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Mysterious fax pickup by OBi202 on GV line?

Started by Weston, April 16, 2019, 11:06:36 AM

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Weston

Short version:  A GV line registered on my OBi202 picks us with a fax tone after 2 rings ... with no fax machine (or any other fax service) connected?  Not sure what is prompting this pick up?  When I remove the line from my OBi202, it goes back to the standard GV voicemail greeting, picking up after about 4 rings (normal behavior).  So I think something about the OBi202 is causing this fax tone "pick up"?  Thoughts?

More detail:

I have several GV lines/numbers, two of which I have registered on my OBi202.  One of them, once upon a time, was an AT&T POTS line, which I moved all the way over to GV.  I had previously used this line with my fax machine (while a POTS line), and didn't use it much, so I found moving in to GV saved me the cost of the line, while letting me keep the number.

Anyway, I registered this GV line/account with my OBi202, and, after a while, I realized that the multi-function printer on my desk has a fax capability ... so I wondered if I could hook up this MFP to the OBi202 and send/receive faxes periodically.  Tested that out, and it worked just fine with a 1-2 page fax.  I didn't do more testing, and disconnected the cable between the MFP and OBi202, to prevent spammers from delivering junk faxes (as they had in the past with my old POTS fax machine).  Seems good, right?  I can just add the cable connection back whenever I want to reenable the fax capability, right?

Well, almost.  Seems like, for some reason, all of that (maybe) tipped off my OBi202 that I may be using that GV line for faxing, and now it is trying to answer those fax calls itself, and sending them to ... I don't know where.  Does anyone have any thoughts on what the OBi202 is trying to do here?  I have deregistered and registered the GV line on the device several times, so the behavior is repeatable. 


Sheffield_Steve

Make sure you unplugged the right cable..  Everything you say seems to lead to the fact that the fax is still connected to the Obi202.

Weston

Yes ... that's what I ultimately discovered, but with a twist.  It wasn't clear to me that a single OBi202 phone port could handle multiple lines, if the wiring connecting to it could do so as well.

When I assigned GV Line 1 to Phone 1 in the OBi202 Dashboard, I assumed that meant incoming calls would be routed to Phone 1 on the back of the OBi202.  Similarly, when I assigned GV Line 2 (this old fax number) to Phone 2, I assumed that would route the calls to Phone 2 on the back of the OBi202.  But Phone 2 has no cable connected presently ... which made me wonder where are these calls going?

Sure enough, the OBi202 has figured out that the wire connected to Phone 1 was previously configured (when we had AT&T Uverse Voice) to carry two lines (a 4-wire CAT5E cable), and route them to two different locations in our building.  Is this capability documented somewhere in the OBi202 materials?

What would be simpler is if "Phone 1" on the OBi202 Dashboard meant "Phone 1" on the back of the device (and only that - forever and always), and the same for Phone 2.  But this seems more complicated and unpredictable than that.  Anyway, mystery solved.  Replacing the Phone 1 outgoing cable with a 2-wire cable resolved the issue.


drgeoff

The PHONE1 jack on an OBi202 is deliberately wired to support a 2-line phone using a single 4 conductor cable.  The centre two pins (3 and 4) are Line1 as normal.  The next two (2 and 5) are hard wired to the centre two (3 and 4) of the PHONE2 jack.

Weston

Thanks for clarifying that.  Good to know for future use.