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obi keeps activating my phones

Started by rikev, November 19, 2011, 09:01:49 AM

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rikev

I have an obi100 and 3 cordless Philips brand phones (model "id 937"), one of which is the main base-station phone that is physically connected to the obi.

Normally, if you put one of the phones back onto its charging cradle, it will make a little ding-ding sound, and also the LCD and number pad will light up briefly.

However, lately, the phones, while they are already on their charging cradles, will frequently light up and play the sound, all 3 phones at the same time, for apparently no reason (no voicemail received, nothing). This doesn't happen if the obi is disconnected from them, so i don't see how it could be the fault of the phones.

Also, if the obi is turned on, and connected to the main phone, but the the obi's ethernet connection is removed, it still happens, which suggests to me that the problem is not from signals coming to the obi from google voice, but due to the obi itself.

Any ideas? Does my obi need to be replaced??

Thanks for any help.

tismon

This is happening to our cordless phones as well, and I believe only since the last firmware, but I could be wrong on that part. This is very annoying as we have one next to our bed and it lights up the whole room randomly in the middle of the night. Are there any fixes for this?

obi-support2

Please check if you have the option X_VMWIEnable (under SP1/2 Service)
checked. If so, please try unchecking this option.
Reason could be the OBi is trying to refresh the VMWI lamp on your phone periodically.
If your phone don't have such facility or you don't care about this, you
can simply turn off this feature. You might need to use the OBi expert page
on the OBiTALK portal (or the device web page directly) to modify this.
OBIHAI Support Staff

tismon

Thank you for the reply. I've unchecked the far right box on the obitalk portal, but left the middle "Device Default" box automatically check. Should I make sure that all three boxes are unchecked or is the one enough?

Thanks again.

obi-support2

That means you are using the Device own default value, which is unchecked.
So that should be fine. See if that works better for you. Thank you.
OBIHAI Support Staff

rikev

#5
After making the change, so far, it seems that the problem is no longer occurring. However, this is a temporary workaround, as I would like to have the message waiting indicator function. My phones do indeed have an LED that blinks when a message is available on the service provider. Like tismon, I also feel like the problem started after the latest firmware upgrade, although I really am not sure about that, it is possible it started before then. But in the last week the problem had become very frequent, sometimes happening once per minute, so that I had to just disconnect the obi.

Do you think this is something that can be solved by a firmware/settings fix (while keeping MWI function), or do you think there is a problem with our OBi's causing it, and need to replace the OBi's? Or maybe, the obi has some incompatibility with some phone models?

Note: for anyone trying this, I was using the settings interface that you get at the direct IP address of the obi (NOT via the expert config area of obitalk dashboard). The field is under Voice Settings-->SP1 (you'll have to do SP2 also if you have 2 service providers set up). For the X_VMWIEnable field, there were 2 checkbox options. I unchecked the one in the "Value" column, but after applying this and rebooting the obi, the setting would not stick (it became re-checked) and the problem persisted. So, I unchecked again, and also checked the box in the second column ("Default"), and I also did the same for the field above it "MWIEnable". After that, the settings seem to have stuck.

obi-support2

Quote from: rikev on November 22, 2011, 06:02:36 AM
My phones do indeed have an LED that blinks when a message is available on the service provider.

On your phone, does that LED clearly marked as a message waiting indicator, or
just a generic LED. Most phones do not have VMWI function (not a common feature);
for phones that do support this, it is clearly marked on the packaging and also on the
phone itself near the indicator.

Many phones on the other hand may have indicator for missed calls, or voicemail available
on its local integrated answering machine. Just to make sure that not it in your case.

OBIHAI Support Staff

rikev

#7
Well, I believe the LED does act as a true VMWI, but not only that, it will also blink for missed calls. If I disconnect the obi, then call my google voice and leave a voicemail, then reconnect the obi, I think after a little while, the LED will start blinking. I have not tested it in that way, but I am pretty sure that's how it works. I know the phone can detect voicemail at the service provider...it has separate icons to show how many voicemails (on remote server) and how many answering machine messages (locally stored, which for me is none, because I de-activated the local answering machine.)

In the phone user manual it says:

QuoteEvent LED
The event LED on your handset blinks when there is a new message recorded on your telephone answering machine. If you have subscribed to Caller Line Identification, the event LED also blinks when there is a new call or a new voice mail message.

So, now, after deactivating MWI in obi, I guess the phone will still blink after all missed calls, but maybe the voicemail icon on the LCD will no longer appear when a voicemail is left... I will test that tonight.

rikev

So, I can say that, while the frequency of the problem is much less after having modified the settings, it still happens occasionally. It happened last night, twice in a row. This is at least tolerable so I can leave the obi connected, but still, I'd like to know if this can be eliminated.

One of my predictions was wrong: the voice mail icon on the LCD DOES still work. So deactivating the two fields mentioned previously does not prevent the obi from reporting voice mails, it just doesn't tell the phone to activate the LED, I guess. I have not tested whether the LED would become activated if a voice mail is left with the service provider while the obi and phones are disconnected, then reconnected afterward, but that is not of much concern, as that scenario is unlikely and the icon shows up anyway, which is sufficient.

One strange thing however: when there is a voice mail (just one) at the service provider, the phones start reporting an additional new voice mail every time the obi checks, which appears to be once per minute, and each time, the phone makes the ding-ding and LCD lights up (ie, the problem appears). This is not as much of a problem though, as I can just listen to the voice mail and it will stop. However, it seems that if I went on vacation, the phone would be lighting up every minute until I could come back and mark all the messages read at the service provider.