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A reminder about a GOTCHA with Google Voice

Started by madscientist_42, January 13, 2015, 08:52:43 PM

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madscientist_42

I got kind of reminded about this while in the process of pairing up my OBI100 to one of my several GV accts (I was Gizmo5 customer...I wasn't porting away my numbers at that time and they owed me, though didn't expect someone to have THAT many lines (businesses...Google, you should understand that, right?)) I've been not using to work on setting up a nice business line set again against my Asterisk server.

While OBI devices now officially support Google Voice, if you've not been using it with your OBI device or you're going with a shiny new GV line, you need to know that it does not work with Hangouts

If you've got Hangouts on your account, you will need to cripple out the Hangouts option by way of going into your GMail and changing the "chat" settings to revert to Google Talk- followed up by making a call via the GMail phone to allow it to "know" about your Talk account and enable it on your Google Voice services.  At that point you can check the "forward to Talk" option on the settings and your shiny new OBI device will then make and receive calls.  (For more details, there's tons of articles just a Google search away...)

It's still worth the hassles, but only just.  I'm still not happy with them for killing my SIP termination provider.  PhonePower's still more expensive than the deal I had and wanted from Gizmo5- but it's the closest one yet when paired with an OBI at this time.

SteveInWA

This is absolutely incorrect.

OBi devices have always been, and as of today, still are, emulating Google Chat clients.  As of today, Google is still supporting XMPP for OBi devices, now that Obihai has modified their device firmware to securely authenticate with your Google account.

Since your OBi device is acting as a Chat client, you merely need to make one outbound telephone call using Google Chat from Gmail.  After you do that, the Chat forwarding destination will be added to your Google Voice account, and you can simply convert your Google account back to using Hangouts again.  The Hangouts and Chat services will happily coexist, because Hangouts is entirely independent from Chat.  Any/all Hangouts clients you wish to use, will continue to independently make and receive phone calls using your Google Voice number, totally unrelated to the operation of your OBi device.

Oh, and if you are still whining about the demise of Gizmo5, years ago, get over it.

madscientist_42

#2
Quote from: SteveInWA on January 13, 2015, 09:03:14 PM
This is absolutely incorrect.

Actually, if it's in Hangouts mode, it's not using XMPP with the account.  They've said as much and I had to move it back into Talk mode to get it to work.  Fresh accounts WILL be in Hangouts mode and won't work as described in the documentation- and not offer a chat forward for you to use.  Original accounts will have both available and working.

If you pay close attention to what I said, you had to do that and do the OTHER things YOU just said to be able to do calls with it.

Until I did those items, it would ring once and go to a busy signal with the OBI100- and NOT take inbound calls.

I strongly suggest a bit of work on your reading comprehension...because you just made yourself look poorly just now.  Not once did I say anything you accused me of.

SteveInWA

I'm not the one with a reading comprehension problem; I described exactly how to do this last year, here:

http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=8560.msg56460#msg56460

All you needed to do was what you described, make the one phone call using Chat.  This has been thoroughly discussed on this forum. 

You can then switch your Google account to use Hangouts, and happily use Hangouts clients on a laptop/desktop computer, or on a mobile Android or iOS device.  This has no effect whatsoever on the operation of your OBi device, which will concurrently work fine using XMPP, while the Hangouts clients will also continue to work independently.

Thousands of OBi customers, myself included, are doing just that.

Crow550

#4
Right.

In fact you don't actually need to make a phone call in Google Talk. Just click the phone icon and when the dialer pops up it will add Google Chat to your Google Voice Phones list (I've tested this a few times). ;)

This way you don't have to deal with installing the Talk plugin to make a call. Since Hangouts is plugin free now.

Is this a pain in the butt? Yes. It's really annoying.... Maybe someday Google will fix this....

So yeah you have to go in Gmail. Click on Hangouts and revert to the old chat then click on the phone icon to open the dialer then close it and go switch back to Hangouts.

However like BC said Google Talk for Obi and Hangouts work fine together.

I even made a suggestion on how they need to change this: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/voice/Crow550/voice/JyMp3VNd1jg/JWBboF8sbcQJ

Which they most likely may once Hangouts gets more Voice features? Who knows....

However there is no gotcha. All works well.

Now go forth and enjoy Google Voice / Hangout calling and all the other cool wiz bang features it offers. :D

ceg3

Quote from: SteveInWA on January 13, 2015, 09:24:15 PM
I'm not the one with a reading comprehension problem; I described exactly how to do this last year, here:

http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=8560.msg56460#msg56460

All you needed to do was what you described, make the one phone call using Chat.  This has been thoroughly discussed on this forum. 

You can then switch your Google account to use Hangouts, and happily use Hangouts clients on a laptop/desktop computer, or on a mobile Android or iOS device.  This has no effect whatsoever on the operation of your OBi device, which will concurrently work fine using XMPP, while the Hangouts clients will also continue to work independently.

Thousands of OBi customers, myself included, are doing just that.
You might should know that you are arguing with likely the most knowledgeable user in the forum when it comes Google Voice.  If SteveInWA discusses Google Voice you can rest assured he is giving you the straight poop.

giqcass

Quote from: ceg3 on January 19, 2015, 04:56:09 PM
You might should know that you are arguing with likely the most knowledgeable user in the forum when it comes Google Voice.  If SteveInWA discusses Google Voice you can rest assured he is giving you the straight poop.
I almost posted the same thing but decided to let SteveInWA defend himself at that point.  If someone is more knowledgeable on Google Voice in this forum then they have been keeping there mouth shut.  There aren't that many people more knowledgeable(excluding Google employees) even on the official Google Voice forums.

I unofficially declare this topic dead!
Long live our new ObiLords!

gregdbc

I've used the "revert to old chat" method discussed in this thread in the past and it did work. However, today my Google Chat forwarded phone in Google Voice disappeared and nothing I do brings it back. Anyone else having trouble with this?  My Obi won't ring now and I'm wondering if Google did something new with Hangouts and that caused this problem. Thanks.

cluckercreek

Mine has disappeared as well. I checked the settings of course in Gmail and nothing there had changed. I guess it is gone now.

Taoman

Mine is gone also. If this is system wide then I'm guessing there are a lot of phones connected to Obihai ATAs that are not ringing tonight.

I wonder if this is a glitch or permanent..........

SteveInWA

Hey everyone:  I am looking into this with Google engineering.  I'll post a reply when I get an answer from them...likely tomorrow some time.

giqcass

Outgoing seems to still work normally and with Callcentric as my forwarding number my service is completely functional.  If it weren't for this post I wouldn't have even noticed anything had happened yet. 
In the short term some of you might want to consider doing the same.

Reference link for setting up.
http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=3640.0

Long live our new ObiLords!

tendingto

#12
Hey guys. I'm new to the forum but not new to OBi. I just wanted to confirm that the "Forward to Google Chat" option has disappeared on each of four GV accounts I set up to work with OBi in the past two months. However, three of these numbers are still ringing properly through their respective OBis, and I suspect the fourth line isn't ringing because I tried to set it up today and didn't have the "Forward to Google Chat" option to begin with. I've spent the last 3 hours trying to figure out what was wrong. Until today, I wasn't even aware that making the Google Chat forwarding option "reappear" (via the old chat dialer in Gmail) was a thing some people had to do.

SteveInWA

If you would like to track this issue, you can go to this discussion thread and mark it to receive email updates:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/voice/W1H4WQHWygA

ceg3

Quote from: SteveInWA on January 28, 2015, 08:22:03 PM
If you would like to track this issue, you can go to this discussion thread and mark it to receive email updates:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/voice/W1H4WQHWygA
That forum thread states this is a bug that Google engineering might resolve this day, 1/29/15, so I assume the best thing is to do nothing, right?

SteveInWA

Just like the old Duke Ellington/Bob Russell ballad, "Do nothing till you hear from me"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYZ0PRHs2KQ

Seriously, though:  I've been told that the Chat pseudo-phone wasn't actually removed from the accounts; the bug was just causing it to not be displayed on the GV phones settings web page.  So, after this is fixed, if you had previously added it, it should simply reappear.

giqcass

Chat is back,,,, Back again. Chat is back,,, tell a friend.
;D
Long live our new ObiLords!

BigJim_McD

Quote from: SteveInWA on January 29, 2015, 03:52:17 PM
Just like the old Duke Ellington/Bob Russell ballad, "Do nothing till you hear from me"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYZ0PRHs2KQ

... .. . ...

A most smoothing and enjoyable answers that has ever appeared on this forum.   ;)
BigJimMcD

SteveInWA

Glad you liked it; I agree!

Unlike the ultimate message of the song "...and, you never will", I had a happy ending for y'all.