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Cisco 9971 not accepting NTP settings?

lukebenfey
Level 1
Level 1

Heya guys... We've got some Cisco 9971s that I've been trying to configure to work with our SIP Server... I've got them making/receiving calls fine, which is great, but I'm seeing a weird problem that LOOKS like it is on the phone side.  Specifically, NTP settings made in the .cnf.xml file do not seem to be registering.  The result is that the phone always thinks it is 16:00 on 12/31/81 whenever it boots. 

The relevant section of my SEP(mac).cnf.xml is:

    <dateTimeSetting>

      <dateTemplate>M/D/Y</dateTemplate>

      <timeZone>Pacific Standard/Daylight Time</timeZone>

      <ntps>

        <ntp>

          <name>192.168.168.10</name>

          <ntpMode>Unicast</ntpMode>

        </ntp>

      </ntps>

    </dateTimeSetting>

When I watch all the traffic to/from this port with Wireshark I don't see any attempts to talk to the IP of the NTP server at all.  

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

29 Replies 29

lukebenfey
Level 1
Level 1

Also worth noting, if I look at the web interface for the phone, status shows that it is picking up the TimeZone correctly as Pacific Standard/Daylight Time,  so it is just the NTP settings, specifically, that are not being used.

lukebenfey
Level 1
Level 1

Also, in case it is important, we are running firmware version

sip9971.9-2-1

Depending on your CUCM version if it's 8.x check the status messages of the phone to make sure it doesn't say ITL update failed, if it does then the phone will not be able to accept it's configuration file to apply the new settings.  To fix it delete the ITL file from the phone under the security configuration.

Heya Joe!  Well, I'm not using this phone with a CUCM server, rather with with a third party VOIP server (ShoreTel).. However, I don't think this has anything to do with that, since the phone isn't even making any attempt to use NTP, at least according to the network traffic when I watch that port.  Essentially, I never see any NTP packets, or any packets at ALL between the phone and our NTP server.

The phone shows as in "Non Secure" mode in security setup, and does not have an LSC installed.  Similarly, but CTL file and ITL files are not installed, either. 

Also, when I look in the phone's Console Logs (via the web interface) I see this line:

2415 NOT 16:01:38.997501 NTP: ->>> varOff is 0

This would suggest to me that NTP is is turned off?  I tried googling for this line without any joy, though, so I'm not sure.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Ok! So I unboxed another brand new phone and booted it up using the exact same configuration as I was using before... With one exception -- I did not upgrade the Firmware to 9.2.1, rather I left it at the default sip9971.9-0-0-77

So... With this new phone, running 9.0.0.77... NTP works as expected!  What's the deal ?  Is this something that is known to be busted in 9.2.1, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Tried rolling back to sip9971.9-1-2, and NTP not working under that, either.

So... I tried 9-1-1SR1, and NTP also isn't working under THAT...

HOWEVER! When I roll all the way back to sip 9971.9-0-4  (released 9/29/10), then NTP starts working once more. 

Weird!

I have the same issue with a 9971 and a fritzbox (home router with SIP server).

Everything is working just fine with 9.0.4

But when I upgrade to a newer fw (I tested all of them), ntp stops working.

Maybe something changed, in the way it has to be configured in the SEP XML?

Yup.  In the end, we ended up just staying at 9.0.4, since anything newer than that seems to break NTP.  Weird that Cisco would let a huge bug like this stick around, but such is life.

Thanks Luke.  Thanks Chris.

Been trying to get a 9971 to work on Rasberry Pi with Asterisk/FreePBX.  May try downgrading from 9.2(3) to 9.0(4).

The NTP functionallity really seems broken since 9.0(4). I looked through the messages and it looks like it wont even start the service due to wrong arguments or something. The question is: why issnt that addressed by cisco as it is a known bug for more than two years? I know that most users won't see the error as the phone can use the header from the REGISTER 200 OK, but it's still a serious problem!

Would you please share what you are seeing in the log indicating that NTP functionality is really broken?  Checking this on a newer load I can confirm the phone synced find with my external NTP reference as confirmed by this in the phone console logs:

1241 NOT 21:23:36.971559  NTP: -Local clock sync'd to NTP reference.

I'll try out and check 9.0(4) if will share what was seen to see if I see the same thing.

To be honest I'm a bit lost in the log files that I tracked when trying different firmware versions. Here are suspicous parts with the 9.4.1 firmware but I may be wrong:

2682 ERR 02:03:20.646698  NTP: -Lost NTP server! Now free-running!

2683 NOT 02:03:20.647197  NTP: ->>> varOff is 0

2684 NOT 02:03:20.648006  NTP: -packet: tests mask = 0x20

0460 ERR 00:00:18.133754  syslog-Usage: /etc/init.d/ntp.sh {start|stop|restart}

0461 ERR 00:00:18.135183  restart_mgr-setting capabilites for ntp failed (rc = 1)

I'm in contact with other people having the same problem. The error can be tracked back to the first firmware after 9.0.(4). I even changed my ntpd to broadcast. With 9.0.(4) no problem. It takes some time until a broadcast is received but then the time is correct. With 9.4.1 the time is never set. Maybe it is a parameter that changed, I don't know.

Yeah, that's the same behaviour that I have observed.  As noted in the original thread above, I had tried various newer firmwares, and 9.0.4 is the newest one where I could get NTP to actually work on the phones.

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