Spa504g crashes - registration/drop issue

[Robbie Blackwell]

I have had an intermittent issue where users attempt to answer a  call, but the device(spa504g) freezes and the lcd gets stuck  "Answering". The  phone becomes unresponsive to any button presses; even  after considerable  patience. The call is eventually dropped, and if we're lucky the customer calls back. The only solution is to unplug the power  and repower the  device.

On the server side, the phone often remains registered  for sometime even  showing that it is still on a call. I think after  about 15 minutes the  registration drops. So if I attempt to repower the  phone before it  unregisters, it will seem to register fine but will  not actually ring on  any inbound calls. Most of the time I've resorted  to restarting services on the server which effectively brings the system  down, even if only for a minute.

I'm using 3cx phone system. Our server is collocated so all extensions are remote. Aside from this, we have no other issues

We have 5 end points at this location all SPA504g with  7.5.4 firmware. We have low call volume and I'm usually the first guy  to take calls 90% of the time. But I have swapped out phones and confirm  that it has happened on more than one device, even on previous  firmwares.

I can't reproduce the issue. It has happened about 5  times this week, but hadn't happened in over a couple of months prior to  this week.

I have experienced the issue ever since we went live with the system. So basically since everything was new out of the box.

I have created a support ticket with 3cx, providing syslogs for the phones, logs from the phone system, and wireshark pcap on the server. They say there is no problem on the server and that it is probably a phone/networking issue.

[info]

We are having the same issue on a customer site, causing a lot of pain.

Is there any update form cisco on the new firmware ? ? ?

Thanks.

[Andrew Bucklin · Accepted solution]

Looks like v7.5.5 is still the latest firmware, but if you shoot me a message via my website below, I'll be happy to share the test firmware Cisco built for my SPA508G phones which has resolved the issue for my clients.

www.TechAdvantage.co

EDIT:  I've also attached the test firmware to this reply; unzip it first then apply to your phones (you'll probably need to use TFTP).

[info]

Excellent, thanks tech_advantage.

I will push this out to our promlem phones and hopefully it will resolve our issue too.

[info]

This firmware resolved the issue for us too.

Thanks again for sharing.

Cisco need to get off their back sides and release offically

[Christie Brinker]

Cisco has released firmware 7.5.5b out today, not sure if it's the same as the test. The release notes say about nothing.

[Andrew Bucklin]

Well, they told me it would be....

If I get some time, I'll apply it to one of our phones and see if the phone continues to operate normally.
 

[Christie Brinker]

Andrew,

I had read that somewhere, but after you posted that I disabled it and no lock ups for 3 days.

Question on making it permanent.

Did you just go into the phone template and change it to match the following:

{IF network=REMOTESTUN}

%%pbx_ip%%:%%param::sipport%%

%%phonesipport%%

%%rtp_port_min%%

%%rtp_port_max%%

No

No

%%pbx_ip%%:%%param::sipport%%

Yes

15

Yes

The reason I asked is that I tried this and provisioned a phone and I noticed it changed "Substitute VIA Addr" and "Send Resp To Src Port" to Yes when they were usually No. I wanted to make sure that's not going to cause more issues. This problem has already caused me to look bad enough.

[Robbie Blackwell]

I have not had this occur since Dec 30th and since then I've upgraded to v12.

@Christie, I believe he is referring to

Extensions>Group>Extension#>Other "PBX Deliver's Audio" checkbox

However, I've never used this settings.

The only changes I have made in my copy of the default 3cx template for cisco is literally setting stun to No. The only small problem I have using this method is that when you bxfer, the lcd does not clear back to ready when the bxfer'd call gets picked up, you have to manually press end call.

If you do use the absolutely default remote stun settings with stun enabled, of course you have to specify the sip ports. But when I do this, there is no audio (either direction) on internal calls. But the lcd does automatically go back to ready after a successfull bxfer. The other other side effect of using these settings (maybe its me only) is that if you answer using the headset button, it automatically switches to speaker phone and you have to wait another second before you can choose the headset button again. Worth the trade off?

Lastly, 2 way audio for internal calls between remote extensions at multiple locations I think will only work using sip prox at locations where there is more than one endpoint on the network. But this isn't a need for me so I don't care to spend much time testing it.

[Christie Brinker]

You have to check PBX Delivers Audio for remote extensions to deliver audio between remote extensions. I already have that checked.

I was just curious if there were any other settings he changed on the template when displaying STUN for remote extensions. Basically I have set static ports, PBX delivers audio, and STUN disabled and no freezes and they seem to be working.

[Robbie Blackwell]

Ironically I just tried using the default 3cx provided template with stun, phone crashed when I tried dialing an internal extension. When I first reported this, it only ever happened when trying to answer a call.

I think i'll wait to submit any pcaps until cisco publishes this firmware.

[Andrew Bucklin]

@Christie:  In our testing, we just turned off STUN in the phone's web GUI and turned off DHCP option 66 so the phone did not auto reprovision itself. I may have also manually edited the provisioing file for that particular phone we were testing on, I don't remember. But, I believe simply changing it to 'No' in the template should be all you need. I don't know about it changing those other things to be honest.  However, my client is back to having it turned 'On' (the default provisioning template settings) and we're using the test firmware that Cisco provided me a few days ago, and so far, no lock ups!

@Robbie:  The 'PBX Delivers Audio' setting was something different; something I changed to allow extension-to-extension calls to pass audio at the remote site. Christie is talking about the disabling of STUN on the phones. I've not had any complaints from the users regarding blind transfers and they don't use headsets, so I can't comment on those things. Also, for our tenants, the server is in one location (the data center) and ALL of their phones are in another location (their office), so I also cannot comment on multi-location setups as you mentioned in your last sentance.  Good to know for future refecence though!

@Christie:  Those changes you mentioned in your 5:24pm post seem to be spot on with what I did during my testing.  I've now got STUN re-enabled and am using the test firmware Cisco has provided me.  Not sure if I really need STUN, but I figure the least amount of changes from the default 3CX provisioning template, the better.

@Robbie:  Ironic for you, but not for me.  All of the lock-up occurences my users have reported have been with OUTBOUND calls (with both internal-to-internal AND internal-to-external calls).  Actually, I take that back; I had a user report the other day that he was trying to do a Call-Pickup (answering another ringing extension) using the BLF button on his phone and then his phone locked up - technically not an incoming call to HIS extension. Hopefully it's all related and this new firmware will fix that too.

I'll be out of the country with no access to internet/email for two weeks. I hope to have no reports of lock-ups from the cusdtomer while I'm gone.  Assuming this is the case, I will report to Cisco that the test firmware appeared to fix the problem and I assume they will release it to the general public.

Appreciate the input from everyone!  I'm hopeful we are close to a resolution!

[Christie Brinker]

Ever since I made the change to disable STUN, users are now randomly having issues transferring calls. Basically they will transfer the call on their end successfully but then the call will just drop. I resolved it temporarily by reprovisioning the phones, but then it happens again about 2 days later. Not sure why this is but I am about to pull my hair out with this setup.

[Christie Brinker]

@Tech_Advantage anything new to report in your testing?

[lilmark219]

I am also having the same issue, I am on firmware 7.6.0 and using Asterisk 11.15.1.   We have had success in the past with upgrading to 7.6 but we are having an issue where no matter what we have done the Cisco504g phones keep freezing.   In my asterisk Log I also get this error everytime it freezes:

messages log:

Retransmission timeout reached on transmission 9bde82be-d5d688f8@10.9.8.21 for seqno 101 (Critical Response) -- See https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/SIP+Retransmissions

Packet timed out after 6399ms with no response

[Nov  9 13:57:22] WARNING[1719] chan_sip.c: Hanging up call 9bde82be-d5d688f8@10.9.8.21 - no reply to our critical packet (see https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/SIP+Retransmissions).

I dont know if it shows this error because the phone has froze or the phone freezes because of this error.

Does anyone have any insight on what the problem could be?

[Andrew Bucklin]

From the surface, it does not appear that your issue is the same as my issue, but what fixed the issue for me was turning "STUN" to "OFF" via the Web GUI on the phone. You could try it and see if that works for you. But since your firmware is later than the firmware that was provided to me with the big fix applied, I highly doubt this will be your solution.

I'm no network expert, but have you checked for possible firewall / NAT issues?