Telo status online but house phones aren't.

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oomamb
Posts:49
Joined:Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:08 pm
Telo status online but house phones aren't.

Post by oomamb » Wed Mar 27, 2019 3:12 am

I've encountered a Telo failure mode about five times in last three weeks since installing it. Incoming calls go directly to Ooma VM. The symptoms are:

1) Telo WAN interface responds to ping
2) Status from my Ooma account web page shows "on-line"
3) calls don't ring through to POTS house line (don't show up on house CID device).

During one event when I was home, I explored some more and also noted:

4) house phones did not ring
5) No dialtone on house phones
6) No access to Telo local mgt from LAN port (it asn't handing out DHCP addresses)
7) The Telo "flower" was glowing normal functioning blue.

Looking back over call logs, this occurs immediately after receiving a call, though most calls come through just fine.

I'm notified every time the failure occurs by my alarm which sees a problem in the house line and reports it via radio. If not for that, and VM alerts from Ooma suddenly appearing when my house answering machine doesn't pick up, I wouldn't know the Telo was in this failure mode.

I've put the Telo on a remote control outlet so I can power cycle it remotely when this happens, but clearly that's not optimal.

Anyone else seen this?

I'm thinking it's time to give warranty replacement a shot.

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

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

Post by oomamb » Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:04 am

Just happened again. I'm at work and I get Ooma VM from my alarm saying phone line problems. I call the house and it goes to Ooma VM rather than my answering machine.

I check call logs; call out from alarm (on radio, not phone) is about 2 minutes after an incoming call.

I called Ooma support. They confirm Telo status is "online", and want to know color of Ooma flower. I'm at work rather than home and can't look, but tell them last time this happened flower was normal "blue". They say to troubleshoot I need to be at the Telo (fair enough), but offer to send a remote reset to the Telo to fix the problem. I say ok. They send it and say it should be all set, but if problem happens again, to call when I'm at home (of course, I can't use the Telo to do that).

I get off the phone with support and call home. It goes to Ooma voice mail. I wait a few minutes and try again. Same result. The remote "reset" support sent didn't fix the problem. I remote power cycle the Telo and, voila, problem solved. Call home and my answering machine picks up.

So apparently, whatever this is, its on the POTS side of the Telo, and not the Internet side of the Telo, since that shows as online, accepts resets from support, etc.

House wiring and phones on it aren't changing, so the reason the house phones work most of the time, and then occasionally the Telo hangs like this isn't making sense yet.

Having to leave work to troubleshoot this is sub-optimal, but I guess that's what's needed. I'm going to try and take some line voltage measurements next time this happens if I can too, to see if they're different than when in "normal" operation.

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

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

Post by oomamb » Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:50 pm

It happened again on 3/29 when I was home. Called support, was escalated and got to tech support tier. They said there was an issue with 'the flower being blue but analog phone line not having dial tone' that engineering was working on. They said a patch would be pushed to my device in 24-48 hrs that should resolve the issue.

Today, 4/9, issue happened again. As in the past, the problem cropped up within a minute of recieving an incoming call. I called support again. Got to the tech support tier. They saw issue I had reported on 3/29 but said firmware on my telo hadn't been updated. They asked me to hold while they checked with engineering as to when the patch could be pushed. After being on hold for two minutes, they hung up.

I called back in to the support number. I've been on hold without anyone answering for over 12 minutes now. Decided to post this as I wait ......

[edit 1] ...25 minutes on hold now. Listening to repeated promos for Ooma home security. I would note that my alarm company support number picks up immediately on the very rare occasion that I have had to call them ...

[edit 2] ... well, after 30 minutes I got a message to leave a message to be called back within then next 24 business hours. Not what I call impressive support at this point.

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

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

Post by oomamb » Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:59 am

I got a third call in yesterday to support after waiting about half and hour and got through immediately. Referenced ticket number. Was told they would put new firmware on my telo, that it would take about 15 min, and they'd call me back once completed. I gave them my cell phone number to call back on, which they confirmed back to me twice, before hanging up.

I went down to the basement where the telo lives and saw it in the final stages of a reset, going from red to blue. I waited 15 minutes. No call. I hooked up a laptop to the local port and went to management interface. Firmware version unchanged. Never received the promised callback. Checked back this morning. Same firmware version.

Called today; referenced ticket number. Tech wanted to "refresh" the telo. I said sure and asked what that was. Sounded like a reset, speed/port test, and resynching settings with server. That's most likely what the tech yesterday did, but sure, have at it.

After process was completed I asked him to verify the firmware version. It remains unchanged since I got the Telo (376877). He said he would escalate to engineering. I said the problem had already been escalated to engineering three times and the solution that came back from them, as relayed by the 3 previous support people I'd spoken with, was to update the firmware. Would he please do that. He said he couldn't. He said telos usually update automatically when they see new firmware is available. Since mine wasn't updating (does that mean there is new firmware, or was that just a generic statement from him?), engineering would have to put the firmware on my telo manually. I asked how long that would take. He said it should happen within a day.

So now I'll wait a day and see what happens.

murphy
Posts:7554
Joined:Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:49 pm
Location:Pennsylvania

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

Post by murphy » Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:55 am

376877 is the version that is on my Telo 2. There may not be anything newer.
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

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

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

Post by oomamb » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:15 pm

Thanks for the info on my firmware version seeming to be current one.

Of the calls I've made, I only thought one of the support folks was doing other than reading from a script and doing a reset. The tech (after I was transferred from the front lines) guy I spoke to on 3/29 seemed to understand the problem exactly and offered that engineering was aware of a problem where the flower was "blue" operational, but the dial tone on the house lines was not working. He's the one that first mentioned he could push a firmware patch to me. It sounded like a current, active problem they were working on.

The second closest was the call where the tech saw in the notes about a firmware update and put me on hold while checking with engineering as to when it could be pushed to my phone, that's the call where I was disconnected before I got an answer.

The rest of the support folks were front line, very pleasant, and of no use at all. I have no confidence that engineering is even aware of the issue.

What I do know is that the problem is intermittent, occurs about once or twice a week, and occurs immediately (next minute in Ooma logs) after an incoming call. However, most incoming calls ring through just fine. When the problem occurs there is no dial tone in the house on the POTs lines, incoming calls go to Ooma voicemail instead of ringing the house, and my alarm system, which monitors the phone line, sees a problem on it and sends me a txt via its cellular backup that there is a problem with the phone line. I'm guessing the only thing the alarm can be seeing is a (low) voltage problem. Lower than off-hook voltage which it of course ignores. I'm rigging up a test outlet so I can measure voltages/currents the next time this happens and compare to 'normal' on-hook levels for the telo.

At the moment I've plugged the telo into a z-wave controlled outlet, so I can power cycle it any time the alarm tells me the line died, even when I'm not home. I was hoping the telo would stop responding to pings when this happened so I could automate the reset, but the ping answers remain present throughout the failure. Maybe next step will be to power cycle the telo every morning at 4am and see if that has any effect on the frequency at which the problem occurrs.

While the overall Ooma service/features are good, this problem, had I know about it, would have kept me from moving my service to Ooma. If they can fix it, fine. But at this point I have no certainty that anyone is actually working on it. There seems to be no rigorous problem logging or incremental escalation, or even awareness of the issues, from call to call with Ooma support, which is quite frustrating.

murphy
Posts:7554
Joined:Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:49 pm
Location:Pennsylvania

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

Post by murphy » Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:17 pm

Do you have the alarm system wired properly? The jack from the Telo must go directly to the alarm input connection and no where else. The output jack of the alarm system must feed all of the phones in your house.

When the alarm system initiates a call it disconnects all of the house phones so they can't be used to interfere with the call.

The next time your phones go dead check to see what the alarm system is doing.

Did you put the Telo phone line that the alarm system uses in alarm mode? If you didn't the alarm system is probably tying up the line attempting to make a call and failing. Ademco (Honeywell) alarm systems try the call 8 times before they give up.
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

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

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

Post by oomamb » Wed Apr 10, 2019 5:10 pm

Hi, and thanks for the suggestions, but those bases are covered.

The alarm is configured properly. Telo feeds it alone and rest of house is after it. It properly disconnects rest of house when calling in. The telo device is set to alarm mode as you suggested so call waiting is disabled and I assume whatever compression schemes needed for modem signals from alarm to not be mangled that come with that setting are invoked.

The alarm is an ADT safewatch pro 3000 which is their variant of the Ademco vista 20p. It passes the dialup test fine, and I can see when it calls out on the telo in the logs.

The problem occurs when some other random number calls in. One minute after that inbound call (logs only have 1 min resolution), the alarm sends message to ADT over the backup cellular channel of a phone line problem, and ADT robocalls the house phone with message about phone line issue. Ooma records this and I get text alert. So, oddly enough, my alarm system alerts me to the problem when it happens.

The failure mode has lasted for over an hour (no dial tone in house, no inbound house phone ring) before I cleared it by power cycling the telo. If the problem were due to the alarm calling out, I'd see the outbound call in the logs, and it would clear once the panel completed the call (or gave up after it timed out), which would occur long before an hour had passed. Something else is going on.

I could take the alarm out of the phone loop entirely and just use its cellular channel, but then I wouldn't be alerted when the problem occurs. Invariably that's when my wife will call home, get Ooma voice mail instead of the kids, who will say the phone never rang, and give her more ammunition to give me grief over having switched to Ooma. At least currently I can reset it with only a few minutes outtage and she's less likely to know :D

murphy
Posts:7554
Joined:Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:49 pm
Location:Pennsylvania

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

Post by murphy » Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:40 am

Have you disabled the alarm's ability to answer incoming calls?
The function is not needed by ADT or any other central office once the system has been configured.

Clear register 94 --- *94*

Set register 95 to 0

This also makes it almost impossible for a central office to lock your panel if you cancel service.
My recommendation is to disconnect the phone line from the alarm system before cancelling service.

If you are using ADT, their computer is programmed to automatically increase your bill periodically. If you call and complain they will usually reduce it back to what you agreed to.
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

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

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

Post by oomamb » Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:29 am

Heh. I started thinking about the panel's answering machine defeat last night. It is enabled. I'd dismissed it as the problem since Ooma call logs only show one incoming call. I wonder if those need two rings to try and register CID and the panel picks up before the call logs can register them so the second call goes unlogged?

I did not know the ability to reach the panel remotely wasn't needed after initial setup. I'll try first to see if I can recreate the problem with two quick calls and after I have that data will disable it.

I'd been off ADT contract for almost a decade but unfortunately re-upped for 3 years to get Pulse before I started to explore alternatives. I've got an Alarmdecoder device on the panel now which will work as a Pulse replacement once the contract ends. I also picked up a vista 20p and related parts like zone expander fairly cheaply to swap in if ADT wants their hardware back, but disabling answering machine defeat sounds like a simpler solution if they don't.

Thanks for suggestions. I'll report back on findings. If it's a solution, it's much better than badgering front line Ooma support folks for a likely non-existent firmware update.

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