MWI Won't Go out for Unity Avaya Integration

[Bear1701-E]

Hey Folks,

A couple of months ago, we installed a Unity Connection 7.1 for an Avaya Definity G3 PBX, connecting them over two digital PIMG units.  The initial setup worked just fine, then a few weeks ago, we started getting a phone here or there where the MWI would not go out even after the mailbox was cleared.  It's been getting progressively worse until now it happens on every phone.  I've been over the troubleshooting checklist numerous times, and even after opening a TAC request, all the techs can tell me is that the Unity is receiving a "Flicker" error from the PBX.  My Avaya people say that the system and lines feeding the Unity are all configured properly and are pointing the finger at the Cisco side.

And yes, I've resynched the PIMG's, I've redone the ports, we've upgraded the firmware on the PIMG's and nothing seems to make the situation any different.

So, has anyone else experienced anything like this and if so, how was the issue resolved...?

[Timothy Tesluk]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for posting. It sounds like you've narrowed down the source of the problem. When you see flicker in a trace on the PIMG, that refers to a signal that the PBX sent to the PIMG port to represent an error condition. It is the equivalent of pressing one of the feature keys on a digital Avaya phone, and seeing the little LED light on that key blink quickly. What we conclude from this is that the PIMG is relaying the Unity Connection's MWI toggle message to the PBX, and the PBX is subsequently responding with flicker(error). It would be helpful for troubleshooting if the Avaya technicians were able to trace the exact error condition that the PBX is reporting, since there isn't enough detail conveyed in simple flicker message.

As you may know, Avaya G3 PBX has a specific requirement for voicemail systems that whichever device (port, really) toggled an MWI to on must also be the the port to toggle the port to off. This requirement is the most common source of MWI failures involving flicker messages. So we frequently advise running the "turn all MWI off" routine on the Unity Connection server, and at the same time, running a similar routine on the Avaya PBX itself to force all MWI lamps on all phone to off.

I hope this information helps!

[Tommer Catlin]

Make sure you are on the latest and greatest version of 7.1.  There where numerious issues with MWI issues from the PIMG to CUC.  The SIP headers from the PIMG were not being corrected from.

PIMG is latest and greatest

CUC is latest and greatest

If it was working ok, then the Avaya should be ok.  The issue is usually the SIP packets dropping out somewhere on the inbound from the PIMG.  I had a similar problem with Mitel.

THere should be a bug report for this in CUC 7.1.  They had to create an engineer fix for me (this was over a year ago) so I assume this is already fixed in later versions