FreePbx - Help needed

[Fantastic1]

Hi All,

I have a FreePbx box installed at my premises on the 24 April.

Problem 1
Since that day our analog multifunction printer has not worked.
The supplier of this insists that our fax board is faulty.

There is a poe switch powering all the snom / siemens ip phones.
I called in the supplier of the multifunction machine and they said
The board did get burnt out? I am not really sure why! But the multifunction
Supplier did indicate that this happened due to the machine left on
While the freepbx box was connected and the analog lines transferred
To the freepbx and this created a spike to burn the board.

However the supplier has placed a new board at a cost of R5700 and tested
The machine on an analog line without freepbx and it works perfectly.

When they connect it to the freepbx , it does not work.

Please advise on this

Problem 2

I have a diginet line connected to the freepbx box and after a few minutes of
Inactivity we do not receive any calls into our 087 numbers. The second
There is a dial out to any number that uses the diginet line , we then
Start receiving calls on the 087 numbers.

When I phone the 087 line provider they do a test and send results showing
Line is perfect right until the cisco router but no response from the
Box.
The freepbx supplier has been insisting that this problem is not the
Box but the 087 provider, but the freepbx provider has not submitted any
Statistics that at the time of error that there was anything wrong
With his box. All that they have sent me is all the calls made in and out
From the box including internal dialing.

Please advise what I should do to resolve this and to ensure I never
Encounter any problems and to be able to use my multifunction printer
To fax.

Thanks

 

[gmza]

In terms of the fax, it doesn't sound like the board was faulty at all. I suspect you've been screwed out of R5,700... That nonsense about the FreePBX spiking the printer/fax with high voltage is extremely implausible and the proof is in the fact that it still doesn't work with the board having been replaced.

Rather, what you are perhaps getting is timing slips between the FXO and FXS ports (assuming you have Telkom lines coming in), or, it's trying to fax out the VoIP lines (which won't work because FreePBX/Asterisk cannot do T.38 gatewaying, only termination or origination). To be frank, though, given the lack of technical information provided above, I cannot say for sure. NB. Faxing through FreePBX is tricky and only works in very specific setups. E.g. Receiving faxes on a Telkom line and emailing them to recipients is easy enough, but switching calls to/from a fax machine is a different story altogether.

Regarding your problem with the inbound calls, again, you have not provided enough technical information to make a certain conclusion, however, it sounds like your Cisco router is running NAT and there are no keepalives configured. Outbound sessions are set up automatically. Inbound will work until the dynamic NAT translation rule times out. At this point, you'll get no inbound until another outbound session. If this is the case, both your 087 provider and FreePBX provider are clueless, because both of them should know how to identify the problem and advise on how to fix it, not point fingers. But, it could be something else as well since you haven't specified whether there is NAT involved or not.

I'd like to stress that the above suggestions are the most likely problems based on the limited information provided. If you want proper advice, private message me your contact details and as much technical information on the setup as you know (including, if possible, who the VoIP provider is, whether the FreePBX is behind NAT, what line cards you have in the FreePBX e.g. Digium FXO+FXS, whether these are on one line card or multiple, whether you have separate ATAs that the fax attaches to, etc.) and I'll call you during office hours to advise properly.

 

[Fantastic1]

Thanks for the advice gmza, I have made my decision on what happens next