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help please can't remove OBI200 from recovery mode per support page instructions

Started by magicwine, November 05, 2017, 08:11:01 AM

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magicwine

Sorry that this is a dupe post, but no solutions from first post so I presume it may be in the wrong forum.

Hi,
I use Google Voice. Yesterday I couldn't get a dial tone, so knowing in the past unplugging the 200 and then replugging it in cleared problems, that's what I did. However, after that all I get is red and green alternating lights. Tried unplugging and waiting 1/2 hour or more and replugging in, still get red and green alternating lights.

Searching I found this means the device lost power while doing an update and it is in recovery mode. I followed the steps, downloading the firmware update. It stated to make sure you can ping the device's IP, I used the device ip found in the router table, but cmd prompt tries 4 times and it can't reach the device and so it can't log in to the devices webpage to upload the software either. This makes sense because the device is stuck.

So I have to assume based on the red and green alternating lights support page, that even with these lights, I should be able to ping and also access the ip address in a browser?

When I purchased the 200 I spent weeks on my own and with the support of helpful folks on this forum to finally get it to work, so I really don't want to factory reset it. What are my options to get it working again and clear the red and green alternating lights?

Thanks for your help.

Bob

drgeoff

Anyone who can help you sees a post in any section of the forum.

Do you get any response to dialling ***1  ?  If it reads out an IP address does it match what your router says?

Unless you have made extremely extensive changes to the default configuration, setting up again from a complete reset is not that difficult or time consuming.

GPz1100

To the OP,

You can make a backup of existing settings easily.

Navigate to http://{local IP of obi200}/ and login. User name admin, password, whatever you set it to.  Default is admin too.

Click on System Management, Device update.

Midway down the page look for the heading "Backup Configuration"

This isn't important, but when doing mine, I checked everything but the middle option - Inc. Default values, then click backup.

You now have a backup of all settings.  If you decide to start over, you can do whatever configuration you need to using obitalk portal to get google configured, then restore your settings with the backup file.

The backup will not interfere with obi/gv credentials as they are not included in the backup.


Edit:  Disregard.  Just reread your post.  If you can't log into the device then no backup can be performed.  You might be SOL as far as making a backup at this point.

Edit 2: I don't see a flashing red in the admin guide.


magicwine

Hi,
No response to dialing ***1.
I don't get a dial tone, which is what caused the error, because I unplugged and replugged in the 200 thinking it would clear the error. As luck may have it, apparently it was doing a firmware upgrade at this time, per this support page:

Troubleshooting > Alternating RED/GREEN http://www.obihai.com/support/troubleshooting/alt

but ip7, this device's address, can't be pinged as suggested, and therefore can't open the devices settings page to install the firmware upgrade.

Note: I am using this with the wifi dongle, if that makes any difference. Some of my initial setup issues was with getting the dongle to work AND then the rest of the phones in my home using this one device. But eventually I did.

GPz1100

^^Thanks for the link.   It sounds like your unit is in a fail safe mode/recovery mode now.

In your situation I'd only be using the wired port.  I don't think wireless will work because the obi has to bring the connection fully online, doubt the failsafe/recovery mode supports wifi.

drgeoff

Quote from: GPz1100 on November 05, 2017, 12:13:59 PM
^^Thanks for the link.   It sounds like your unit is in a fail safe mode/recovery mode now.

In your situation I'd only be using the wired port.  I don't think wireless will work because the obi has to bring the connection fully online, doubt the failsafe/recovery mode supports wifi.
+1

magicwine

Hi,
Ok, received a reply from support, performed steps, all is green now.

However, both on wifi and direct ethernet connected, I have no dial tone. Dialing ***1 as a forum member suggested does nothing.

In my dashboard, system status states My SP1 status is connected. See all settings in my attached screenshot.

It took me weeks to get my 200 set up when I first got it, both initially then with the wifi dongle, and I am trying to avoid that again so I didn't do your last step, to default and do factory reset.

Is there anything else I can try to get this to work besides the reset? If not, as the included or website instructions still caused me to have issues when I originally set this up + the wifi dongle setup, using Google Voice, Can anyone here provide more detailed or helpful instructions for these 2 procedures?

Thanks for your help.

Bob

drgeoff

Even without being connected to a network a powered up OBi should give dial tone to a plugged in phone.

Unplug the power. Unplug the ethernet cable.  Unplug the Wi-Fi dongle.  Ensure the phone is plugged in directly, not eg via house wiring.  Plug in the power.  Wait for the red power LED to change to green flashing.  Take the phone off-hook.  The right hand LED (with phone symbol) should start flashing green.  You should hear dial tone.  Are any of those last two happening?

magicwine

Hi. Disconnected all as instructed. Reconnected power and phone, but not the ethernet (you didn't mention to do that). The phone light does light when the phone is off hook, but no dial tone.

So connected the ethernet cable again, displays net connection, placed phone off hook, phone light flashes, but still no dial tone. Phone light changes to solid green when on hook, dashboard displays connected.

I did not reconnect the wifi dongle yet. Note the power light does not flash green as mentioned, it is a solid green. The center internet light is flashing.

As mentioned, I used this with Google Voice, if that helps.

PS - I'm not getting notifications of new messages, and can't seem to find any link after I log in to see new messages (the messages link displays no messages, even though when I returned to an earlier email notification and clicked on that link, only then was I brought to my post and replies. What am I doing wrong?)

Thanks.
Bob

drgeoff

Three possibilities.

1.  Faulty phone.

2.  Faulty phone cord. (Unlikely given that taking the phone off-hook is recognised by the OBi.)

3.  Faulty Obi200.

Unplug the power.  Unplug OBiWIFI if plugged in.

Ethernet cable between Obi and router.

Power up the Obi.  Wait for power LED to change to green, hopefully solid.

Look in router for IP address of OBi.

Put that address into browser.  If you are asked for login credentials the user is admin password and the password is admin or whatever you set it to.

Can you get that far?

magicwine

I got the login page earlier today but didn't know the logins.

Followed your instructions, I can log in and I see the system status page with details.

What is next?

Thanks.
Bob

drgeoff

Next is me going to bed.  It is 1:20 am here.

Phone on hook. Click on 'Status'. Click on 'Phone Status'.

Report back the reported details except the phone number.

Phone off hook. Click on 'Phone Status' again.  Report the details.

magicwine

Wow. 120am. Where are you?
I see nothing called phone status. I see phone port status and that displays:
Parameter Name   PHONE1 Port
State   On Hook
LoopCurrent   0 mA
VBAT   55 V (12.1 V)
TipRingVoltage   46 V

Thank you for your help.

Bob

SteveInWA

Geoff's in the UK.

Stick to doing one thing at a time to troubleshoot this.  You may have a bad telephone.  Get or borrow a known-working, hardwired (not cordless) telephone and telephone cord (RJ-11 modular cord).  Plug the other telephone into the OBi using the other cord.  Pick up the phone.  Do you hear a dial tone?  If not, does the OBi respond to any star commands, for example, ***1 ?

magicwine

Hi Steve.

That was it. The corded phone worked. But I'm still having a problem. Here is the scenario:

1. Phone A has a base and a 2nd phone on an extra base, so both work off of one jack. One of those 2 phones is the one that stopped working. The other phone works on either base now.

2. Before purchasing the 200, obi support told me, and correctly so, if I get the wifi dongle (since I have no phone jacks anywhere near my ethernet connection) and plug the 200 into the jack, it will make all the jacks in my home active on the 200. It didn't work, my alarm co rewired my kitchen jack via the junction box in the basement and changed connection to the jack wiring, did the same for my alarm, and so I had 3 connections working off the 200.

3. The kitchen phone also had a second phone which is in my living room. I could have sworn I checked the kitchen and external phone as well on Friday when all this started happening and had no dial tone there either. Anyway, now that I have a dial tone on one of the two phones on set 1, that's good. But the kitchen phone still has no dial tone and displays "no line".

I unplugged both the electric and connection to the jack on the kitchen phone, waited a few minutes, reconnected and still no line. I presume my alarm dialer also has no connection.

4. The way I had it set up before is I had a 2-1 adapter in my wall jack, and plugged into that was the 200 and one of the phone sets. And all worked well, including the 2 handset kitchen phone and the alarm dialer.

When all this started happening Friday I checked the 200 connection to the wall jack, but when I tried to reconnect the 2-in-1 adaptor, it will no longer click into place.

So luckily I had purchased a 5 port adapter, plugged that into the wall jack, then plugged in the 200 and the one phone set, and the one working phone in that set works now over wifi. But not the kitchen set or alarm. Somehow now the 200 is not recognizing the other jacks that it did before. What do I need to do to have them working again?

Thanks for your help.

Bob

SteveInWA

Quote from: magicwine on November 05, 2017, 06:30:32 PM
Hi Steve.

That was it. The corded phone worked. But I'm still having a problem. Here is the scenario:

1. Phone A has a base and a 2nd phone on an extra base, so both work off of one jack. One of those 2 phones is the one that stopped working. The other phone works on either base now.

2. Before purchasing the 200, obi support told me, and correctly so, if I get the wifi dongle (since I have no phone jacks anywhere near my ethernet connection) and plug the 200 into the jack, it will make all the jacks in my home active on the 200. It didn't work, my alarm co rewired my kitchen jack via the junction box in the basement and changed connection to the jack wiring, did the same for my alarm, and so I had 3 connections working off the 200.

3. The kitchen phone also had a second phone which is in my living room. I could have sworn I checked the kitchen and external phone as well on Friday when all this started happening and had no dial tone there either. Anyway, now that I have a dial tone on one of the two phones on set 1, that's good. But the kitchen phone still has no dial tone and displays "no line".

I unplugged both the electric and connection to the jack on the kitchen phone, waited a few minutes, reconnected and still no line. I presume my alarm dialer also has no connection.

4. The way I had it set up before is I had a 2-1 adapter in my wall jack, and plugged into that was the 200 and one of the phone sets. And all worked well, including the 2 handset kitchen phone and the alarm dialer.

When all this started happening Friday I checked the 200 connection to the wall jack, but when I tried to reconnect the 2-in-1 adaptor, it will no longer click into place.

So luckily I had purchased a 5 port adapter, plugged that into the wall jack, then plugged in the 200 and the one phone set, and the one working phone in that set works now over wifi. But not the kitchen set or alarm. Somehow now the 200 is not recognizing the other jacks that it did before. What do I need to do to have them working again?

Thanks for your help.

Bob


I stopped reading your post after you said that a) the corded phone works, and b) one of the corded handsets doesn't work.  So, you don't have an OBi problem at all.  You have a bad telephone.  Throw it in the trash.  The rest of your post is so full of variables that I can't fix it for you.  All I can tell you is that you are wasting your time, because you've been incorrectly troubleshooting this with a broken telephone, and probably incorrectly-wired house wiring.

Taoman


magicwine

Hi Steve,

I appreciate your help.

What caused all the misinformation was that WHEN I lost my dial tone on the later to be found bad cordless phone, I did what I did long ago, which was to unplug and reconnect the 200. But that's when the alternating green and red lights started, apparently I happened to disconnect it just when it was doing an update. I know at that point I checked all 4 phones and none had dialtones...Of  course that was because at that point the 200 wasn't working.

My alarm co that rewired the two other jacks - he installs jacks and wiring for a living - as they are used for alarm dialers, so he knew what he was doing and he got two other jacks working with the 200.

I don't see how the 200's recovery mode caused them to stop working BUT I do have another idea why. In playing with the "later found to be bad 2 in 1 jack", maybe I loosened some connection to the jack the 200 is attached to?

So all I need to know from you is if that did happen, and the 200 IS working plugged into that jack, could it affect the other two jacks? If so, what color coding do I need to look for to make sure they are still connected?

I have to ask because I am pretty sure some of the colors weren't needed so they weren't connected, so just because I might see an unconnected wire doesn't mean it has anything to do with the other 2 jacks.

Regards,
Bob

SteveInWA

Again:  none of the troubleshooting you performed previously is worth reconsidering or analyzing.

The OBi 200 uses only the center two pins of its phone jack.  If you think you have damaged it, use a flashlight and a magnifying glass to look at the jack and make sure the pins are not bent.  The fact that the OBi now works with a corded phone proves that the jack in the OBi is connecting properly to the plug on the phone cord.

Regardless of how long your wiring guy has been doing that job, here is what you need to understand:

When a building has an old-school POTS telephone line in use for a security alarm panel, it is wired like this:

The telephone company supplies telephone service coming into the premises on a two-conductor pair of wires (known as tip and ring).  Those two wires are then routed to a special phone jack, called a RJ-31X exclusion jack.  This jack loops the telephone line connection through the alarm panel's "communicator" via a relay.  Normally, the relay is closed, and the telephone wiring loops back from the communicator to the RJ-31 jack, and then out to the pair of wires supplying all the other jacks in the house.

When an alarm is triggered (or tested), the relay opens, which cuts off the loop going back to the jack's house wiring pins (center two), so that only the alarm panel's communicator is connected to the telco.  This is called "seizing" the line.  It prevents bad guys from picking up a phone to interrupt the call to the alarm monitoring station.

The RJ-31X jack also has a pair of spring-loaded gold pins inside that open up when a plug is inserted into the jack.  This removes the direct connection to the rest of the house, and loops it through the panel.  When you unplug the alarm panel's modular phone plug from that jack, the spring-loaded pins make connection inside the jack, thus looping it directly to the house wiring, and disconnecting the alarm panel.

So:  if, and only if, the alarm wiring person correctly wired it this way, all you need to do is to unplug the phone plug going to the RJ-31X, and the rest of the house wiring is now connected to the telco.

IF you want to use your OBi with the house wiring, you must remove the wires coming into the premises from the telephone company (or cable company if they supply your telephone service).  THEN you can plug the OBi into any working wall jack using a standard telephone cord.  Again, if, and only if, the wiring is done properly, then every jack will now carry the OBi's dial tone over the center two pins of each jack.

If this does not work, I will not troubleshoot it for you via this discussion, nor will I answer any further questions.  It's pretty clear that you are not qualified to mess with the wiring on your own.  You will need to hire your wiring person to do that.

magicwine

Good morning Steve,

Thank you for all the helpful info. I will send to my alarm guy to confirm.

I will not ask you to troubleshoot this any longer, per your request.

Just one thing - if my other two jacks (3 in total including the alarm jack) communicated through my home's wiring using the obi200 for voip, up until the no dial tone and red and green alternating lights, and now I have my obi working again, shouldn't that have not affected the other jacks?

If they worked before, then I should presume the alarm guy did the wiring correctly?

All I ask is since they did work I am thinking he is going to respond with the same, so  is there a correct question to ask him why they stopped working and what he needs to do to troubleshoot?

Thank you very much Steve.

Regards,
Bob