I’ve been managing several small (all under 10 extension, single SIP trunk) PBX installations running FreePBX 1.814.210.58-1…
I’ve had a lingering issue that’s a pain in my butt. Only with one installation, randomly, once every few days, with no rhyme or reason, we get a dropped call. When I mean no pattern, I mean no pattern. We can go days without a dropped call and then we’ll get one drop. Next day, no drops. A day later a dropped call… then a week goes by, and a couple drops within 2 hours of each other.
There are 6 Cisco SPA525Gv2 SIP phones in the office. I’ve heard that there are some BYOD SIP providers that do not support these phones. The recommended Cisco phones for most asterisk installations is the Cisco 796x and 794x models. The moment I told my firewall provider (who deals extensively in SIP hardware) about the SPA525Gv2s being in the mix, he told me that was my problem. Something about not handling reinvites properly…
Here’s a possible supporting confirmation regarding that: The suite next door is running the same asterisk version, but they are configured with several old Grandstream GXP2000 phones. They complain about call quality, but they NEVER complain about dropped call issues.
So, I was told my my VoIP provider to install pcapsipdump on the PBX and wireshark to be able to trace the issue.
MY QUESTION: If these Cisco SPA525Gv2’s ARE the cause of the problem, will the pcapsipdump and wireshark be able to point to the reinvite as the issue with the handsets?
Can someone provide me with the step-by-step instructions for installing pcapsipdump on my FreePBX box? I’m horrible with the command line and ssh, so the detailed step-by-steps would be great. Also, my router provides a network capture, so I think that would be better than wireshark? Yes/No?
No, Asterisk is a “backtoback user agent”, it is asterisk that “talks” to your SIP provider, not the phones themselves so any advice from your “firewall provider” in this area is incorrect.
I would disagree that the 796x 794x are recommended, far from it, they are old and flaky when it comes to their software stack and talking to asterisk.
I agree that the 79x0’s are old, flaky however I don’t think so. Between 5 school districts we have over 1000 of them on hosted service (fiber with dedicated voice VLAN to provider).
So, how should I proceed to look further? Install the pcapsipdump app on the pbx? If so, how to do it? I can’t seem to find a step by step for both installation, running and stopping the program…
Well, Cisco put the 79x0 code on their FTP server when the phones went end of support.
I certainly would not recommend 10 year old phones for any installations. The bases wear out, buttons and hookswitches.
It just also so happens that the whole 79 line from Cisco has fantastic ergonomics and a killer speaker phone.
I simply wanted to disspell the myth that they are flaky. There flat file config is also much simpler than the newer Cisco XML.
Lastly, because so many of these exist in legacy systems and don’t need to be in the trash because Cisco says it is time Micro Advantage has sponsored the addition of this model to the commercial EPM.
Unfortunately I did not have time to talk to the EPM developer at Astricon because within 2 hours of arriving I ended up in the hospital with a kidney stone and did not get home until last night.
Where should I type this? Into the GUI under the Asterisk CLI?
and what you mean by “theinterestingparty” as the IP address of what? my firewall? and where is the log file created?
The first in asterisk, the second in bash. The log file by default /var/log/asterisk/full . The interestingparty is the host that you are having problems with. But without being condescending, I think you need to find someone who has done a little more homework than you have yet to help you in your immediate future. There is only so much that quick answers in a forum can provide.
so feel better. . .