I’m having an issue with a site where we’ve deployed about a dozen extensions, using the latest version of FreePBX. The endpoints are SPA514G, and I’ve used the OSS endpoint manager. The site has a Smoothwall firewall/content filter device.
We’ve noticed a few issues, that I suspect are all the same root cause:
Devices don’t show online in the endpoint manager
BLF functions are not working correctly
A Time Condition override BLF button that I set up does not update properly when the time condition changes
Further to this … I ran into some problems with OSS EPM and had to dive under the hood. I now realised that it’s pretty much unmaintained, it didn’t work properly with the FreePBX 13 WUI, and it’s half complete.
I don’t know what the deal is but I guess the work might be happening in Commercial EPM. I guess, there’s a reason why OSS EPM comes from the “Unsupported” repo.
Anywho - the devices probably aren’t showing as online in OSS EPM because they’re not showing online under “Show Peers” - they probably are all unreachable - OSS EPM uses this to display if an endpoint is online or not.
The BLF points are probably the same problem - it may be a misconfiguration from OSS EPM. I would look at the config files it generates, see that it’s doing the correct thing when configuring those buttons and if not make your own custom working config to use in a template. Also, get dialplan hints from Asterisk console to ensure your watching the correct thing.
In the end, if you want a lot less hassle, Commercial EPM is the way to go - it is actively maintained and it comes with paid support, so you can just ask “Hey, how can I make this work?” type questions, and people will help - whereas, OSS EPM has no support, so you’re on your own.
Thanks for your replies. Considering that other deployments using the latest FreePBX with OSS Endpoint Manager do not exhibit these symptoms, I’m not willing to buy it “just to see if it fixes the problem”.
To answer the question about registrations - yes the phones register and work.
If the problem can be proven to be in the OSS EPM, then that’s fine; I don’t mind buying something; however I strongly suspect that something else is wrong.
So, ignoring the OSS EPM issue, what could cause MWI and BLF not to function properly?
I sincerely doubt that the EPM has anything at all to do with MWI not functioning.
edit: sorry, I just noticed that in my OP I didn’t mention that MWI isn’t working - e.g. people aren’t getting notifications of Voicemails.
You’ve done well to get OSS EPM working properly in anything above FreePBX 12.
I have it running on some FreePBX 2.11’s, but as I said, I’ve had to manually edit the php backend script to get certain functions to work properly - though these are not related to handing out configs.
BLF and MWI is all in the configuration file for the SPA’s. When I said misconfiguration from EPM, I guess what I actually meant was that the default configuration files that EPM generates might not be correct. As I said as well, OSS EPM is extremely unmaintained - so, who is even maintaining the default configurations? Has configuration for SPA’s changed with different firmware revisions? There’s a lot of unknowns as it is out of the box.
So, go have a look at the SPA configuration files the EPM has generated (look in the directory you specified in Advanced Settings, by default this is /tftpboot/). Are the BLF and MWI configurations actually correct? You may have to refer to an SPA Admin or Config Guide - I’m sorry, but I haven’t used one of these devices before so I can’t help with specific configuration problems but Google would probably net you many solutions.
I agree, the BLF and MWI stuff is SPA specific. EPM just makes it easier to serve a configuration file. The problem won’t be with EPM but with the configuration. Your statement “I sincerely doubt that the EPM has anything at all to do with MWI not functioning.” is technically true. What you need is help with the SPA configuration.