obiswitch phones stop working ransomly - unpluggin and replugging wires fixes it

[JasonJacks225]

Hi,

I have a bunch of Obi504 (8 port) switches.

Today several of the phones on different Obi switches/ports randomly stopped working. Took me several hours to figure out that if I disconnect the phone wire from those phones obi switch ports and plug the wire back in a few moments later - everything works fine.

It's driving me nuts. Anyone have any clue whats going on?

thanks

[drgeoff]

Perhaps they are trying to tell you that they don't like being thought of as switches. 

The only diagnostic information that would be less informative than your "Stopped working" is no information at all.

[JasonJacks225]

Apologies - "stopped working" = the phone no longer sends or receives calls. Picking up the phone produces no dial tone.

I did figure 1 thing out - all the phones that stopped working randomly we all connected to the obi with straight rj11 cables, not crossed rj11 cables.

Why would the fact that the cables are crossed or not matter?

thanks

[drgeoff]

Apologies - "stopped working" = the phone no longer sends or receives calls. Picking up the phone produces no dial tone.

I did figure 1 thing out - all the phones that stopped working randomly we all connected to the obi with straight rj11 cables, not crossed rj11 cables.

Why would the fact that the cables are crossed or not matter?

thanks

You need the centre two pins at one end connected to two centre pins at the other.  A cross of the two wires does not matter.

Are you wiring with a single cord between OBi and phones or is there more wiring via distribution panels, extension jacks etc?  Are all the phones single line (or wired up as single line) or are there multiple line phones connected as such?

OBis give dial tone irrespective of configuration or network connection so lack of dial tone is almost always due to one of these three causes:

1.  Faulty wiring between OBi and phone.
2.  Faulty phone.
3.  Faulty phone interface in the OBi.  It is rare for such faults to be temporary.  Usually if a phone port is damaged it stays dead.