Stumped at square one of setup

[Yardvaark]

After searching for hours I seem not an inch closer to getting the Obi100 installed and working. I have a laptop, the Obi, a walkie-talkie phone and a working router. The Obi is connected by LAN to router router. The phone is connected to Obi. Things are powered. The left light on Obi is solid green. The center light blinks. The right light is not on or blinking. The display on the phone reads "no line." I'm thinking it will not have a line until after the Obi is installed. But to install the Obi, it requires that I dial a number. When I try to dial (as directed during "add a device" I hear no tone, beeps or anything at all. Yet just fiddling with the phone menu makes it seem like it's alive. Just "no line."

Meanwhile, I obtained the Obi account and installed a "softphone" (which I don't get how it fits in to any of this... and also I don't understand how to answer the questions it's asking me: user name, domain name, password, etc.... to, or of, what?? ...the Obi account?)  Also, on the Obi account it says the Obi number of my softphone is a completely different number from what's on the bottom of the Obi itself. I haven't seen anywhere to enter the number from the bottom of the Obi into anything.

I am am so completely clueless and frustrated that I am ready to scream. I've read all kinds of detailed "reviews" on Amazon, looking for clues, and everyone is talking about how EASY this is to set up. "I was making calls in 5 minutes." It just hurts! Can anyone point me in any direction where I can make just a little headway? I would be so appreciative.

[RonR]

When I try to dial (as directed during "add a device" I hear no tone, beeps or anything at all.

An OBi100 stright out of the box with nothing more than a standard telephone connected to it should have dialtone.  It's Ethernet port need not be connected and the unit need not be configured in any way.  You should be able to dial **0 and reach the internal Auto Attendant or ***0 and reach the internal configuration menu.

Disconnect everything but the power suppy and telephone.  Using a paperclip, depress the reset button that's accessible through the hole in the bottom with a circle around it.  Hold it depressed for at least 30 seconds.  This will return the OBi to factory defaults.  If you have a working telephone and cord connected to the OBi PHONE Port and you still don't get a dialtone, you have a defective OBi.

[RevKev]

Your phone should not show "no line" even if the obi has not been configured. There's something not working between the phone and the obi (the wire, the connection, a bad port - either phone or obi).

The softphone in your account can be used on a computer, cell phone, ipod, ipad, etc. to access your obi to make/receive calls (a software based phone). Its number is different than the obi. To get the obi to show up on your account, you need to add the device.

[Yardvaark]

When one says "working" phone does that mean a phone that functions properly IF IT WAS CONNECTED to some kind of working telecom system? Or does it mean one that IS CONNECTED to a working telecom system. I'm thinking that the Obi will be the telecom system. I have no other phone service.

I pushed the reset button and held it. The green light turned red and when I let it go, there was lots of green blinking and then I'm back to where I was with green left light, occasional green blink center light, no right light and a phone that displays "no line."

[RonR]

When one says "working" phone does that mean a phone that functions properly IF IT WAS CONNECTED to some kind of working telecom system? Or does it mean one that IS CONNECTED to a working telecom system. I'm thinking that the Obi will be the telecom system. I have no other phone service.

If you have a standard telephone set that is known to work when plugged into a normal PSTN telco line, then it should work with an OBi and should get a dialtone from an OBi.  The telephone set connected to the OBi should not be connected to anything but the OBi.

If a normal telephone set and cord that is known to work with a normal PSTN line doesn't get dialtone when connected to an OBi, it's likely that the OBi is defective.  I'd certainly try a second known working telephone set and cord, preferably of a different brand, before coming to that final conclusion and sending it back as defective.

[lk96]

When I try to dial (as directed during "add a device" I hear no tone, beeps or anything at all.

An OBi100 stright out of the box with nothing more than a standard telephone connected to it should have dialtone.  It's Ethernet port need not be connected and the unit need not be configured in any way.  You should be able to dial **0 and reach the internal Auto Attendant or ***0 and reach the internal configuration menu.

Disconnect everything but the power suppy and telephone.  Using a paperclip, depress the reset button that's accessible through the hole in the bottom with a circle around it.  Hold it depressed for at least 30 seconds.  This will return the OBi to factory defaults.  If you have a working telephone and cord connected to the OBi PHONE Port and you still don't get a dialtone, you have a defective OBi.

Just as a reference point (may be pointing to some bug):
I had a situation earlier today where I lost my internet connection because of some weird malfunction
of my Dlink router. In my case I also have the LINE port of the Obi110 connected to a Vonage adaptor
which obviously also lost phone service because there was no internet connection.

The strange observation is that when I picked up the phone attached to this obi I had no dial tone.
It's obvious that I had lost my SP1, SP2, and LINE connections. But I found it weird that
I got no dial tone coming from the Obi. Something was hosed.

Dialtone was restored once internet connection was restored. And what
was interesting is that dialtone was restored without rebooting the Obi.
I haven't been able to reproduce that state.

I would double check that your cables are OK (or even replace if you have spares them just
in case to be sure). And also try to pull your Ethernet cable from the Obi and reboot.
For sure you need your ethernet connection for any form of service or upgrades but
for now just try it out in case it restores your tone. If that happens we can take it from there.

L.

[RonR]

I had a situation earlier today where I lost my internet connection because of some weird malfunction
of my Dlink router. In my case I also have the LINE port of the Obi110 connected to a Vonage adaptor
which obviously also lost phone service because there was no internet connection.

The strange observation is that when I picked up the phone attached to this obi I had no dial tone.
It's obvious that I had lost my SP1, SP2, and LINE connections. But I found it weird that
I got no dial tone coming from the Obi. Something was hosed.

Dialtone was restored once internet connection was restored. And what
was interesting is that dialtone was restored without rebooting the Obi.
I haven't been able to reproduce that state.

When the Ethernet port of an OBi goes from connected to disconnected to connected again, the OBi reboots itself.  During this reboot period, you will not have dialtone.  I suspect that's what you experienced.

Before I posted earlier, and again before posting this, I powered up an OBi100 with no Ethernet cable attached and the telephone attached to the PHONE Port gets dialtone as soon as the OBi finishes the booting.

[lk96]

When the Ethernet port of an OBi goes from connected to disconnected to connected again, the OBi reboots itself.  During this reboot period, you will not have dialtone.  I suspect that's what you experienced.

There was absolutely no disruption (or fooling around) with cabling
when the Obi got into and stayed in that state for couple hours (I was physically
out of the house).
When I got back and was informed that all phones were down, I started by just
pinging various elements and servers through the Dlink router to pin-point the failure
and I confirmed that I had lost internet access. Eventually the only
thing I did was to power-cycle the Dlink box. And physically that  box is about 9 ft away
from the Obis. And all the network devices are on UPS.
Immediately following the reboot and without any other intervention from my side,
I got dial tone from the Obi.

In my case the Obis use DHCP. However, on the Dlink side
I assign fixed IP address to the Obis (based on MAC address).
The Obis are running the latest firmware release (from Jan 10).

Like I said, I didn't see this behavior before, and couldn't reproduce it by
cutting off connectivity either.

BTW, thanks for the clarification that the Obi reboots when cable is disconnected:
I was curious why the relay was clicking.

[Telefon]

Yardvaark: Find the youtube video titled "How to Use an OBi Device with GoogleVoice"

[RonR]

There was absolutely no disruption (or fooling around) with cabling
when the Obi got into and stayed in that state for couple hours (I was physically
out of the house).

I didn't mean physically disconnected.  When your router crashed, it almost certainly dropped all the Ethernet connections.  When you power-cycled the router, it rebooted and brought all of its Ethernet connections back up.  In all likelihood, your OBi rebooted shortly thereafter.

[lk96]

There was absolutely no disruption (or fooling around) with cabling
when the Obi got into and stayed in that state for couple hours (I was physically
out of the house).

I didn't mean physically disconnected.  When your router crashed, it almost certainly dropped all the Ethernet connections.  When you power-cycled the router, it rebooted and brought all of its Ethernet connections back up.  In all likelihood, your OBi rebooted shortly thereafter.

The Obi is not connected with a direct cable to the router: there is an ethernet switch in the middle.
So the path is like this:

Obi110 <--->8-port Eth switch <---> Dlink router <---> Cable modem

So  when the router failed or rebooted, the Obi will not see the ethernet link going down.
And as posted earlier (unless I misunderstand you) the lack of tone
was there for couple hours and not transiently while the power-cycling was happening.

BTW, the same issue re-occurred around 1:30am last night: this time my Comcast cable connection
went out (modem lights were showing that and also there was disruption to internet access). A few
minutes later I picked up the handset to check on the Obi status and there was no tone. I flashed the
line multiple times just to be sure that it was not the phone failing to go off-hook etc. By the time
I woke up this morning everything was back to normal and obviously this happened without any human intervention.

I wonder if the original issue posted in this thread is somehow linked to what I'm experiencing:
that lack of internet connectivity, even if it doesn't show up in the form of ethernet link-down event
in the obi, could lead to lack of dial tone. The original poster mentions that his obi was also
connected to the router through a LAN. It is worth checking  whether something is going on on
the LAN or whether his router is acting up for some reason blocking traffic on ports etc.

I will retry tonight or over the weekend to reproduce my observation.

L.

[Yardvaark]

I took the Obi to my mom's and plugged it into her router and got the same result: steady green left light; occasional blinking center light; no light at right. Phone reads "no line". She had another regular (not walkie talkie) phone there so I plugged it in to Obi and heard and saw no sign of life... no sound at all; nothing. Is it likely the Obi is not working correctly?

[lk96]

I took the Obi to my mom's and plugged it into her router and got the same result: steady green left light; occasional blinking center light; no light at right. Phone reads "no line". She had another regular (not walkie talkie) phone there so I plugged it in to Obi and heard and saw no sign of life... no sound at all; nothing. Is it likely the Obi is not working correctly?

I assume you used a different set of cables (including the RJ11 phone cable)
when you moved the Obi to the other location?
And I also assume you did reset the Obi to factory config by pressing+holding for a while the little
button through the hole on the bottom? If so, I don't have any other suggestions. You may want
to start considering initiating an RMA with Amazon (if you got it through Amazon).

L.

[Yardvaark]

Yes. So that's what I will do... return. Thank you all for your help.

[Yardvaark]

Following up with this thread...

I received my replacement Obi100 today and within minutes it was hooked up and when I plugged the phone into it... VOILA!, a dial tone! So that's what it was... my first Obi100 was DOA! Then it was nothing but frustration and mystery.  Now, everything was a breeze. (I will be researching a separate  issue... why I can't make it ring instead of going to voice mail. Other than that, it's great.) I made a call. It sounds fantastic!