CME ephone count

[branfarm1]

How do I determine the number of ephones that I"m consuming towards my max-ephones limit?  I'm a little confused because I thought it was pretty simple -- however many ephones you have configured = number of ephones you're using. When I try and configure a button on a phone now, however, I see this message:

Jun 22 15:02:38.100: ephone Associate FAIL: max phone count 111 exceeded on socket [-1]

I have 67 ephones configured toward my max of 110.

Any ideas?

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Brandon,

I believe you are running a newer version of CME (perhaps 7.x). Can you try increasing

the max ephones as shown below;

Maximum Ephones in Cisco Unified CME 4.3 and Later Versions

In Cisco Unified CME 4.3 and later versions, the max-ephones command is enhanced to set the maximum number of SCCP phones that can register to Cisco Unified CME, without limiting the number that can be configured. In previous versions of Cisco Unified CME, the max-ephones command defined the maximum number of phones that could be both configured and registered.

This enhancement expands the maximum number of phones that can be configured to 1000. The maximum number of phones that can register to Cisco Unified CME has not changed; it is dependent on the number of phones supported by the hardware platform and is limited by the max-ephones command.

This enhancement supports features such as Extension Assigner that require you to configure more phones than can register. For example, if you set the max-ephones command to 50 and configure 100 ephones, only 50 phones can register to Cisco Unified CME, one at a time in random order. The remaining 50 phones cannot register and an error message displays for each rejected phone. This enhancement also allows you to assign ephone tags that match the extension number of the phone, for extensions up to 1000.

If you reduce the value of the max-ephones command, currently registered phones are not forced to unregister until a reboot. If the number of registered phones, however, is already equal to or more than the max-ephones value, no additional phones can register to Cisco Unified CME. If you increase the value of the max-ephones command, the previously rejected ephones are able to register immediately until the new limit is reached.

http://www1.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucme/admin/configuration/guide/cmesystm.html#wp1038267

Cheers!
Rob

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[branfarm1]

Rob,

Thanks for the response.  It looks like that should work, however, when I try and raise the max ephones it still says I'm limited to 110:

VGW(config-telephony)#max-ephones ?
  <1-110>  Maximum phones to support

I'm currently running IOS 15.0(1)XA1, which is supposed to be CME 8.x -- do you suppose they changed it back for this version?

--Brandon

[branfarm1]

Actually, the problem was that the phone had never registered before. Once I registered the phone I was able to

assign the button without issue.

Thanks for your help though -- that information on the change in the max-ephone behavior is useful.

--Brandon

[Rob Huffman]

Hey Brandon,

Great work my friend!

Cheers!

Rob