First Digit in Extension Controls Ability to Dial Voice Mail Directly

[thancocksw1]

Hello. I have a FreePBX 15 server that was built about 6 months ago. All the existing extensions are in the 200 range. I’m able to directly dial those extension’s Voice Mail accounts to hear the greeting and leave a message, as well as transfer incoming calls to them by pushing ‘Transfer’, entering *200 (VoiceMail for ext 200) and then pushing ‘Blind Transfer’. Also have customized buttons on phones that accomplish this. They are configured as Speed Dials, and can be pressed to either direct dial the VoiceMail, or transfer a call to VoiceMail.

Right now I’m adding a different set of extensions that start with 300. These don’t seem to accept the same kind of direct dials to Voice Mail. Trying to figure out why the 300 level extensions are not allowed like the 200 level extensions. Doesn’t seem to matter which phones I use. I have 2 kinds of phones, and get the same outcome with both. (Htek and Grandsteam)

Seen blog posts on the web, which suggest that conflicts with * and the beginning of extensions can conflict with feature codes. However, on the Feature Code Admin page, there are feature codes that start with “*” followed by every single digit, including both 2 and 3. Thus it seems like feature codes might not be the issue, although I did disable *30, which didn’t seem to allow calls to be transferred to 300 level Voice Mails.

Back when I first setup this server, I think I might have possibly typed something into the FreePBX command line interface, in order to be able to leave voice mails directly for 200 level extensions, but I don’t remember. Thank you for any suggestions.

[PitzKey (Itzik)]

Are you getting any errors?

Say you have extension 315, and it doesn’t work when calling *315, then, please share the output of:

asterisk -x"dialplan show *315@from-internal"

[thancocksw1]

Output of that command is below for 2 extensions. I don’t see any errors. I can dial *210 for example and get voicemail. When dialing *302, the phones don’t allow it.

asterisk -x"dialplan show *302@from-internal"

Included context ‘ext-local’ created by ‘pbx_config’
‘*302’ = 1. Set(CONNECTEDLINE(name-charset,i)=utf8) extensions_additional.conf:4081
2. Set(CONNECTEDLINE(name,i)=302 Voicemail) extensions_additional.conf:4082
3. Set(CONNECTEDLINE(num,i)=302) extensions_additional.conf:4083
4. Macro(vm,302,DIRECTDIAL,${IVR_RETVM}) extensions_additional.conf:4084
5. Goto(vmret,1) extensions_additional.conf:4085

-= 1 extension (5 priorities) in 1 context. =-

asterisk -x"dialplan show *210@from-internal"

Included context ‘ext-local’ created by ‘pbx_config’
‘*210’ = 1. Set(CONNECTEDLINE(name-charset,i)=utf8) extensions_additional.conf:4045
2. Set(CONNECTEDLINE(name,i)=210 Voicemail) extensions_additional.conf:4046
3. Set(CONNECTEDLINE(num,i)=210) extensions_additional.conf:4047
4. Macro(vm,210,DIRECTDIAL,${IVR_RETVM}) extensions_additional.conf:4048
5. Goto(vmret,1) extensions_additional.conf:4049

-= 1 extension (5 priorities) in 1 context. =-

Strangely, on the Grandstream phone, after trying to dial *302, a phone setting “Send Anonymouns” gets automatically set to “Yes”, which keeps any call from going out until it’s set back to “No”. That seems to create the following:

grep nonymous /var/log/asterisk/fail2ban

2023-07-12 09:37:14 NOTICE23007 res_pjsip/pjsip_distributor.c: Request ‘INVITE’ from ‘“Anonymous” sip:[email protected]’ failed for ‘174.74.209.238:60982’ (callid: [email protected]) - Failed to authenticate

[thancocksw1]

With some help, I discovered the solution to this: It didn’t involve FreePBX, but the phones. The phones have “Feature Codes”, which can also be called “Call Features”. I disabled the call features in the GUIs for both kinds of phones I’m using, and this took care of it.