs are ON. Incoming calls can be completed normally – the phone attached to the associated port rings, and the communication is clear. If there is no call coming on the phone ports, and the phone's handset is lifted, the phone port's status LED blinks, but there is no dialtone. This is true for both phone ports. The phone port status on the web interface is shown as normal for both ports, voltage levels are normal.
This device worked well for more than a year, and then this problem appeared sometimes within the last 6 months. I am not sure when since I did not use this Obi for quite some time.

Does this look like a firmware related problem? My firmware is 3.2.2 (Build: 5898EX).
Thanks,
Milos

[SteveInWA]

Hi:

That's not a firmware problem.  It's probably a telephone problem.  Did you wire the OBi into your building's wiring?  If so, fully disconnect the OBi from all telephone connections.  Plug a known-working telephone directly into the Phone 1 jack on the OBi.  By "known working", I mean:  you can plug that phone into some other telephone service (NOT the OBi, lift the receiver, and hear a dial tone).  Do you hear a dial tone?

[Milos]

Hi Steve, long time no hear. I really appreciate you trying to help me again with one of my issues.

This is Obi202, so there is no line connection to connect it to. Yes, I use a known good phone, it is one of those analog wired phones that last forever. I connect that phone to a known good Obi110 that I also have, and the dialtone is good. I also tried to daisy chain Obi110 with Obi202, and Obi202 does not work in that configuration either. This happens with each of the two phone ports on Obi202. What is puzzling to me is that I can call either of the phone ports on Obi202, and the phone attached to that port rings, and a good connection is established. So incoming calls are good on those ports, but they don't work in the opposite direction.

Sometimes, Obi202 cannot even recover from the error on its own, meaning that both phone port LEDs start blinking, and they keep blinking forever. The only way to fix in that state is to recycle the power.

Thanks,

[SteveInWA]

I don't recall reading a case where a phone worked on inbound calls, but had no dialtone.  I strongly advise that you try using a different telephone as a troubleshooting test.  If it still fails, your OBi device may have failed, but before replacing it, you could perform a full restore of factory defaults, then plug in the phone and see what happens.  The phone should have a dial tone even if it isn't connected to the internet, and even if no SPs are configured.

[Milos]

Those will be my next steps, thanks,

[Milos]

I tried with two different phones, and I did not hear the dial tone with either one of them. I did factory reset, and another weird thing happened. When I got to the point during the setup, when I needed to dial **5 XXXX number from the phone attached to one of obi's ports, the dial tone was there. I was very happy thinking that the reset did the trick. Unfortunately, after Obi finished the setup process, the phone ports went to the old state, where there is no dial tone, but the incoming calls are handled fine. The only difference now is that the phone port's LEDs are normally turned off, and they blink when there is an incoming call.

It seems to me that this issue might not be hardware related, since the dial tone was present during the setup process. I actually repeated the reset process twice, and both times I was able to hear the dial tone and I was able to dial **5 XXXX, I heard Obi's response after that, and the setup process finished fine.

[SteveInWA]

Before doing a restore to factory defaults, did you first completely delete the device off of your OBiTALK portal account?  If not, then go here and delete it:  http://www.obitalk.com/obinet/pg/obhdev

Then, wait plenty of time for the portal to remotely reset the device.  Then, unplug the power and Ethernet cables from the device and turn it upside-down on a flat surface.  Use a straightened paper clip, find the small round bump on the bottom with a hole in the middle. This is the reset switch.  Gently insert and depress the button until you feel a click.  Hold it in that position while you plug in only the power cable.  Wait at least ten seconds, then release the paper clip.  Turn the device over and watch the LEDs, while the device restores to factory default.  It will take several minutes and several reboots before it is finished.  After it settles down, then unplug the power cord, plug in both the Ethernet cable and the power cord, and let it reboot again.

Do not re-add it to the OBiTALK portal yet.  Pick up the phone and key in **1.  Does it read back a 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x local LAN IP address?  If not, you have a network problem.  If so, then pick up the phone.  Do you have a dialtone?  If not, stop here.  If so, key in **9 222 222 222.  Does it connect to the OBiTALK echo test?  If so, can you hear yourself talking?

If it is now working, as defined by a dial tone, an IP address and a successful call to the echo test, then it's working.  Do not re-register it with the OBiTALK portal.

Do you have an account with a SIP VoIP service provider (ITSP) like Callcentric, voip.ms, etc?  If not, go to Callcentric and sign up for one of their free accounts.  You do not yet need to pay them for calling.

Open the device's own embedded web server at the IP address you obtained above. Configure SP1 with the ITSP's default values, then see if you can get a dial tone.

[Milos]

I reset everything, and everything was working fine, the dial tone was fine too. Thinking that the problem was fixed, I added the device to Obitalk. Then I made the change I needed - changed InboundCallRoute for phone 1 to Bluetooth, and that caused the dial tone to stop working. When I changed it back to SP1, the dial tone was working again. I tried this a few times, and the results were always the same. I tried this with phone 2 port, and got the same results.

I wonder if there is any additional setup that I need to do in order for this to work. I could not find anything on that either in the AdminGuide, or on this forum.

[SteveInWA]

Then I made the change I needed - changed InboundCallRoute for phone 1 to Bluetooth, and that caused the dial tone to stop working.

Wait, what?  Why are you doing that?  It's very likely causing the problem.

[Milos]

I was not aware until my last post that specifying Bluetooth option caused this issue. Since Obi202 allows this option, it seems logical that this option is allowed. Otherwise, this option would not be available in the setup.
The reason I am doing this is because GV cannot properly send the alarm signal from my alarm system to the alarm company. OBI dials the alarm company's phone number, the connection is established, but the signal somehow gets distorted and the alarm company does not receive a proper signal. This happened last summer, until then the GV signal was OK, so I believe that problem was caused by GV changing their signal format. I wanted to try to use a cell phone to communicate with the alarm company. I am not sure if that would work, but I wanted to try. Again, I did not think that specifying one of the available options in the setup would not actually be allowed. Now I wonder if any OBI user ever tried that option.

[SteveInWA]

There is no f-ing way that you could possibly send a usable signal to an alarm monitoring company via OBi-->Bluetooth-->Mobile.  It'll never work.  The ancient signal protocol used by the panels cannot stand any sort of digital<-->analog conversion, let alone over two sub-optimal paths through BT and mobile voice calls.

Get your alarm company to install a dedicated cellular data modem.  They are specifically designed for that purpose, require no user action, and have their own, dedicated backup battery.  They work over 4G LTE data connections.  If you use ADT, their primary monitoring method is now via a direct TCP/IP gateway (not VoIP), with cellular data as a backup.

[Milos]

Thanks. Sorry for wasting your time. As I said, I have just realized a few hours ago what caused the no dial tone problem. Regardless of my intention, I still wonder why OBI would allow an option that would actually not work. I am surprised that nobody tried that option before me, and that Obi did not test it.

[SteveInWA]

Well, they added that option some years ago, never documented it (no surprise), and yes, people have used it successfully a few times (at least as reported here on the forum).  It's kind of a ripoff of Google Voice, since the service was never designed/intended to be used for that purpose, and when you use it, you have to dedicate that entire GV number to the panel, and not use it for regular calling.

It was always a crapshoot if it would work at all, and since Google has changed so much of the GV infrastructure in the past year and a half, it's no surprise that it no longer works for you.

[Milos]

Sure. I still don't understand why Obi allowed the Bluetooth trunk to be specified as a Primary Line option for the phone ports, if that cannot work at all. I unnecessarily spent several hours of my time, and a few minutes of your time because of that.