Cisco IP Communicator troubles (Probably more than my current issue)

FreePBX Endpoints
1

Back after so long… and I come before you all once again with everyone’s least favorite topic: Cisco-related anything…

I will preface by saying that if you feel the need to do anything that isn’t productive to resolving this, then just click off the topic, nobody said you HAD to reply if you don’t like it… At least this is the short-version of it… Also, my budget is $0 and less, so if you feel the need to suggest that I need to buy anything that YOU want everyone and their cat to have, again, click off the topic… Or buy it for me, I’d be happy to discuss requisitions done on my behalf. But joking aside, I’m just trying to get an absolute barebones “system” going with a single endpoint and nothing else, everything else I have to say on the matter is not the subject.

With that out of the way, I have an issue with getting Cisco’s (very long since EOL) softphone to register with FreePBX 16 on Asterisk 18.16.0, I used to just be stuck on a “Registering” loop, but I discovered my original install was locked to SCCP, which is not going to fly. So I grabbed an install from a different source, this one contained the actual .msi installer which I could launch from my Windows “terminal”, so got that on SIP, and as it turns out, I’m now stuck on “Unprovisioned”… and all my past experience that I brushed the dust off of turned out to not help (as it revolved around a 7941 and a 7965), so I come before you all requesting assistance on the matter (Of course, a simple “No” will work just fine, I guess…)

I am unsure which links are needed, so I will provide both pastebin and Google Drive links… The softphone obviously requires no firmware files, so no loads files or whatnot…

The cnf.xml file I originally used:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jb1BTDsrs-GZEe30zLTxEXeUfa1V9JT0/view?usp=sharing <device xsi:type="axl:XIPPhone" ctiid="4805428226"><deviceProtocol>SIP</device - Pastebin.com

The cnf.xml file I am using now:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/120OBs2HgfoOincd6aQqs4tPdHFKQZQ33/view?usp=sharing <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><device> <fullConfig>true</fullConf - Pastebin.com

“That’s fine and dandy, dude, but skip to the end, what’s the end-goal?”
Think I already said what it was, but I’m just wanting a single-user system to just take a trip down memory lane some more and explore the feature codes I can use, just a barebones system, something I can use with a single unit until I get another job and some income so I can procure more phones (preferably Cisco, I know, so atrocious and illegal and all that… I don’t care…) and brush off the dust on my experience properly…

Again… if you HAVE to comment and are unwilling to help… a simple “No” will do just fine…

2

Perhaps I was in too much of a rush to write the original post… I now realize this after having had a night’s rest and some breakfast. Things I’ve tried is installing things that would normally be included with any Linux distro (primarily apt-get and all that, at least whatever the install would find without any hassle, in fact, that was mostly all that I could get really…) I’ve observed the Asterisk CLI for anything that might suggest any form of progress, but it all came up nil, in other words, Asterisk wouldn’t report anything while “sip set debug on” was true, so that tells me that the softphone wasn’t making any kind of attempt or effort to connect, which is worrisome… but I guess it’s still slight progress than getting stuck on any kind of “registering” error… and I verified that all the IPs in the settings and the config xml were correct, I’ve attempted pretty much everything that I could find on Google while making an effort to prevent their AI from butting in… at least whatever seemed closest to my situation, though of course Cisco is very much frowned upon by a great many of people here… I feel unreasonably so, but then again, that’s just my opinion, which doesn’t really matter… Anyway, I’ve swapped between PJSIP and Legacy SIP while adjusting the config for the softphone, so I’m really putting in the effort here… I get that Cisco-related anything is, I guess what most people here would consider “taboo” or “unsavory” or whatever y’all say… but keep in mind, my autistic brain is attracted to these phones, they’ve been around for ages, I grew up with these phones since Elementary school, but again, details that mean jack… If it’s a challenge, that’s one I’m willing to take on, but obviously assistance will be needed where appropriate, I’m sure once I have physical phones again, my experience from 2020 or so can really shine, and you won’t get me asking how to set them up again, because it’ll just come naturally…

3

That was really weird. I tried to post a reply to you, and my account got deleted. Anyway, that’s in the past. So based on what I’ve read, and what things I could do to look at it all, it seems that nothing is wrong with the config files for the phone, so only thing I can guess is that more input is required in the PBX system, I recommend just writing to the custom config files in the file manager in your FreePBX UI system, of course, add “nat=never” as a start, there are some other things that I can’t think of off the top of my head, just can’t think of them right now

4

Hey there, sorry to hear about that random mishap, haven’t had that happen to me to my knowledge, but I guess it is what it is…

Anyway, tried out what you said earlier, and it didn’t really seem to work, feels like I’m getting nowhere fast, and also if I had physical phones to work with, then this issue wouldn’t have arisen… Because then I could’ve very easily gotten the phones set up and my system could be going with two endpoints, which is more than what I currently need, I just want one to just do things in the phone system itself without the need to dial out or anything like that… And to keep it short; I fell asleep after having tried your suggestion, I even looked at some similar situations involving actual phones and went from there.

5

Funny you should respond as I just opened my browser. Convenient timing. Anyway, I also want to welcome you back even though I wasn’t here when you were originally here. I had another idea as I woke up and got my coffee, perhaps if you shared more info on your setup, how it’s installed, the versioning, and things like that, others might be, if at least slightly, more willing to help outside of me.

6

This is true, I suppose that would help, though I already specified my versions of the stuff, but I suppose reiterating wouldn’t hurt.

I am currently running Asterisk 18.16.0 using the FreePBX WebUI version 16, installed via a Sangoma installation .ISO from the downloads page, all this is once again contained in a virtual machine using Oracle VirtualBox. As a result of using the .ISO, this is all presumably Red Hat/Fedora based, given I have to use “yum” to install things, though I did install the apt-get package if needed, though I doubt it’d do anything anyway…

EDIT: Sorta off-topic, but I get this weird feeling that everyone would rather I use something like Polycom phones… which I saw one in Goodwill, but obviously can’t afford it… Does seem slightly interesting, but… y’know…

7

Yeah, the Distro sounds about right, based on how you described it, and I’m sorry I can’t help any more, but I must head to work, I’ll catch up soon and see if any progress is made.

Best of luck to you.

8

Just got some time, I’m out on a service call, but I’m just waiting to start the ticket, but I’m taking this time while I wait for the problem to be reproduced. Anyway, I figured I’d say that if you’re willing to do a fresh reinstall, that might be advisable, but save that as a LAST resort. I’d also like to extend a message to anyone else who may see this and note that a person’s preference of IP phones shouldn’t offend or otherwise impact you, if a person wants to use Cisco, that’s their choice, if they’re willing to take on the challenges of getting them working, best course of action is to support their endeavors and assist when and where possible. You know, the usual stuff.

9

It might be that @tmittelstaedt can lend a hand on these – lots of good contributions in the past on the topic, for example this write-up from November 2024.

10

Thank you for the link, and I followed that guide to the best of my ability, using the config file verbatim and all that, so the links here are outdated, and the softphone still won’t register, which stinks… Though I’ll keep this link safe just in case

EDIT: I tried using FPBX 17 to no avail, kept failing to install, but I guess that’s because of the fact I’m using a VM, dunno, really, been ages since I’ve done anything FPBX related… didn’t expect the softphone to be a massive challenge, but again, one I’m willing to take on

11

8 posts were split to a new topic: Installing FreePBX 17 on Hyper-V virtualization platform

12

I’m really stuck now, I was doing so good right up until the final step which was to systemctl restart tftpd-hpa… and it just refuses to work… getting error start-stop-daemon: unable to start /usr/sbin/in.tftpd (Permission denied)…

13

Maybe add sudo before that command ?

14

Same result, plus I made it so I’m always the superuser

Or I thought I did, weird…

15

VirtualBox_FreePBX 17_22_07_2025_18_21_59
VirtualBox_FreePBX 17_22_07_2025_18_21_591280×800 12.9 KB

This is what I get…

16

Got home recently and just fixed up some dinner, I’m almost minded to say that you should do a clean reinstall, sad to say. But I guess before then, should probably sleep on it, who knows? Some ideas might come up by then

17

Maybe, real close to considering it, really… what say you, Maj?

18

Morning to those who have tuned in and to those rendering aid, quick summary of the turn my life has taken: My VM managed to install FPBX 17 correctly for some bizarre reason, but that’s a good thing, I’ve gotten stuck at trying to get the Cisco softphone working, ran things with elevated privileges, and now I’m on my way to reinstall the system from scratch…

19

Why do you need to reinstall it from scratch if the install was successful?

20

Don’t get me wrong, I was thinking the same thing to myself, but the reason being is one; I had less disk space than what I allocated for the VM, and two; I have to reinstall the modified TFTP server again due to the fact that I’m pretty sure the make file for the different one killed itself and won’t work anymore, plus, with a fresh install, I’ll KNOW if the last time was a fluke or not