Rhino 8 Port FXO Noise

General Help
1

Hi All,

Have a Rhino Ceros box that I’ve been battling for the last few months now. First installed this past January 2014 and got so aggravated with it then I wiped it clean and did a fresh install last week. Even reconfigured by hand so that nothing could creep in from a backup.

Running FreePBX 2.11.0.32 (32 Bit), Asterisk 11.8.1. Using a Rhino 8 Port Modular FXO Card (the modules have been replaced once already). Phones are Aastra 9143i.

ATT has been out several times and they claim everything on the lines are clear. Using a butt set, everything sounds clear.

Calls have a windy feedback sound to them when talking. The external caller hears everything fine. Internal calls are fine. External VoIP calls are fine. It is only external DAHDI calls that have an issue.

I’ve worked with Rhino tech support and they are at a loss as to what to change to correct the problem.

I did a test call using a Zoiper soft phone and the calls were the same as if using the Aastra.

Under the advice of Rhino, I created a rhino.conf file in the /etc/modprobe.d folder and tried the following two settings:
nlp_type=0
no_ec=255

Rebooted after each change and didn’t seem to make a difference.

Anyone have any other suggestions? I’ve been using Rhino cards/Aastra phones for 10 years and have never had any problems.

Thanks,
Westley

2

FYI: These are my DAHDI Global Settings:

Select Language: English
Enable Busy Detect: Yes
Busy Detect Count: 10
Use Caller ID:Yes
Enable Call Waiting: Yes
Use Caller ID Presentation: Yes
Enable Three Way Calling: Yes
Enable Transfer: Yes
Enable Call Forwarding: Yes
Enable Call Return: Yes
Enable Echo Canceling: Yes
Enable EC when bridged: No
Enable Echo Training: no
Answer Immediately: No
Fax Detection: No
Receive Gain: 0.0
Transmit Gain: 0.0

My Module settings are to load rcbfx only.

All ports are set for Loop Start with context from-analog.

Thanks,
Westley

3

Try running fxotune on the lines.

With Asterisk stopped:
fxotune -i 4
fxotune -s
Start Asterisk.

Test it out. Also post the contents of /etc/fxotune.conf here.

4

Hi jfinstrom,

When I ran fxotune -i 4, I got a bunch of lines that said this:
Failed to open /dev/dahdi/ctl: No such file or directory

Still ran fxotune -s, no output.

The /etc/fxotune.conf file is empty.

When I restarted Asterisk, I received the following:

STARTING DAHDI FOR DIGIUM CARDS
Loading DAHDI hardware modules:
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'nlp_type=0’
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 2: ignoring bad line starting with 'no_ec=255’
rcbfx: WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'nlp_type=0’
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 2: ignoring bad line starting with ‘no_ec=255’
[ OK ]

Running dahdi_cfg: [ OK ]
Dahdi Started

SETTING FILE PERMISSIONS
chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on /var/www/html/isymphony
chattr: Operation not supported while reading flags on /var/www/html/wcb.php
Permissions OK
Removing any dangling symlinks
Dangling symlinks removed

STARTING ASTERISK
Asterisk Started
Starting REST applications daemon: [ OK ]
Stopping fail2ban: REST Applications module is not licensed.
[ OK ]
Starting fail2ban: [ OK ]

Thanks,
Westley

5
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'nlp_type=0' WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 2: ignoring bad line starting with 'no_ec=255' rcbfx: WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'nlp_type=0' WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/rhino.conf line 2: ignoring bad line starting with 'no_ec=255' [ OK ] Shows you did it wrong.

Your file should have:

options rcbfx nlp_type=0

This mutes the comfort noise.

The other line they asked you to enter turns off the Echo Canceler. If you were to add both you would have:

options rcbfx nlp_type=0 no_ec=255

You should try the nlp_type=0 alone first

6

Problem solved!

First off, James you were right, I was missing the “options rcbfx” in front of the two options, although neither one of those options helped anything.

For whatever reason it seems the hardware echo cancellation wasn’t being turned on. When I ran dahdi_cfg -vvv it showed Echo Cancellation set to none.

Under DAHDI Config, I went into Global Settings and made sure Enable Echo Cancellation was Yes and added channel=>1-8 to Other Global Dahdi Settings.

In System Settings, I added echocanceller=hwec,1-8 to Other Dahdi System Settings.

Calls are much cleaner now.

Thanks for your help!
Westley