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OBI 202 with GV: incoming calls issue

Started by FromNY, March 27, 2020, 02:26:31 PM

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SteveInWA

Quote from: QSnexus on March 28, 2020, 06:10:21 PM
Quote from: SteveInWA on March 28, 2020, 04:07:28 PM
This has nothing to do with firmware, nor your Panasonic phone.  However, if you are using Google Voice incorrectly, that's another issue:  do not use an answering machine with Google Voice.  Let Google Voice be your "answering machine", and, if you have any linked phone numbers (e.g. a conventional land line or mobile phone number), you must enable Conditional Call Forwarding on all of those phone numbers, or else one of them may grab calls before you can answer on the OBiTALK device or on one of the other linked devices/numbers.

I've escalated this to Google Voice engineering, but as I've stated, between this being a weekend, and the virus, I do not expect immediate resolution.

That would be easier said than done for my house. I would have no problem with Google Voice handling the home phone voice mail, my wife and kids are very used to having a physical answering machine on our 6 x cordless home phones and likes that she doesn't need to use an app to check anything and hear / see the lights on the base station for missed calls/VM's, and as well when her parents who visit us for months at a time during the year they don't have smartphones that can access voice mail and they like to check voice mail when they are here.  That is the primary reason why we still use have an answering machine enabled on Google Voice + Obi200 + home phone.  I'm going to believe that others in this thread reporting the issue are in the same boat.

I understand, but honestly, I don't see that as a valid excuse.  If you only want to use Google Voice as a free phone line, then use a bare-bones SIP VoIP ITSP instead, like Callcentric or voip.ms.  Your use case is NOT what Google Voice is intended to support.

Taoman

According to an "engineer with the Google telephony backend" the issue with incoming GV calls to OBi devices disconnecting should now be fixed.

https://support.google.com/voice/thread/36202738?hl=en&msgid=36528947


SteveInWA

Quote from: QSnexus on March 28, 2020, 06:10:21 PM
Quote from: SteveInWA on March 28, 2020, 04:07:28 PM
This has nothing to do with firmware, nor your Panasonic phone.  However, if you are using Google Voice incorrectly, that's another issue:  do not use an answering machine with Google Voice.  Let Google Voice be your "answering machine", and, if you have any linked phone numbers (e.g. a conventional land line or mobile phone number), you must enable Conditional Call Forwarding on all of those phone numbers, or else one of them may grab calls before you can answer on the OBiTALK device or on one of the other linked devices/numbers.

I've escalated this to Google Voice engineering, but as I've stated, between this being a weekend, and the virus, I do not expect immediate resolution.

That would be easier said than done in my household. While I would have no problem with Google Voice handling the voice mail for home phone, my wife and kids are very used to having a physical answering machine on our 6 x cordless home phones in every room and they like tht they don't need to use an app to check anything and hear and see the flashing lights and beep tones on the base station and handsets for missed calls & VM's (we wouldn't like the voice mail to the kids GV anyhow).  When her parents, who speak only Mandarin and Taiwanese, come to visit us for months at a time every year they don't have smartphones that can access the GV app (let alone attempt to utilize the Google Voice app + website which can only be displayed in English (on any device) even though the Android phone or web browser is set to Chinese language native at the OS and browser level) and play the messages on answering machine when here (they only need to know how to press the play button under the flashing light on base station).  That is the primary reason why we still use have an answering machine enabled on Google Voice + Obi200 + home phone.  I would believe that others in this thread reporting the issue are in the same boat.

At the moment we do have it working this way, with answering machine off, because that is they only way that we are able to answer the incoming home Google Voice calls (we aren't attempting to answer the phone using the actual house Panasonic phone handsets), for now we use our two cell phones with GV to get around the call answering issue, as that works fine to answer calls, until the back-end issue is resolved.

In that case, you are not the target user for Google Voice.  Get a bare-bones SIP DID number, or port out your Google Voice number, to a SIP ITSP such as voip.ms or Callcentric.  You can either use their voicemail, which will correctly activate/deactivate your phones' message waiting LEDs and stutter tones, or, turn off their voicemail and use the answering machine.

SteveInWA

Quote from: Taoman on March 29, 2020, 12:20:14 PM
According to an "engineer with the Google telephony backend" the issue with incoming GV calls to OBi devices disconnecting should now be fixed.

https://support.google.com/voice/thread/36202738?hl=en&msgid=36528947



"Under-promise; over-deliver".  You're welcome.

jldeon

Quote from: SteveInWA on March 29, 2020, 06:19:34 PM
Quote from: Taoman on March 29, 2020, 12:20:14 PM
According to an "engineer with the Google telephony backend" the issue with incoming GV calls to OBi devices disconnecting should now be fixed.

https://support.google.com/voice/thread/36202738?hl=en&msgid=36528947



"Under-promise; over-deliver".  You're welcome.

Thank you for your attention to this issue! 

QSnexus

#25
Thank you SteveInWA for your attention to this issue and assisting people with placing reports to Google about it, and thank you Taoman for reporting it was fixed here. A big thank you to the Google telephony engineer Anders Kristensen who actually fixed this issue today with Google Voice calls on Obihai devices. I have tested it thoroughly on my OBi200 and the issue is indeed fixed.

bsdaiwa

Where do you find the setting for Conditional Call Forwarding?

SteveInWA

Quote from: bsdaiwa on March 30, 2020, 06:43:32 AM
Where do you find the setting for Conditional Call Forwarding?

Conditional Call Forwarding is a feature that is provided by your telephone carrier.  It means "when the carrier number is busy or not answered our out of service/powered off, forward inbound calls to some other telephone number".  This is different from UNconditional Call Forwarding ("Immediate" call forwarding), which sends all calls, immediately, to some other phone number.

Each carrier uses different star (*) codes to activate or deactivate the feature.  A few carriers (Verizon Wireless, and MVNO Ting are examples) enable their customers to control this setting from their customer web site.

If you don't know the code(s) to control CCF, then contact your carrier.

andyhi

Not sure if it's related, but looks like GV is having issues.

http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=15627.0


In the last couple of days I've had countless calls disconnect and then I get "The number you dialed XXX has not received a response from the service provider" when trying to dial out to any number.  Effects both GV lines on an Obi202 until I power cycle the Obi.   Time to disconnect is random... I've been on 3 hour calls with no issues and then have the problem happen three times in 20 minutes.  Sometimes issue resolves itself if I wait it out.

SteveInWA

Quote from: andyhi on April 01, 2020, 01:47:12 PM
Not sure if it's related, but looks like GV is having issues.

http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=15627.0


In the last couple of days I've had countless calls disconnect and then I get "The number you dialed XXX has not received a response from the service provider" when trying to dial out to any number.  Effects both GV lines on an Obi202 until I power cycle the Obi.   Time to disconnect is random... I've been on 3 hour calls with no issues and then have the problem happen three times in 20 minutes.  Sometimes issue resolves itself if I wait it out.

NOPE.  The thread you linked is over a year old.

andyhi

#30
Agreed, that thread was started over a year ago.... But look at the last page.  There are a number of reports in the last several days that the issue has recently returned.  Issue appears to be related to capacity, connectivity, or changes being made on GV backend.


Correction... correct link - http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=15592.20

SteveInWA

Quote from: andyhi on April 01, 2020, 02:27:33 PM
Agreed, that thread was started over a year ago.... But look at the last page.  There are a number of reports in the last several days that the issue has recently returned.  Issue appears to be related to capacity, connectivity, or changes being made on GV backend.

Hunh?  It's a one-page thread, and the last post on that thread was dated March 14th, 2019.

Regardless:  there are no such issues at this time.  I'm the leading Google Product Expert for Google Voice, and I am in regular contact with the people at Google who run the service.


mcmancuso

I've been having this issue daily for the last few months, still happening as of this week.  Line rings once or twice, I answer and only hear dial tone.  Obi200, latest firmware.  Whatever the issue is, it persists.

SteveInWA

Quote from: mcmancuso on August 06, 2020, 03:58:24 PM
I've been having this issue daily for the last few months, still happening as of this week.  Line rings once or twice, I answer and only hear dial tone.  Obi200, latest firmware.  Whatever the issue is, it persists.

More detail, please.  What happens, from the caller's end?  What do they hear?  Does their call get routed to your Google Voice voicemail greeting, or does it get routed to one of your linked phone number(s)' greeting, or what, exactly?

Look at your Google Voice calls log (on a desktop web browser, at https://voice.google.com/u/0/calls

Are there records of those calls?  If so, are they calls from your contacts, or from some other desired caller, or are they robocalls/junk?

mcmancuso

#35
The issue happened again today, call came in, 1 ring, tried answering it, and I just heard dialtone, the google voice connection continued to ring via google voice app on the PC, but not the connected phone number

>What happens, from the caller's end?  

I have been unable to confirm this since I can't reproduce the issue when I call the number, and so far since you've asked for the information the callers have all been business customers who are not the same person when I call the line back.


>What do they hear?  

per above, I cannot confirm this

>Does their call get routed to your Google Voice voicemail greeting, or does it get routed to one of your linked phone number(s)' greeting, or what, exactly?

the linked number does not appear to ring when the issue is happening, but when I call from my personal cell (not linked to google voice) which does not initiate the issue, it IS ringing the connected number.

>Look at your Google Voice calls log (on a desktop web browser, at https://voice.google.com/u/0/calls  Are there records of those calls?

yes there are records

> If so, are they calls from your contacts, or from some other desired caller, or are they robocalls/junk?


I can't tell, I can definitely confirm at least one of them is from a business, but I can't confirm if any of the dozens of others are or not.

SteveInWA

What you're describing is typically caused by one of your linked/forwarding phone numbers.  When the inbound call rings your Google Voice number, Google Voice rings any web browser clients, any Android or iOS clients, and all linked phone numbers.  If one of those linked phone numbers is turned off or busy, and you have not enabled Conditional Call Forwarding on that number, then that number will answer the call before any of the other destinations have a chance to answer.

Use a desktop/laptop computer's web browser, not a tablet or smartphone, sign into the correct Gmail account that holds your Google Voice phone number, and go here:

https://voice.google.com/settings

Look at the Devices section and the Linked numbers section.  Delete all devices and/or numbers that you no longer use.  If one or more linked numbers remains, then those numbers must have Conditional Call Forwarding enabled.

mcmancuso

What conditional call forwarding feature/status needs to be enabled on the single connected phone number we have on the line?

SteveInWA

You need to enable conditional call forwarding on your linked phone number.  The * command to do that varies by carrier, and some resellers (MVNOs) don't support it.

mcmancuso

I don't want my cellphone number calls ringing the google voice line, wouldn't setting the call forwarding cause this?

[
Quote from: SteveInWA on August 13, 2020, 03:58:00 PM
You need to enable conditional call forwarding on your linked phone number.  The * command to do that varies by carrier, and some resellers (MVNOs) don't support it.