Polycom phones at school all ring at once

victore · August 12, 2022, 3:03am

Hello to everyone in the community. This is my first time posting here. Please excuse my ignorance and lack of telephony experience.

Bottom line, I don’t know if this problem is because of a phone configuration issue or a PBX issue.

I am coming here to humbly ask for your help. I work for a private (low income) school as their do-it-all IT support person. This summer I have been tasked with installing a new intercom system throughout the campus. I decided IP phones would work well and be future proofed to eventually provide public telephone service in all rooms.

As a private school we were given a donation of 65 Polycom phones from the local public school district as they had recently upgraded. We received VVX400, VVX401, VVX410 and a few VVX411.

Upon receiving the phones in various states, I cleaned, reset and upgraded all of them.

The phones and PBX are on a local area network, I choose to statically assign each IP address. Initially I tried using FusionPBX as the local PBX software onsite and connected the phones with the SIP registration. I did not use any auto-provisioning features on the server side. I created a configuration text file and used the webportal to uploaded it to each phone with a few minor changes for extension/name.

Here’s the problem. As the title states, when certain extensions are dialed all (every single one) of the phones will display a message on screen that says “Incoming call To: ext#(ext name) From: ext #(ext name)”. After a few seconds the message on screen changes to a smaller box that says “Remote: Tech Coordinator To: ext#(ext name) From: ext#(ext name)” This alert message does not produce any audible tones, except at the actual extension that was dialed the phone rings like normal. The call can be answered only from the extension actually dialed. Roughly half of the phones exhibit this problem. The problem seems to come from the extension being dialed rather than the one doing the dialing.

After experiencing this problem I tried switching to FreePBX. I installed FreePBX and tried again with the exact same results. The exact same extensions were the problematic ones. If I changed the phone extension and sip server extension from let’s say 200 to 199 it worked fine.

I have spent many days researching and learning and I don’t know what else to do, school starts in 2 weeks. After trying two different software servers I figured it must be the phones?

Not sure if this helps but extensions that don’t work include 100,200,228-239 excluding 233. Extensions that work fine include 99,101,201-227, 233. I don’t see much of a pattern. There appears to be no correlation between phone models and the problem extensions. All phone models work and don’t work equally.

Some information about the phones:

VVX400 all upgraded to 5.9.7.3480

VVX410 all upgraded to 5.9.7.3480

VVX411 all upgraded to 6.4.3.5156

This is an example of the configuration I was sending to the phones.


<PHONE_CONFIG>

	<ALL
		
		call.autoAnswer.micMute="0"
		call.autoAnswer.SIP="1"
		device.prov.serverName.set="0"
		device.prov.ztpEnabled="0"
		device.prov.ztpEnabled.set="0"
		device.set="0"
		efk.softkey.alignleft="0"
		feature.doNotDisturb.enable="0"
		feature.EFKLineKey.enabled="1"
		feature.enhancedFeatureKeys.enabled="1"
		feature.forward.enable="0"
		softkey.feature.newcall="0"
		feature.intercom.enable="1"
		softkey.feature.intercom="0"
		homeScreen.intercom.enable="0"
		np.normal.ringing.toneVolume.chassis="3"

		ptt.emergencyChannel.volume="0"
		ptt.pageMode.allowOffHookPages="1"
		ptt.pageMode.defaultGroup="2"

		ptt.pageMode.emergencyGroup="1"
		ptt.pageMode.enable="1"
		ptt.pageMode.priorityGroup="2"


		tcpIpApp.sntp.address="pool.ntp.org"
		tcpIpApp.sntp.address.overrideDHCP="1"
		tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffset="-18000"
		tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffset.overrideDHCP="1"
		tcpIpApp.sntp.gmtOffsetcityID="16"
		voIpProt.SIP.local.port="5060"

		attendant.resourceList.1.address="200"
		attendant.resourceList.2.address="229"
		attendant.resourceList.3.address="230"
		attendant.resourceList.4.address="231"
		attendant.resourceList.5.address="232"
		attendant.resourceList.6.address="234"
		attendant.resourceList.7.address="228"
		attendant.resourceList.8.address="235"
		attendant.resourceList.9.address="238"
		attendant.resourceList.10.address="300"
		attendant.resourceList.11.address="100"
		attendant.resourceList.1.label="SPS Secretary"
		attendant.resourceList.2.label="Clinic"
		attendant.resourceList.3.label="Principle"
		attendant.resourceList.4.label="Asst Principle"
		attendant.resourceList.5.label="Tech Coordinator"
		attendant.resourceList.6.label="SPS Lounge"
		attendant.resourceList.7.label="SPS Kitchen"
		attendant.resourceList.8.label="Aftercare"
		attendant.resourceList.9.label="Maint Room"
		attendant.resourceList.10.label="SPPS Secretary"
		attendant.resourceList.11.label="SPP Secretary"

		attendant.resourceList.1.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.2.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.3.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.4.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.5.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.6.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.7.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.8.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.9.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.10.type="normal"
		attendant.resourceList.11.type="normal"

		ptt.pageMode.group.1.label="Campus"
		ptt.pageMode.group.2.label="School"
		ptt.pageMode.group.3.label="Preschool"
		ptt.pageMode.group.4.label="Parish Center"
		ptt.pageMode.group.5.label="Church"
		ptt.pageMode.group.6.label="Rectory"
		ptt.pageMode.group.7.label="Pavilion"
		ptt.pageMode.group.2.subscribed="1"
		ptt.pageMode.group.3.subscribed="1"
		ptt.pageMode.group.4.subscribed="1"
		ptt.pageMode.group.24.subscribed="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.25.subscribed="0"


		ptt.pageMode.group.1.allowReceive="1"
		ptt.pageMode.group.2.allowReceive="1"
		ptt.pageMode.group.3.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.4.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.5.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.6.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.7.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.8.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.9.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.10.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.11.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.12.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.13.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.14.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.15.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.16.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.17.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.18.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.19.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.20.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.21.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.22.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.23.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.24.allowReceive="0"
		ptt.pageMode.group.25.allowReceive="0"


		reg.1.server.1.address="192.168.1.220"
		reg.1.server.1.port="5060"
		reg.1.auth.password="DELETED by me"


		reg.1.address="201"
		reg.1.auth.userId="201"
		reg.1.displayName="Room 1"
		reg.1.label="Room 1"

		ptt.pageMode.displayName="Room 1"
		ptt.pageMode.transmit.timeout.continuation="30"



	/>
</PHONE_CONFIG>

Here is the message:

If there is anything else you need that would help you please feel free to let me know.

Thank you in advance, your thoughts and experience will be much appreciated!

jgttgns · August 12, 2022, 5:02am

You should get a SIP trace of the problem and post it here. There are only a couple of things that can cause these strange signals, but I’d rather verify that with real data instead of just suggesting what to look at.

victore · August 12, 2022, 5:51am

Thank you for the suggestion. I will do that as soon as I get back to work at the school.

Stewart1 · August 12, 2022, 6:07am

By default, in FreePBX (and I assume FusionPBX), when an extension for which the user has a BLF key is ringing, the user can press the BLF key (or the Pickup softkey) to answer the call on behalf of the extension being rung. To help the user determine whether they should answer, a popup appears showing who is calling and who is being called.

However, I don’t understand what you are asking. Does pressing the BLF key (or Pickup) not work? Or, do you want users to be able to answer any ringing phone, even ones for which they don’t have a BLF? Or, do you want to disable call pickup altogether (users should not be able to answer calls for other than their own extension)?

You may find this useful:

If you still have trouble, post details of the desired behavior and what you are experiencing.

By the way, the head of a school is the principal, though some have no principles.

victore · August 12, 2022, 6:31am

Omg I just read your comment on my spelling mistake. How embarrassing! At least I don’t claim to be the English teacher! I’ll get that corrected asap…

Thank you for the detailed response. My desired outcome would be to only monitor the BLF lines. I don’t want anyone to be able to pickup a call that wasn’t intended for them. My goal was only to have a status light to show who is on the phone and also be able to press the line key button as an internal speed dial function.

I read the Polycom article you linked and believe that is the answer to my problem. I didn’t realize that it was actually a feature. I will try this tomorrow and update with the result.

What confused me the most however, is why certain phones act different. Some have the Directed Call Pickup message and others don’t. And it’s always dependent on the dialed phone, not the dialing phone. For example 229 dials 202 no popup, but 202 dials 229 popup. Also confusing is how the behavior changes simply by changing the extension number of a phone, for example 200 to 199.

Since these phones were all used and reset to factory settings by myself, is it possible that certain configuration settings were retained from the previous installation? I’ve noticed the provisioning server information is very stubborn to delete.

victore · August 12, 2022, 10:50pm

I just wanted to follow up on this thread and let you know that I found the solution.

		attendant.behaviors.display.spontaneousCallAppearances.normal="0"

That parameter was the one I needed to turn off the Directed Call Pickup feature on all phones. Still not sure why it was only enabled on some. By default its supposed to be off.

Thank you @Stewart1 for your assistance.

system · August 19, 2022, 10:50pm

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