OBI202 and Faxing

[Lavarock7]

I have 2 Obi202's (setting one up for a non-profit org). I found that one Faxes and the other doesn't. I'm sill testing but here is what I have found. I sent a 5 page Fax to CallCentric using GoogleVoice.

The Obi202 that works is connected directly to my cable modem.

The Obi that doesn't fax (keeps giving communications errors) is connected to a router which connects to the Obi202 that works and then to the modem. I looked at the SIP and SP items and also at the QOS pages. The only difference is that on the Obi that works I also have enabled (rather than default) the Firewall and DRDOSAttackProtection.

Until I can do further testing, I wonder if moving the Obi I'm setting up to be connected directly to the modem might solve my problem.

I'll report back if I find the definitive answer as to whether the Obi placement makes a difference in the ability to Fax more consistently.

[Shale]

I presume that voice calls are successful from that phone port that is unable to successfully fax.

I would first move the fax machine that works to the other OBi202. That test would more likely explain the difference as my initial guess.

Still, I think your idea makes sense to try. If the QOS of the OBi router hooked to the modem is causing less jitter, then that would make sense that it would help faxing. So if your computers that are consuming bandwidth during the fax try are holding up the fax traffic, that could explain what you are seeing. We look forward to the results of your test. A successful outcome from your test would probably get a lot of others to try the OBi as router doing QOS.

[Lavarock7]

I swapped the test Obi with the working Obi and still could not connect (I may have some other config different, who knows). By the way, voice calls work fine on both units. I am using different GV accounts for the calls, and the software revs are the same, so the next 2 tests are:

1) Configure the test Obi to use the same GV account. If it starts working, then it means that the exchange the GV number is on adds to the problem.

2) Copy then load the working Obi config into the test Obi and use it as the first device after the modem.  If this works, then it is probably an Obi configuration issue.

I have had the "production" Obi working for quite a while as the 1st device because I often have downloads going or other heavy usage when talking to my "geek" friend who would be the first to comment on bad audio :-)

If these tests do not confirm why one Obi seems to fax OK and the other doesn't, the non-profit I am testing this for will get my "certified pre-owned" unit and I'll continue playing to find a way to get my own fax system working with the ornery Obi.

[Shale]

So the problem follows the OBi.

I would export backups from both units. I would then use a diff (difference) type program to look for differences. For plain text, WinMerge is my favorite such program.

The backups from the OBi local web page are in XML. However I just tried WinMerge on two backup files, and the results look useful.

WinMerge will show differences with a yellow background, at least as I have it set up. While the program will allow you to copy or move snippets from one file to the other (hence "merge"), it works very well to simply show differences.

[dircom]

offtopic
thanks Shale... never heard of winmerge...
nice

[Shale]

Glad you like it. It has been useful to me.

It has been a while since I looked at the documentation. Upon searching a bit, I find that there is an XML plugin. http://manual.winmerge.org/Plugins.html That plugin is not needed for the OBI backup files, since the OBI XML items are all terminated with linefeed (LF = ctrl+J = 0xa) characters. I see WinMerge can work with CR, LF, and CRLF terminated lines, and you can choose to ignore the difference during compares.

I also see that it has a PDF plugin. I have used a PDF diff program, but I have yet to try compare PDF files in WinMerge.

[Lavarock7]

After a long night of testing (and making sure I didn't once dial somebodies home phone and wake them up).. I had mixed success.

Swapping power supplies no difference

Tried to configure by uploading my config, had a bit of prob configuring SP1, no difference

took my good unit and changed GV to their acct, fax got error 345

tried fax again, did not connect

changed back to my gv account, err 344

Tried again, 346

Finally decided that since Callcentric and the Obi202 can both do T.38 (and Voip.Ms, my provider doesn't yet), I tried this test:

I configured an Obi202 to connect to a callcentric account. There I configured my free NYC number to go to Fax. I know CC fax works well receiving.

This allows me to mostly simulate sending a fax to a landline (although not quite).

The fax machine connects to CC as an extension, then I call the other extension which receives the fax. That worked consistently.

We bought a local number because we do get faxes in from people out here and we wanted a local number. Rather than pay to move that number also to callcentric, I configured and tested this:

The local number forwards to a SIP URI (connected to my local NYC number) at CallCentric which goes to the virtual fax machine, which send the fax to us by email as a PDF. Works well too. I know it sounds complicated but if it is supported and works, I'm happy with it.

The next test is to change the account to a pay per call and start faxing to a real fax machine situated back here in Hawaii (on a DSL connection). If that works, then I will keep the account for faxing. I don't really know how much faxing they are doing (it's a delicate question because the secretary is not technically proficient and there is nobody to help her). She may be faxing instead of directing people to the website for info. They faxed lots of stuff to the mainland at a tremendous cost, so we are diplomatically trying to see what's up and how we can cut costs. Their current system is a business line at $45 a month, thus the move to try to lower all costs to maybe $5 a month!

I have farming to do today, so I may have to shelve this problem for a while.

[azrobert]

We bought a local number because we do get faxes in from people out here and we wanted a local number. Rather than pay to move that number also to callcentric, I configured and tested this:

The local number forwards to a SIP URI (connected to my local NYC number) at CallCentric which goes to the virtual fax machine, which send the fax to us by email as a PDF. Works well too. I know it sounds complicated but if it is supported and works, I'm happy with it.

You can route the fax to your Callcentric account number instead of the N.Y. number.

I used my OBi110 and GV to send faxes to Callcentric.
This is my inbound call route for my GV trunk:

{sp2(17771234567@in.callcentric.com;ui=$1)}