This document will guide you through the troubleshooting steps which should resolve most issues with Polycom or Snom phones which have failed to be provisioned successfully using the Phone Setup process. These are all of the troubleshooting steps which a Switchvox support representative will guide you through if you call in for assistance on Phone Setup. Please follow this troubleshooting guide step by step and don't skip ahead as many of these steps will not produce the intended results if performed out of order.
First there are a number of topics and factors which we need to check on and discuss before beginning the core of the troubleshooting process.
Remote Phones – These are phones which are not connected to the same network segment that your PBX is on. This could mean different subnets, VLANs, or phones which are physically located at a different location than that of the PBX. Remote phones can be successfully taken through the phone setup process but we need to make sure that the communication ports are open on all networks or network segments that this connection traffic will be traveling over. The ports necessary for a phone to connect remotely to your Switchvox PBX are:
UDP 5060
UDP 10,000 – 20,000
These ports need to be open on the network which the phone is connected to and traffic over these ports needs to be forwarded to the IP Address of your PBX on the network which it is directly connected to.
VOIP Network Features – Many current network devises; routers, firewalls, even some switches, have features built in to them which are intended to help with VOIP traffic on your network. While all of these features are well intentioned, past experience has shown us that sometimes these features can instead cause difficulty with VOIP communication and phone registration to your PBX.
Below is a list of VOIP features which Switchvox has encountered in the past that may potentially cause issues:
SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection)
SIP Transformations
SIP ALG (SIP Application Layer Gateway)
ALG
NAT Filtering
SIP Inspection
Smart Packet Detection
Option 66 on router
We strongly suggest that these features be disabled on any network devise on your network which possess them.
Existing Phones – If your Switchvox PBX already has phones registered to it, then we want to verify that these phones are currently connected to the system and that we are able to make/receive calls to them before we proceed with troubleshooting. If none of the existing phones are able to connect to your Switchvox PBX this probably indicates that there may be a more serious issue which should be resolved before we attempt to register a new phone to the system.
In the case that some phones are connected to the PBX and others are not, we will want to identify if the phones that are not connected are local or remote to the PBX and if the new phone we're trying to register is local or remote. As with the scenario of all phones not registering to the PBX it does little good to try and connect a new local or new remote phone if all phones of this kind are unable to connect to the PBX.
If this is the first phone that we are connecting to your Switchvox PBX we strongly recommend using a phone which will be locally connected to the network.
Configured Phones – If you have already attempted to take this phone through the Phone Setup process and it was unsuccessful, chances are very good at this stage that this phone's MAC Address has been moved beyond the Unknown Phones section of the Phone Setup page. Before we begin troubleshooting steps dealing with the phone specifically we will need to reset any progress made with the Phone Setup in the Switchvox software.
Please navigate in the Switchvox web-interface to System Setup > Phone Setup, and check the “Unconfiguered Phones” and “Configured Phones” sections for the presence of this phones MAC Address. If we do locate this phone on either of these lists please click on the check-box to the left of the MAC Address then select the red “Reject Checked Phones” or “Unconfigure Checked Phones” button near the top of the page. This will return the phone back to the Unknown Phones list.
Troubleshooting
Now that we have verified the network or networks which the phone will be communicating through to reach your PBX have all the appropriate ports opened, and we have established that existing phones (if any) are successfully registered we can begin to focus specifically on the phone which we're having trouble with. Below; in numbered order, are the troubleshooting steps which Switchvox Support has, over time, determined will enable us to successfully take your phone through the Phone Setup process.
1. The first step in the troubleshooting process is to reset this phone back to its factory default settings.
• Polycom Directions
• Press the Menu key on the phone then select the following options: Settings > Advanced > 456 (the default password) > Enter > Admin Settings > Reset to Default.
• There are three reset options in this menu but we will be using two of them; “Reset Device Settings” and “Reset Local Config”, please reset the devise settings first. After selecting each reset option the phone will automatically reboot. This may not occur immediately but please be patient, it will reboot.
• This reboot process can take as long as 10 minutes and during the phone's boot process you will see various messages display on the LCD screen, such as “downloading application”, “cannot contact boot server”, etc. These message are normal and do not indicate trouble.
• When the phone has finished restarting (you will know that the phone has finished when the time and date appear on the LCD screen. Please note: the wrong time and date may display, but this is normal), follow the directions from above but this time please select “Reset Local Config”. As before when selecting the reset option the phone will automatically restart after a few seconds. Please wait for the phone to completely finish rebooting before proceeding any further.
• If during the process of resetting this phone to its default settings the phone becomes stuck in a cycle which causes it to continuously reboot then we will need try and force this phone to download new configuration files from your Switchvox PBX. To do this we will be performing a few troubleshooting steps out of their normal order.
• First we need to make sure that the Switchvox software knows that it needs to push software to this phone. Previously we advised you to make sure that the MAC Address for this phone has been removed from the “Unconfigured” or “Configured Phones” list on the Phone Setup page. But in order to stop the reboot cycle the phone's MAC Address must appear in the “Unconfigured Phones” list. The phone should currently be “Unknown” so all we need to do is check the box for this phone and select the “Confirm Check Phones” button. If the MAC Address for this phone currently appears in the “Configured Phones” list please refer to the Configured Phones section at the top of this document to return the phone to “Unknown”, then we can confirm the phone to move it to unconfigured.
• If this phone's MAC Address does not appear in any of the Phone Setup menus then we cannot use the Switchvox PBX at this point to stop this boot cycle. At this point there are two choices. Either you use your own FTP server to load configuration files to this phone, or you can contact Switchvox Support for other possible options.
• While the phone is rebooting there will be a point that the phone's LCD shows a “Welcome” screen and one of the soft-button options should be “Setup”. When we press the setup button you will be prompted to enter a password which is 456, and we will then be taken to the Network Configuration menu options for the phone. In the Network Configuration we need to point the phone at the PBX directly, and also set the Boot Server to Static. Specific directions for making these setting changes can be found in Step 2: for pointing the phone at the PBX, and Step 5: to set the boot server. Please make both of these changes then back or exit out until promoted to save the settings and reboot the phone.
• As the phone restarts it should start downloading configuration files from the PBX that will stop the boot cycle on the phone and when the phone has finished restarting the time and date should appear on the LCD screen (if the time and date are wrong don't be alarmed, this is normal). From here we should be able to finish taking this phone through the Phone Setup process as we can be positive that the phone is communicating successfully with the PBX successfully.
• In the case that the above steps have failed to bring this phone out of the continuous boot cycle, we again find ourselves at the stage where the only way to proceed is to either load configuration files using your own FTP server, or you can contact Switchvox support for other possible options.
• Snom Directions
• Resetting a Snom phone to the factory default settings is going to vary depending upon the exact model. Most phones should have a “Reset” button in the Advanced settings of the web-interface of the phone. For directions on how to get to the web-interface of this phone please refer to Step 3 of this document. Ultimately, you may need to refer to the documentation for this Snom phone for specific directions how to reset the factory default settings.
2. The second step in this troubleshooting process is to point the phone directly to the IP Address for your Switchvox PBX so that it can retrieve the necessary configuration files.
• Polycom Directions
• On the phone press the Menu key and select: Settings > Advanced > 456 (the default password) > Enter > Admin Settings > Network Configuration. Then Arrow down to select the Server Menu.
• Please set the “Server Type:” to “HTTP” and the “Server Address:” to the “IP_OF_YOUR_PBX/pc”
• For example if the IP Address for your Switchvox PBX is 192.168.1.100 we should end up with; 192.168.1.100/pc
• Depending upon the exact model of your phone the process to entering the numbers and other characters into the Server Address may vary. On some models you can change the input type by pressing the # key on the phone, on others you will have a soft key labeled with the current input method. You may want to refer to the users guide for the phone if you have trouble entering this data.
• Once these settings have been configured exit or back out of the menu options until you are prompted to save the settings and reboot the phone. As before this boot process can take up to 10 minutes. Please be patient and do not proceed until the phone has finished rebooting.
• Snom Directions
• On the phone press the Settings key and select: Network > Webserver Type, and modify the entry so that “HTTP & HTTPS” is selected.
• Then arrow down to Settings Server and set this entry to the “IP_OF_YOUR_PBX/pc/PHONE_MAC_ADDRESS.xml”
• For example if the IP Address for your Switchvox PBX is 192.168.1.100, and the MAC Address for the phone is 0011.11AF.2AEA, we should end up with; 192.168.1.100/pc/001111AF2AEA.xml
• If the trouble that you are experiencing with this phone is that it was not appearing in the list of Unknown Phones in the Switchvox software, then this issue should be resolved at this stage in the troubleshooting process.
• Once the phone has completely finished rebooting please check the Unknown Phones list again and if it now appears, continue with the Phone Setup process. Otherwise proceed to the next step of this troubleshooting guide.
3. Step three of the troubleshooting process is to confirm that this phone has successfully connected to your network and that we are able to communicate with it. First, we need to obtain the IP Address which this phone is using on your network.
• Polycom Directions
• To locate the IP address on a Polycom phone press the Menu key then select the following options: Status > Network > TCP/IP Parameters. The first entry is the IP for this phone.
• Snom Directions
• Settings > Network > IP Address
