CP-8841 Pass through network settings - ongoing connectivity issues.

[Antony Paul]

I'm looking for some advice on an issue we are having with a recently installed Cisco phone system.

The specs are: 

CP-8841, CP-8851, CP-8831-K9 phones

C2921-CME-SRST/K9 Cisco 2921 Router.

1 x Cisco Call Manager Express (CME)

Communication Manager Express 

1 x Cisco Unity Express (CUE) Release 8.6 ( Voice messaging service)

SCUE-ISM-8.6-K9

Unity Express License - 5 Mailbox –  CUCM and CUCME 

Client machines receive their network connection through the phone's internal switch and this is where the problem occurs.  We have found that in the morning, some (not always all), users experience issues loggging on, accessing network shares etc.  Perhaps related to the phone sleeping at night? A simple ping test on an affected machine shows a large amount of packet loss.  The issue can temporarily be resolved by restarting the phone however it does occur again.  We have had the cisco partnered installer looking at this for a while, and various changes have been made (network config alterations, the entire office's structured cabling has been completely redone!!) they have been analyzing wireshark traces, you name it - they have looked at it.  The problem still persists and we are at the stage where we will have to patch client machines in directly instead of using the pass through on the phones, however we do want to get this issue sorted.

I can recreate this issue on my machine by disconnecting the network cable from the switch to the phone, and then reconnecting it.  The problem also happens when shutting down and then powering on the machine.  This happens regardless of DHCP or statically assigned IP addresses.

Has anyone experienced the same issue with these cisco phones and knows how to fix this?  I understand these phones are very new so it's hard to find other known issues with these handsets.

Thanks in advance

[michael o'nan]

I have been using 8841 without issues but that's on CUCM. Do you know if spanning-tree portfast is enabled on your switch ports?

[Rob Huffman · Accepted solution]

Hi Antony,

In addition to the good tips from Michael (+5!) I would look at this bug which effects 8800 series IP phones (looks like there is a fixed-in firmware version that would be available from TAC;

Cheers!

Rob

PC connected to 88xx intermittently loses network connectivity

CSCur34011

Last Modified:

Dec 8,2014

Status:

Open

Severity:

3 Moderate

Product:

Cisco IP Phone 8800 Series

Support Cases:

 2

Known Affected Releases:

(1)

10.2(2)

Known Fixed Releases:

(1)

10.2(2)ES5

[michael o'nan]

Didn't know about that bug, thanks Rob! Bookmarked for future use if needed.

[Antony Paul]

Hi Rob,

CSCur34011 sounded very promising indeed.  From this we were able to find out that Cisco recommend disabling Energy Efficient Ethernet on the network adapter on client machines.  I have done this on mine and tested it and the issue appears to have been resolved.

So now we just need to get 10.2(2)ES5 on the phones and hopefully we are sorted.

Thanks very much for your help and to everyone else who replied.

[john.dejesus]

Hi,

On cisco sip firmware 10-3-1-20. There are two options to disable EEE one for switchport and one for pc port. The 8841/8851 phones that we're using is connected to 4510R+E. EEE is disabled by default on the 4510R+E but enabled by default on cisco 8841/8851 phones running sip firmware 10-3-1-20.

Cisco claims that there should be no impact on the network even when EEE is enabled on the PC or Cisco Phones. Is EEE necessary? In my opinion this is just an enhancements to save power consumption.

My question is if EEE are enabled on the IP Phone's switchport and pc port and PC's NIC then should EEE be enabled also in the 4510R+E?

We are experiencing the same intermittent issue when the phones are running 10.2(2). Right now we have upgraded all our phones to 10.3.1.20 and we are currently monitoring the users and the network if issues still persists.

Can someone here from Cisco verified that the network intermittent issues was already solved in the new firmware 10.1.3.20?

For the users here in the thread, can you share your experience after your upgrade to the new firmware? what version did you install on the phones?

Thanks in advanced.

[AdministrationAGF]

Hi John,

I just updated my 88xx phone to 10-3-1-20 and so far I have no problem when I enable EEE on my network card(Intel 82579LM). In the past I was not able to transfer a 10Mb file and now I can mostly do everything I need.

Hope it's for ever.