Module Access Blocked - Support Contract Expired - PBXact

Commercial Modules Sangoma Talk / Software Phone
1

Caveats: small shop with no IT department and so I run this myself (admittedly poorly), am usually behind, and don’t keep current on news. I am actively sorting this out and researching, but figured a post while doing so could save me some time and heartache.

PBXact running on a PBXact 25 appliance ~10 extensions, 3-4 users with softphone access setup. Still on version 16 (yes, now I know I need to fix that, but figured a Tuesday morning isn’t the best time).

Our SangomaTalk apps on mobile phones and desktops stopped working yesterday. I logged into the portal and I see a message “Module Access Blocked” with no real detail on which module, but I assume that it’s all of them and the softphones are the only ones that actually affect users now.

As I’m reading I am learning that the issue seems to be that I should have been paying for support if I was going to keep the commercial modules updated, even though the PBXact purchase came with 25 year licenses.

I understand that there is delineation now between license to use and license to upgrade, but was this a recent change that’s basically just changing what I originally purchased (not great), or is it just something that was always in the terms, but never enforced?

What’s confusing me most is that the expiration date listed in this message is 2019-08-15 and while I can’t say I’m checking this system often, I haven’t seen the message before (says it’s 9 hours old) and the modules only stopped working yesterday.

I’m also still trying to sort through the information about why it was allowed to upgrade beyond what version I’m licensed for, but a 7 year grade period seems insane. Based off these days, I’m also unsure if I need to roll back to a version from last week that was autoupdated sometime recently, or if I need to roll back to pre August 2019 version?

I’ve assumed that the easiest solution is going to be biting the bullet and just paying for a support contract (feels like services are being ransomed), but it seems way more difficult to figure out what I need to buy than I imagined.

If I go to Admin-SangomaConnect there’s a “Buy Now” link there that takes me to a portal page with 5 options, two cheap regarding some seemingly unrelated answering service apps, and options for 2, 5 and 10 hour blocks starting at $395 (and unclear if these are the service contract, or I’d still need to buy a service contract underlying these).

If I go through the store it appears that it’s enforcing paying for all the intermediate years at $75/yr, so to upgrade the support contract is going to cost me $600 (and that will still expire again in 10 months). At this price, it’s cheaper to just repurchase the entire PBXact software and nearly as cheap to buy a whole new appliance (if we wanted to continue with PBXact).

Am I crazy and just misunderstanding this, or is this whole situation crazy? I understand wanting to try to generate revenue, a little annoyed that we paid for PBXact to get commercial modules that I didn’t realize we’d still have to pay for, so there probably wasn’t a point, but the main issue I’m running into is that at these costs I’m forced to take a step back and consider if this is even the best option anymore.

2

That turned into more a ramble than I realized, and I guess my asks probably got buried. TLDR:

  1. What’s the best way to figure out what module I actually am licensed to use, and roll back to that (if even possible)?

  2. Am I just misunderstanding the cost they’re demanding to get this all current?

I do have a message in to try and get it all figured out.

3

Gold Support PBXact 25
SVCM-PBXT-0025G

Platinum Support PBXact 25
SVCM-PBXT-0025P

4

Ooof, those are $1200 and $1800, respectively.

I did get a response from the rep that Bronze is enough, but it’s still $600 and doesn’t actually include any service (Gold has 30 minutes and Platinum has 60 minutes, which seems pretty piddly for such a big price jump).

Still probably too hard of a pill to swallow. I realize ultimately I should have understood better (and maybe I did and just forgot since it’s been 8 years!), but this seems like a crazy long time to be finding out about it now.

5

Yes, it’s the backdating that’s causing the price to multiply like that.

6

I can’t help but feel like that’s just a money grab. I don’t really understand their business case for it being set up this way other than it let’s them charge more.

Given that I’ve got the pending update to v17 coming up anyway and from what I can tell that’s basically a reinstall, it seems like I’d be better off just purchasing PBXact again for $450 and starting over.

7

It depends how you look at it. Backdating like that can feel expensive, but you already acknowledged the 7 years gone by, and there really is no other way of it working commercially. You wouldn’t take out home insurance and then pay only for the year that you wish to claim. You could, but you’d agree that’s a stupid business model, and what would happen to the price? The annual charge reflects the business model for everyone’s benefit, along with the support credits with Sangoma. PBXact includes 12+ commercial licences, softphones as mentioned, and a better QA process for updates. PBXact over FreePBX is a choice you make and it includes wanting to pay for better than “free”. There are many good reasons to do so. Keeping up with annual maintenance is part of the deal, although that isn’t forced upon you. You need it now though, and backdating is the right approach in the grand scheme of things. Calling it a money grab is a little harsh, I think.

8

I think your analogy is a bit flawed as this is nothing akin to home insurance. This is a service plan, not a warranty.

This would be more like calling the HVAC company to come replace a capacitor and they want you to pay for 7 years of their service contract when you didn’t need service before they provide service when you actually do need service.

And while it may not be “forced on me” it kind of is “forced on me” if something as simple as having updates auto enabled will break your software and force you to pay years later.

9

Ok. Well, support plans are generally costed by claims as much as no claims, and a reasonable expectation for years of continuous payment regardless. That’s the point I’m making here. I’m sure there are better analogies that others can offer you, but I thought the way it’s charged is what we are discussing. Good luck with it. K

10

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Bronze support package does not actually give me any support, does it? It just allows me to purchase additional hours of support if I need it?

Or am I misunderstanding something here in how the support package works?

I hear what you’re saying, but from what I understand of the support system there’s no really paying upfront for projected use, it’s just paying for the privilege of paying as you go?

What’s still so flabbergasting to me is what did they change yesterday that finally realized and notified me that I’m over 7 years after the support contract expired and thus shouldn’t have been able to get working updates?

If I could roll this back a version until it worked so that I could get it sorted out and purchase a contract, that’s one thing, but it seems like I’m ultimately at a point that either I shell out $600 (hopefully, if Bronze is enough) or I just toss the system. This could be much less annoying if it were handled more similarly to any other SaaS I’ve ever heard of.

11

There are quite a few message threads here related to the recent commercial license enforcement. I believe it boils down to the one time 25-year license being valid for the current version the module was purchased at. So if 10 years ago you purchased a commercial license for v1.2.3.4 then that version is fine for another 15 years. Updating to a new version like v1.2.3.5 or beyond would require the necessary support option being purchased. It just seems as if Sangoma let things slide until recently. At which point it started taking action on what was supposed to be happening all along.

12

That’s right, Bronze is software updates only. If your Sangoma rep is offering it to you, then that’s great; it might be more suitable than all that support time if it’s now of no value to you. Things have been tightened up with commercial licences recently and a large part of that effort, I suppose, is to prevent annual maintenance from drifting by 7 years like this. It shouldn’t happen moving forward in theory, as the softphones would have stopped working in 2020. I’m pretty sure you can pay several years in advance as well as several years back like this, I’m not certain though.

13

What’s what it seems like from what I can tell. I’ve checked to see if other updates happened that kicked something and started all this, but from what I can tell it was nothing on my end.

It’s just a very annoying way to deal with it. I know that IT people working on these all the time pay more attention than I can afford to, but I’m usually catching up after the fact.

Catching up because my setup which was nicely functioning on autopilot just suddenly stopped working is aggravating.

If anyone with decision-making power is listening, the best way to handle this is to just not allow upgrades to modules if my license doesn’t allow that. That’s the very simple and industry standard model.

14

Yes, that would be the logical move. If commercial module XYZ doesn’t have a maintenance/support contract associated with it, and was originally purchased at v1.2.3.4, then no updates for it would be available/exposed/allowed.

I can’t speak to the inner workings, but I would imagine this would become a challenge when it comes to updates to Asterisk and FreePBX as a whole. There could be dependency issues when there is a 10 year old commercial module XYZ sitting at v1.2.3.4 that would/could be essentially broken due to updates to the platform and framework it’s working within.

Making a perhaps-poor Windows analogy. Say you have a Windows app that comes with 25 years of licensed usage for its current version. It’s a legacy 16-bit app that works fine on Windows 95. Due to OS updates and newer Windows versions suddenly that 16-bit app hits the fan. At that point if you want the app and also need it to run on newer Windows then you need to climb back on-board with the app vendor.

16

That’s a bit of what I’m running into now. Presumably the versions I’m allowed will not run anymore.

Pretty sure in 2019 I was using Zulu, not sure SangomaConnect was even at thing then.

Still, even if I had been forced in to yearly payments up front that would sit much better than the current situation which feels like errors on Sangoma end as well as my own were converted into a problem unsolvable by me and that they’re not willing to take any accountability for without paying a lot of money.

I suppose we’re going to go back with it, I still don’t know of a better option at the moment, but I’m worried moves like this are giving me whiffs that the enshifitication cycle is kicking in.

17

@penguinpbx Probably final update here in case anyone at Sangoma is listening and cares.

After jumping through several hoops to figure out what needs to be done, I’ll likely just bit the bullet and take the $600 fleecing. So, I guess congrats that you made a little cash.

On the flip side, the more I dig into this, the more annoyed I get from a customer perspective. So much so, that I’m going to be looking long and hard at other options. So, I guess whatever the opposite of congrats is, because while you may have bumped this month’s revenue, it may cost you in the long run.

Digging a little deeper into the forums and I see that there are many more users than just me mad about this, and some much more irate. It seems that this was either handled with extreme short-sightedness, or a heavy dose of incompetence, or quite possibly both.

I’ve rolled back to SangomaConnect 16.0.3 and still do not have access. It would now allow me to roll back to any versions prior to that.

Part of the issues here is that SangomaConnect wasn’t a think at the time the support contract expired. Zulu was the app in use at the time (worked great, hated to see it go).

So, I suppose I have a 25 year license to use Zulu, as long as I’m on a version prior to my expiration date, only Zulu is no longer offered and doesn’t seem to be available for download or install.

Would be fine, Zulu license was converted to a SangomaConnect license, but with the caveat that at the time it was converted, I technically did not have a license to download that module version because it was newer than my expiration date.

So, it seems that I have a license for a module that I can no longer use, which may have transitioned into a license for a module that I was never actually allowed to use.

Overall, sure I guess you can claim this was the customer’s fault and demand your ransom payments to make a system work again, but I think it’s pretty undeniable that this was all made possible by very subpar development and management on the part of Sangoma.

The fact that they’re putting the burden entirely on the customers to solve problems by paying that should not have been problems in the first place really make me down whether this is the best choice for a product in the long run. I’d really like to see better accountability and customer service, but more than anything I’d like to feel my software vendor had a better idea of what they’re doing.

19

Is there anything that you recently changed on the system ? Steps that you had not taken for a while e.g. updating software because of security issues or interest in new features ?

You can continue to use the 25-year licensed modules at the last version which you paid for access to – so that seems like forever/perpetual for many people – and it has been this way for a while, including the POMPs requirement for updates on PBXact:

But the softphones are not forever-licensed modules, even back towards the end of the Zulu days, this was the case – see for example Zulu licensing - #4 by tonyclewis quote:

And also:

Those posts ^^^ are from eight years ago, while newer posts highlighted the latest updates several months ago e.g. Softphone access is changing as module licenses expire.

Generally speaking, that was probably part of the license agreement at the time for most of the commercial modules, yes.

Many people choose this option to buy the latest PBXact appliance on updated hardware/firmware/software, particularly with aging physical appliances. Props to keeping yours running this long!

21

The only changes to the system as far back as I can recall (several months) would have been automated. I found in the logs a php update yesterday when this started. I rolled that back and it didn’t change. I rolled back everything I could roll back and couldn’t make a change. The lockout on the softphones seems to be entirely Sangoma side.

The phone apps (Zulu at the time), as far as I recall, were included with PBXact at the time. They are still advertised as so now. My licenses show a Zulu license expiring in 2044. Zulu was not limited to a separate yearly renewal option aside from the module updates.

Whether or not that’s a crazy business idea isn’t for me to say, I wasn’t the one selling it. But in my own business I stand by what I sell, even if it was a mistake.

The issue here is that Sangoma was allowing users to update modules they no longer had maintenance packages for, and allowing that to be done automatically in the background.

Is it reasonable to put the burden on the user to not only to make sure that they don’t try to update a package without a support contract, but also to make sure that no package gets updated without their knowledge?

Allowing this to go on for several years like this, and then suddenly just shutting off functionality with no real warning (yeah, I know you made blog posts, I’m not an avid social media user) and no parachute for how to make it work.

Call a spade a spade, this was a ransom payment. I paid it because we have remote users that were completely shut off.

The longer I’m tied up on this the more annoyed I got. I’ve seen several other threads voicing the same opinion and it doesn’t sound like anyone from Sangoma has considered and maybe not ever understood the results of what’s going on.

Not giving me enough faith in the future to go through the cost and trouble of an appliance upgrade without a deep dive to compare other solutions as well.

22

I can understand why this is frustrating, especially when the system has been running for years and suddenly the softphones stop working. Before paying for anything or rolling back, I’d try to confirm exactly which modules are blocked and whether the recent update triggered the issue. Someone familiar with PBXact licensing may be able to clarify the difference between the original license and ongoing update support. At that price, I’d definitely compare the renewal cost with the alternatives before committing.

23

Unfortunately, Sangoma has us over a barrel and they got their short term cash. I’m not even so concerned about the cost as I am the way it was all handled.

Ultimately, I can understand that they want and need revenue from the maintenance support contracts for business. But in the process of all this they’ve also essentially stopped providing a service for which they sold me a 25 year licence. Maintenance and module updates or not, I cannot find anywhere to download Zulu, so even if I rolled everything back to an old version (which may or may not be available), I still couldn’t actually use the license the way they claimed.

The crux of the matter as far as I can tell from a layman’s perspective is that their claim that “you can just continue to use the license for 25 years” isn’t true given that they’re not going to bother supporting old versions that long and they’re going to force a large payment for all the in between years even if I actually hadn’t used or needed any of those updates.

This sounds like to a T like an decision thought up by upper management and the finance department to make numbers on paper look better in the short term and did not take into account any of the actual situation that would be created by doing so.

There was a better way to handle this. Customer service is as important if not more so than the product being sold. Unfortunately, Sangoma seems to have gone the way of all the other companies and determined that customer service is a cost that can easily be cut for immediate P&L improvements ands the fallout from that will likely be someone else’s problem to deal with another day.

I rolled back other updates including PHP to see if I could make anything work again. Even to the oldest version of SangomaConnect I could seem to pull. Nothing worked, this change was not on my end, it was on Sangoma’s side.

It’s interesting that you mentioned other modules, because I did consider that if this stopped working, it may just be the most visible and EPM or other modules that I need on an extremely seldom basis may not be functioning either. I checked that one just out of curiosity and it did not seem to have any issues.

So, it seems that the most impactful and noticeable modules were shut off. I know the old saying about never attributing to malice what you can attribute to stupidity, but it sure seems a big coincidence that the only commercial module that I could easily tell stopped working was the one that would almost certainly force us to make a big payment asap.

I also thought that maybe those were just the only modules that had been updated past the allowable date (which seemed a stretch, but figured I’d be sure). Once I had purchased the 8 years of (non)support package, I checked for updates on all my modules and there were none. Every single module had been allowed to automatically update to the latest version.