Telo status online but house phones aren't.

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vicw
Posts:90
Joined:Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:37 am
Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by vicw » Mon May 13, 2019 10:07 am

Since my home alarm system is already disabled from using the phone for alarms, and having encountered this problem, I just eliminated it from the path completely, and wired the Ooma directly to my home phones, so there will be no way that the RJ-31X and alarm system can interact with the Ooma. I seriously doubt it was involved, but this will exclude it. The only devices now connected to the Ooma phone line are the phone answering machine and my Dish Hopper.

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:46 am

Well, testing complete. Failed with the old DTMF (2) and rotary phone off the line, and failed again with a CID box I use off the line. The only thing I haven't removed is the DTMF Panasonic phone base station and its wireless phones that I use in the house for core functionality.

At this point I'm willing to say this is a Telo problem :( . It works fine for a while (could be weeks), then a call comes in and after it ends, by either hanging up or leaving a VM on the home system, the analog side of the Telo stops functioning. The flower shows "blue" as in normal operations, the Telo network interface responds to ICMP ping, and the Telo shows as "online" on the Ooma web site. I can even use the Telo to listen to a VM that was left. Outgoing calls from the house just fail. Incoming calls go to Ooma VM. Coincidently, whatever is happening to the analog phone line is also leaving my ADT alarm panel in a state where it's trying to communicate via its download protocol too. While that may be of diagnostic value, it isn't causative, and rebooting the Telo puts the ADT system back into normal operation.

Nothing else to do but wait for Ooma to fix this. At least my ADT system, monitoring the phone line, sees the failure so I'm notified of it immediately via it's cell connection (which leaves VM with Ooma that alerts me the failure has happened), and I can then power cycle the Telo to restore it before anyone else in the house finds out and criticizes my choice to move to Ooma.

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:44 am

Just updating since last post. Problem still present. No change in pattern when failure occurs - a call comes in after previous incoming calls have been without incident and then the problem follows immediately. I was home on the most recent failure. My internal phones rang, and my answering machine picked up the call, but there was just a kind of pulsing sound which was mostly silence for a few seconds and no message. The answering machine took that as no message and hung up. Very shortly afterwards (within 1 min) my alarm system called home to indicate a phone line problem and that automated message went to the Ooma answering service.

Here are dates of failures since last post. Fix is to power cycle the Telo.

Jun 5, 12, 25
Jul 16, 18.

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:00 am

Just updating since last post. Problem still present. Failures since last post:

Jul 19, 29
Aug 2, 7, 16, 22, 23, 27
Sept. 4, 27
Oct. 1, 8, 16

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Thu Feb 20, 2020 8:14 am

Updating since last post. Problem hasn't occurred since Dec 9 (about 2.5 months ago). Current SW version is 438661 and associated release notes look like they may have addressed this problem. I don't know when my telo updated to this, but its there now. Fingers crossed.

Oct 26, 28
Nov 12, 13, 23, 28
Dec 9 (2019)

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:28 am

2/27/2020
Hmmmm. Made a call today to an automated voice system. I was about 3 minutes in and the call just dropped. Got a kind of pulsing sound, like someone picking up another extension and hanging up at about a 2Hz frequency. Of course no one was. Telo was left in same state as described in the earlier problem description and needed to be power cycled. The difference this time is that it happened a ways into an outgoing call, not shortly after an incoming call. Don't know if that means it's the same problem or not. This is my first experience with this on an outgoing call ...?

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:22 pm

Updating since last post. Problem has occurred only once since Dec 9/2019, and that was on Apr 23/2020 (two months ago). It seems like the frequency of the issue has been greatly reduced with the prior firmware upgrade. So, kudos to the bug squashing team. I may post again just to provide info on whether the problem is completely gone, but at least now things are much more usable.

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Wed Nov 04, 2020 9:18 am

I guess my optimism was premature. Problem frequency has increased.

Apr 23
June 26
July 15
Aug 26
Sept 25
Oct 20
Nov 3

I've also purchased a "loop current" measuring device. Under normal operation, the loop current put out by the Telo with a single phone attached to its phone jack shows up as low (< 22mA). "Good" loop current is between 23-27mA. A loop current booster did not fix the problem and per its manufacturer this would be the case if the Telo actively regulates the current to be too low.

I have located on the web this list of problems that a low loop current can cause for analog phone systems in general. Symptoms of Low Loop Current Problems are:

poor voice transmission quality low volume
ghost rings
wrong numbers
lost calls during transfer
data loss

I haven't experienced any of those problems, but its disappointing to learn this is the case for the Telo.

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Thu Jul 01, 2021 3:15 am

Problem still remains. On the last failure I noticed that the "in use" indicator light on the Ethernet port of the Telo was solid "on". I observed for about two minutes and this didn't change. Then I rebooted and that condition disappeared too.

Nov 18, 24, 28 [2020]
Dec 7
Feb 3, 6, 25 [2021]
May 21
June 28(am & pm), 30

oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:07 am

Problem still remains. New information: I purchased a HD3 handset. It turns out that when this problem strikes my analog phones, the HD3 still functions just fine. So, it appears to be isolated to the analog port functions of the Telo. I've moved off of ADT so am no longer notified of lost connectivity as soon as this problem pops up, which makes it even more aggravating. When the HD3 rings and my other phones don't, I know it is time to traipse into the basement to power cycle the Telo.

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