Anyone else having trouble with Caller ID?

Posts: 122 · Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:51 am Post subject:

For everyone with the RTP300 still having Caller ID problems, try the following:

Call up and either speak with a good CS rep or Tech Support rep and ask them to change your ring cadence value to: 0xFFFFFCC000000000

Also, have them change your on-hook-voltage from 48 to 45

I'm running the 1.00.55 firmware just like everyone else and when these 2 changes were implemented, I have had Caller ID and normal ring cadence ALL THIS WEEK!!! For the first time in over a month!!!!!!!

Do this, do it now and see if it will fix your problems. It did for me and I have 4 phones and my computer's faxmodem all hooked up through house-wiring.

---
Just for the record, my ring cadence was the following:
0x00000FFC00000000 and my on-hook-voltage was set to 48.

It gave me a normal ring cadence, but non-working Caller ID.

Posts: 48 · Full Forum Member Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 48

csnet wrote:

Judging from my experience, a "one size fits all" approach does not seem to work given all the possible load variations on the phone adapter phone jack.

What we may be seeing is that there is no magic combination of settings that will make all features work for everyone's hardware mix.

Vonage has over a million customers now. If they can't come up with a "one size fits all" solution then they are doomed. A one percent error on a system of this size means that they have to handle 10,000 calls every time they make a firmware update. From a business standpoint, that's not much of a solution.

I called them last night and spent a total of about 15 minutes on the phone what a tech tried to put in place "the fix that works sometimes." It didn't work for me. Even if it had, they're looking at 2,500 man-hours of calls for each percent of non-working customers. That's 5.2 man-months, and from the looks of it, they have a lot more than 1 percent of their customers with this problem.

And here's the really... uhh... exasperating part. As far as I've read on this forum, the one completely consistent thing that every single person with this problem reports: After a reboot, caller ID works exactly one time! Obviously something is changing the state of the adapter between the time before call 1 and before (or during) call 2. Testing this is trivial, once you can reproduce the problem in the lab. All you have to do is compare the two states of the adapter, run down all the differences and then track them back to the code in the firmware. Problems like this are tedious to track down to be sure, but any really good person at this type of work could fix it in one day... two days max.

Believe me, there just aren't enough variables in this issue to cause that complicated of a problem.

I am becoming more and more decided that this is not anywhere as much of a technical issue as it is a priority and management issue. Vonage couldn't have gotten where it is by having a technical department as sloppy as this.

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

seeker_ktf wrote:

And here's the really... uhh... exasperating part. As far as I've read on this forum, the one completely consistent thing that every single person with this problem reports: After a reboot, caller ID works exactly one time! Obviously something is changing the state of the adapter between the time before call 1 and before (or during) call 2.

I'd guess that the change in happening during call 1- after the phone rings and CID does it's thing, and before or at hang-up.

Posts: 48 · Full Forum Member Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 48

Yeah, it seems to happen right after the first ring. I reset my adapter and then called from my cell phone. The CID pops up immediately after the fist ring. Without even answering the home phone and before the second ring I hang up and call again. This time, the CID doesn't register. Another test is to reset the adapter and call, but hang up as soon as the ringing starts but before the CID pops up. I can do that repeatedly and then call and let it go through and the CID works. In my mind that tells me that the first ring in itself is not the problem. So in ten minutes of testing I can say that "the change" happens in the milliseconds between just before and just after the CID gets sent.

As an aside, if someone calls and hangs up before it's answered or rolls to VM, the call doesn't show up in the call history on the Vonage dashboard.

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

Good research- I hope the Vonage engineers are reading. As for your aside, yes Vonage only records completed calls, incoming or outgoing.

Posts: 86 · Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 3:10 pm Post subject:

seeker_ktf wrote:

If they can't come up with a "one size fits all" solution then they are doomed....the one completely consistent thing that every single person with this problem reports: After a reboot, caller ID works exactly one time! Obviously something is changing the state of the adapter between the time before call 1 and before (or during) call 2.

I hear ya, I even wondered about it myself:

csnet wrote:

Before anyone concludes something has to change in my house wiring, why does the RTP-300 with 1.00.55 work perfectly on Incoming Caller ID after an RTP-300 reboot, with house wiring and all phones connected if there is something wrong with the house wiring?

And you are right: Why is the state that exists after a reboot not the same after 1 call is received?

FWIW, I still have caller ID today and I measure that now my line measures 45.8 VDC / 46 VAC (true RMS), exactly 3 volts less than it did when Caller ID was not working.

I never tried measuring line voltage after a reboot when Caller ID was not working. It would be good to know if that is changing from 45 after the reboot to 48 volts after the 1st call on systems that are still having Caller ID problems.

seeker_ktf or anyone else still having problems, if you have a voltmeter you may want to try checking for changes in line voltage between post reboot and after 1st call received.

Posts: 48 · Full Forum Member Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 48

I just measured. Before and after are the same, 50.4 volts. That's a lot higher than either of the two numbers you stated, but keep they're keep doing a lot of messing around with my adapter trying to fix the problem. FWIW, the voltages go crazy during a ring... it's all over the place.

Posts: 86 · Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 4:52 pm Post subject:

seeker_ktf wrote:

I just measured. Before and after are the same, 50.4 volts. That's a lot higher than either of the two numbers you stated, but keep they're keep doing a lot of messing around with my adapter trying to fix the problem. FWIW, the voltages go crazy during a ring... it's all over the place.

That 50.4 volts does seem high. I was not getting Caller ID at 48 volts+, my Caller ID works all the time now at 45 volts, and many others have posted the 45 volt change as a fix for their Caller ID.

But then again, you do get Caller ID at 50.4 volts the first time after a reboot, so apparently the line does not have to be 45 volts to get Caller ID. Wish we knew more about what was going on.

Ring voltage is AC, what, about 100 volts peak to peak? Enough volts for a good shock anyway.

Posts: 72 · Full Forum Member Joined: Apr 27, 2005 Posts: 72

There are actually several ring cadences,, but the thing that needs to be changed is Ring 1 cadence, changing it to that value fixes for some people but not for others as we see in this long forum especially for caller id, i think its a combination of on hook voltage and ring1 cadence that gives perfect solution!! But is there any other combinations??

Posts: 48 · Full Forum Member Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 48

OK. I have working caller ID. I've testing it 8 times from various phones.

Here is what I did:
1) Logon to the router and backup the configuration
2) Disconnect the router from the internet
3) Reup the firmware (55) using ColdGin's info here.
4) Reset the router by holding the button on the back for 5 seconds and letting go

Do not turn off the router. Recycling the router this way will absolutely get you back to the "It only works one time" bit.

Keep in mind that when they first did the 55 firmware release, CID worked for me for over a day, so this will probably be a short fix. What can I say? Hope springs eternal.