Queue leaves one extension "Busy"

FreePBX Installation / Upgrade
1

My first post - I’ve searched to try and resolve this myself but need some guidance…

I have a new installation of FreePBX 2.11.0.0beta2.8 (Asterisk 11.1.2) running on a Raspberry Pi with a very simple 4 phone extension home system (using a Siemens N300A IP base-station). The external trunk is from Sipgate and I’m behind a NAT router.

I set up a Queue which was configured to ring all 4 phones but, when an external call was routed to it, one phone was not ringing. Looking in the CDR reports I see that this extension is DISPOSITION: BUSY (which it is not - not deliberately anyway). Checking the Subscribe/Notify details I see all phones in state IDLE.

I reset the system and called the queue again - this time all phones rang but on a subsequent test call a different extension was marked as BUSY and did not ring.

Dialling the queue from an internal phone seems to move the “incorrect” BUSY status to another extension (not the one being called from).

Internal calls to the queue ring on all phones (except the calling one). The issue seems to only be with inbound EXTERNAL calls to the queue.

What am I missing in my Queue set up which is causing my extensions to be (apparently) randomly marked as BUSY when they are not?

Thanks for any help.

2

In case it helps, I’m using “extensions” mode and the extensions are set up in the queue as static agents.

3
  1. what ring strategy are you using for the queue?
  2. look at the log file and you should see system ringing all four extensions and when you pick up one of them you should see the other three hanging up.
  3. during your testing, when you ring all the phones, do you answer one of them or do you let it go to the answering machine (i think this base station has an answering machine)?
4

The issue is not the asterisk or free pbx but the seimens base station. It can only support ringing a number if individual hand sets at one time. You need to get a second base station and have two handsets on each to ring all handsets at the same time

5

Thanks for the response.

  1. ringall
  2. i’m seeing the system ring three the 4th hang up because it’s DISPOSITION: BUSY
  3. the Siemens answer-machine is disabled - the queue is pulling the call back to Asterisk VM if not answered
6

Thanks for that info. It’s disappointing if correct.

I’m pretty sure it’s ringing all 4 phones for internal Asterisk calls to the queue but I’ll do some more testing and report back.

I guess I could configure the Siemens N300A IP as a single asterisk extension and let it take care of the individual handsets although that partly defeats the purpose of using Asterisk in the first place.

Shame there’s no debug logging on the N300A…

Thanks again for your help.

7

Since those are DECT phones they should work with a real base station that supports proper inidividual registration like a Spectralink.

There is another thread going on the forum that someone is struggling with attended transfers with Siemens DECT. I have never seen these phones but I am ready to award the Skyking turd award to them.

8

Sigh. Should have RTFM… from http://gigaset.com/hq/no/product/GIGASETN300IP.html

Multi-line for up to 6 handsets and 3 parallel calls

I guess that’s my issue.

Is there a specific Spectralink DECT base station you recommend? Since this is a home scenario, budgets are not unlimited.

9

So, for the benefit of others, here’s a workaround for ringing more than 3 phones from Asterisk on a Siemens Gigaset N300A IP base station.

The N300A IP base station supports 6 SIP connection profiles and 3 concurrent calls. I have 4 handsets so here’s how I set it up:

  1. Set up one Asterisk extension for each handset (numbered 1 - 4). Set up one N300A SIP connection per extension and configure each connection to ring only the required handset. Set outbound calling per-handset to also use the extension-specific connection.

  2. Set up one Asterisk extension (numbered 5) for “all phones”. Set up another N300A connection for this extension and configure it to ring on all handsets.

So when I have a call in a queue which I want to ring for all handsets I send it to extension 5 - that’s one SIP call to the N300A but all 4 handsets ring (bypassing the 3 SIP call limit). But this setup still allows me to treat the extensions individually when I need to (so long as I don’t exceed 3 calls into the N300A).

It’s a bit of a kludge but it meets my needs without having to spend more money on a new base station.

Hope that helps others. Caveat emptor.