News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

The number you dialed___ has not received a response from the service provider

Started by Revived, January 17, 2019, 08:49:38 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

glnz2

Still happening most of the time.
Also, if I dial **9 222 222 222 for the echo test, that also is not connecting some of the time.  So is this a Google Voice problem or something else?
This is an Obihai 200 with firmware 3.2.2 (Build: 5898EX).
Is it possible my wife's mini-office landlord is sometimes blocking the VOIP protocol used by the OPbihai?  They say no, but why is this happening?
OBi200 with Google Voice

drgeoff

Quote from: glnz2 on June 24, 2020, 08:33:34 PM
Still happening most of the time.
Also, if I dial **9 222 222 222 for the echo test, that also is not connecting some of the time.  So is this a Google Voice problem or something else?
This is an Obihai 200 with firmware 3.2.2 (Build: 5898EX).
Is it possible my wife's mini-office landlord is sometimes blocking the VOIP protocol used by the OPbihai?  They say no, but why is this happening?
The echo test has nothing to do with GV.  If the echo test is not connecting some of the time then that is not caused by any misconfiguration of GV on the OBi device or any problem with the GV account or any fault in GV infrastructure.

Suggest that your wife temporarily brings the OBi, its PSU, ethernet cable and the phone home eg over a weekend and try it there.  If the OBi gets its network parameters by DHCP then it only needs plugging in and powering up - no reconfiguration needed.

If it behaves perfectly at home then there is something amiss with how it reaches the internet when at her office.  That could be the local network there or the connection to the ISP or an ISP issue.

glnz2

    
Dr. Geoff - Thanks.  I was thinking exactly the same thing - bring it home and see.  (And vice versa!!)

Now, if it works perfectly at home, that probably means my wife's mini-office landlord is doing something to limit the traffic even though our original deal from almost seven years ago was that the rent would include internet, and I was very upfront about that including our own VOIP phone.

But now I need your more advanced advice.

Originally, in the mini-office, we plugged the landlord's ethernet wall socket into a small router - to the router's WAN socket.  We then ran everything off the router's LAN sockets or WiFi.  So, originally, our small VOIP box was "behind" the router (always wired to one of the router's LAN sockets).

We got our ObiHai 200 and our Google Voice about three years ago.  Worked well.  Then about a year later (two years ago), Google Voice dropped its original protocol, the ObiHai stopped working although it was supposed to continue working, and I came to the conclusion that our oldish router could not handle Google Voice's new protocol.  (That router is an old Westell DSL modem-router that Verizon gave me a long time ago and that I converted to "routed bridge" to use in my wife's mini-office.  It still works except for the ObiHai 200.)

So I bought a TP-Link TL-SG105 unmanaged 5-port switch, and now the ObiHai 200 is directly on the landlord's ethernet network and no longer behind our old router.  In other words, that TP-Link TL-SG105 unmanaged 5-port switch is connected to three things:  the landlord's ethernet socket, the old router's WAN socket and the ObiHai 200.  So the ObiHai 200 is no longer going through our router.

Maybe the landlord can now "see" the Obihai 200 as a separate device and is limiting its connection to the internet ???

QUESTION:  What replacement router should I get so that, again, I can put the ObiHai 200 "behind" the router, the new router will be able to handle the ObiHai-Google Voice protocol well, and maybe the landlord will stop interfering?  (Maybe the landlord will again see only one device??)  Such a replacement router should also generate its own WiFi network for our iPhones and iPads when we're in that office.

FYI - the landlord's network bandwidth to us is only 100Mbps, but that's fine for our purposes.

Or could it be that the ethernet cable between my ObiHai 200 and the TP-Link switch is bad and intermittent ???

Thanks for your thoughts. ☺
 
OBi200 with Google Voice

glnz9

  
Went to my wife's SOHO, disconnected the Obihai 200 and brought it home.

So far, it is working with almost no issues.  There were two test calls that didn't complete, but the next call completred, and many test calls have now completed.  In her SOHO, once the phone stops connecting through, it stays bad for a while.  Not so here at home.

So - what do you think the mini-office IT team is doing to us?  Is it detecting the nature of the internet connection and clamping down?
 

SteveInWA

Well, give it another day or two of aggressive testing.  If it passes that test, then yes, this nails it down as a network problem.

The office IT people aren't deliberately blocking nor throttling anything.  It's an issue with the various tenants' usage patterns and load on the one ISP circuit serving the whole location.  I seriously doubt they have the sophistication to run a managed network, so it is probably just every tenant on the same LAN (or subnet of that LAN).  You cannot get that sort of shared Internet service to reliably support VoIP.

To put it bluntly, the options are:

  • Get your own ISP service run into your own office, which sounds unlikely.
  • Go back to telephone company POTS service.
  • Get the landlord to upgrade their ISP service.
  • Move.

glnz9

  
SteveinWa - Gave it the extra days of testing at home with great results and then brought it back to my wife's SoHo, where the problem continues.

That min-office company is now mostly empty due to the coronavirus.  The load on its network is now only a fraction of what it was before.  It's got to be some setting.

Here are two clues:

When I reboot the Obihai200, I can make one call out.  (Or one in.)  The next call is blocked.
Not only is GoogleVoice blocked, so is Obihai's own internal universe of phone numbers, like the echo test **9 222 222 222.

Is it possible that the mini-office company's router has the same SIP ALG problem that we all had when GV changed protocols two years ago?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks.
 

SteveInWA

I have no idea why it doesn't work, and I don't see how anyone can diagnose it remotely, without a packet sniffer.

I can tell you that the SIP ALG setting is irrelevant when using Google Voice.

Why not take a laptop into that office, sign into the Gmail account that holds your Google Voice phone number, then go here:  https://voice.google.com/u/0/calls 

Make 5 or so calls.  They should all work.  Warning, do not make a crap-ton of short calls in a short time period, or your Google Voice service will be suspended.

If that works, then there is some unknown issue between your OBiTALK device and their network (and not between your OBiTALK and Google Voice in general, since it worked at home).  You will probably have to give up.

glnz2

  
Steve - thanks for your encouragement!

I have a ways to go on this -- including bringing a microphone to the mini-office to plug into the existing PC to try GV the way you suggest -- but first - is there any way to put Skype into the Obihai 200 as a VOIP service?  That was actually our original service and we had a Freetalk ConnectMe VOIP box for it.  Then three (?) years ago, Skype stopped being available that way.

Is there any way to bring Skype back the way I'm trying to use GV?

EDIT - ADDED DETAIL -- In the Obhai Expert settings, in ITSP Service Profile A - General, the STUNServer is http://stun.l.google.com/.  
If I put that URL into a browser, I get "This site can't be reached    stun.l.google.com took too long to respond."
Clue?
 
OBi200 with Google Voice

drgeoff

Quote from: glnz2 on July 03, 2020, 09:56:37 AM
 
Steve - thanks for your encouragement!

I have a ways to go on this -- including bringing a microphone to the mini-office to plug into the existing PC to try GV the way you suggest -- but first - is there any way to put Skype into the Obihai 200 as a VOIP service?  That was actually our original service and we had a Freetalk ConnectMe VOIP box for it.  Then three (?) years ago, Skype stopped being available that way.

Is there any way to bring Skype back the way I'm trying to use GV?

EDIT - ADDED DETAIL -- In the Obhai Expert settings, in ITSP Service Profile A - General, the STUNServer is http://stun.l.google.com/.  
If I put that URL into a browser, I get "This site can't be reached    stun.l.google.com took too long to respond."
Clue?
 
1. No, you cannot run Skype on any OBi.

2.  That stun URL gives the same "This site can't .... long to respond" for me.  It is a red herring.  Getting to the obitalk echo test does not depend on that stun server and you wrote that the echo test is problematic too.

glnz2

  
SteveInWA and drgeoff - Last night (Sunday night) in the mini-office and today (Monday) monitoring my Obihai 200 remotely while making test calls, the GV line has been working.  Same for the special **9 Obihai number.

It's possible the mini-office IT team did something, but maybe they didn't do anything,

Have you heard whether maybe Google was checking and fixing issues?

Of course, I don't know if this will last.

EDIT - ADDITIONAL INFO - During the past ten days or so trying to fix this issue, I re-connected the Obihai 200 to our GV account a few times, including once by mistake to SP2 in addition to SP1.  I then deleted the SP2 connection, leaving the SP1.  I also went directly into our GV account and made sure it was showing the Obihai 200 in "My Devices".  Well, checking our GV account again right now, I see that our Obihai is listed TWICE in GV "My Devices".  Since it all seems to be working, I'm going to leave that alone.

Thanks.
 
OBi200 with Google Voice

drgeoff

1. There was no issue that Google fixed. The account and the OBi worked fine at your home. Nothing GV does can affect **9 calls.

2. Yes you will now see the OBi listed twice by GV. GV does not distinguish between two OBi devices each with the same GV number on one SP and one OBi with the same GV number on two of its SPs. As you have only deleted an OBi SP config, the effect is the same as two OBis which have previously been connected but one is now unpowered or disconnected from the internet. Both will continue to appear unless/until you explicitly take the removal steps.

glnz2

  
Don't want to jinx myself, but it's still working.  Even obitalk is much more responsive.

I wonder what did it.
 
OBi200 with Google Voice

glnz2

  
Well, it's still working -- almost a week now.

To anyone else who has this problem but only if it doesn't clear up any other way, you might try this:  Add the very same Google Voice account to SP2 so it's on your Obihai twice (both SP1 and SP2).  Go to Google Voice itself and check that your Obihai is listed twice as a connected device.  Then go back to your Obihai and delete the SP2 setup.  Then go back to GV to check that it still shows your Obihai twice.  Then cross your fingers.

Please report back here.
 
OBi200 with Google Voice

drgeoff

Quote from: glnz2 on July 10, 2020, 07:24:59 AM
 
Well, it's still working -- almost a week now.

To anyone else who has this problem but only if it doesn't clear up any other way, you might try this:  Add the very same Google Voice account to SP2 so it's on your Obihai twice (both SP1 and SP2).  Go to Google Voice itself and check that your Obihai is listed twice as a connected device.  Then go back to your Obihai and delete the SP2 setup.  Then go back to GV to check that it still shows your Obihai twice.  Then cross your fingers.

Please report back here.
 
How many times do I need to write this?  You had a network problem as evidenced by the fact that both the GV account and the Obitalk network (**9) were affected.  Adding/deleting GV accounts does not fix a network problem.

glnz2

  
Dr. G - You may well be right, but the mini-office company insists they never blocked or unblocked my VOIP-internet connection.

Maybe they're lying.  Is there a way for a network admin to block only GV and Obihai connections and not other internet connections (like browsing and email)?
 
OBi200 with Google Voice


glnz2

  
Steve and Dr G - you are the top experts here, but you might be disagreeing with each other?

So what caused the problem, which lasted for months, and what fixed the problem?

Reminder that a few weeks ago the Obihai 200 worked fine when I brought it home but then had the same problem when I brought it back to the mini-office -- until this past Sunday when suddenly the problem was gone.

Wha' happen, mans?

Thanks.
 
OBi200 with Google Voice

drgeoff

Quote from: glnz2 on July 10, 2020, 12:46:37 PM
 
Steve and Dr G - you are the top experts here, but you might be disagreeing with each other?

So what caused the problem, which lasted for months, and what fixed the problem?

Reminder that a few weeks ago the Obihai 200 worked fine when I brought it home but then had the same problem when I brought it back to the mini-office -- until this past Sunday when suddenly the problem was gone.

Wha' happen, mans?

Thanks.
 
I'm sure SteveInWA will agree that he and I are not disagreeing with each other.

i don't and can't know what the problem was.  I can be certain what it was not.