Phone line instantly goes off hook when plugged in

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 13, 2007 Posts: 1

Hi All,

Newbie here. I'm having a problem that is causing me to pull my hair out..

I recently knocked a wall down in my house during a remodel. That wall had a phone jack that was the 'uplink' so to speak for my Vonage to the house. It is also where my CPI alarm system intercepts. Keep in mind, this all worked great before any of the remodel.

Here's where the fun starts. I extended the 2 phone lines that were coming down the wall about 4 feet and moved everything a few feet to the left. At the time, I quickly tested it as soon as I plugged the line in from the Vonage adaptor. I had signal! Great! Well, not really. It will not release (hang up) The Phone 1 light stays blinking on the adaptor. I'v tried everything I can think of to get this working, I even tested the lines for continuity with a multimeter thinking it was pinched somewhere. Everything tests out fine.

So last night I re-ran new wires outside of the wall to test, eliminated the alarm takeover circuit (but still leaving the Red/green connected to the alarm) and power cycled my Cable modem, Linksys 54g router and Linksys Vonage adaptor (turning on each one at a time once the other had fully booted) and Bang! It worked...so I ran the new wire through the wall (ony about 6 foot worth through the wall, straight down nothing in it's path) and connected it back the same way I had it...Guess what...It stopped working again. The phone line would not hang up. Also, I was disconnecting the Vonage feed each time to make sure I didn't mess anything up. At this point I am absolutely stumped. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to this thing???? If I plug the phone straight in the Vonage, it works fine.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before??? Is there some secret to initializing the components involved??? I've exhausted my online search...Help!

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

Your first impression is correct. Somehow you've got a short in the house wiring after moving it. It could be in the connector (wall jack) itself or in one of the wires, but it's surely there. You've just got to find it. Eliminate as many things as you can and start hooking things up. Make sure that someone hasn't left a phone off the hook somewhere in the house- coincidences do happen!

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 26, 2007 Posts: 1

Thanks Steve48 and Nc_Sox_Fan. I had a similar problem, which turned out to be a short in the service line into the house. The house is new and the service line outside the house is unterminated, so I didn't think it was necessary to disconnect it inside my OnQ box. But it's been rainy lately and I think some water got inside the exposed service line outside the house. Unplugging the service line inside the OnQ box fixed the problem and now all of the phone jacks in the house are connected to Vonage.

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

Yes, outside landlines should always be disconnected, even if it's believed that they're not hooked up anywhere.