Call Centric

[nfedei0522]

Hello all. Working on my installation of 3cx 11. I am having issues with Call Centric and 3cx communicating and I'm not sure where to start troubleshooting this issue. In 3cx, it shows the trunk is active, but when calling from outside the lan, it is dead air or sometimes the error message from Call Centric. I have followed the instructions on Call Centric website to configure voip provider. I have also disable the STUN server as Call Centric states they do not utilize a STUN server. In it's place I have my external IP Address. The 3CX logs do not show an incoming call and I'm not sure where to find the information from Call Centric to see why the callers are getting an error message.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Nick

 

[lneblett]

First, 3CX has released a Service Pack. Please download and install. After installing, run the firewall checker and see if it has any erros. If so, then see if you can resolve the errors. Now try Callcentric and see what happens. If still an issue, then post a log of the issue. I am assuming that Callcentric is showing as registered.

 

[craigreilly]

I had problems getting 3cx to register to Callcentric during my testing, but if the credentials were in a softphone, it worked fine. not sure the difference...

 

[Garys]

I have been dealing with the same issue. I found that manually refreshing registration for callcentric would resolve the issue temporarily. The incoming call problem seems to pop back up randomly, although I found that setting the "time between registration attempts" to a lower value (such as 240) decreased the amount of problems.

We did not have this issue on 3CX version 10, it began when we installed version 11.

I will install the service pack during some downtime today to see if that makes any difference.

 

[lneblett]

I don't know that SP1 will make a difference, but the firewall checker seems to be more robust and they have the NAT/ALG fetaure. and the issue with STUN on 64 bit systems is now fixed. I am merely hopefull that any one or more of these may either fix teh problem or may help point in the right direction.

The softphone seems to have the registration process set for a default 2 minutes. I am guessing, as I do not use Callcentric, that this may be a shorter than usual period and that it coincides with Garys indication of how his shortening the registration attempts seemed to help.

Additionally, I have two clients running DLink routers (655DIR). They orginally had the port forwarding being conducted using the virtual server tab as it is only one port and the function can handle both TCP and UDP. Here is how it is defined - "The Virtual Server option allows you to define a single public port on your router for redirection to an internal LAN IP Address and Private LAN port if required." Seems pretty straight forward, doesn't it? The earlier version firewall checkers had previsously indicated all was well, everything passed.

When I upgraded the clients to SP1, I decided to retest just to be certain all remained well and this time the firewall checker failed. Once I removed the entries from Virtual Server to Port Forwarding, the firewall passed with no issues.

I never had any problems with the original settings, but this may be more a function of how STUN resolved, which I do not use, but nevertheless is does seemingly appear to be a more robust check. Just an FYI.

 

[nfedei0522]

Thank you all for the responses. I was using a Sonicwall router and the firewall checker would continuously fail. Even though all ports were enabled and working correctly. So I gave in and purchased a new router. Cisco RV180 Small Business router. After configuring this unit. All of the firewall checks have worked correctly. I have also upgraded to SP1. But still having the Dead Air issue. I think I will utilize the suggestion of Garys and lower the registration time for Call Centric. Maybe this will help. Is there anything else I can check?

Thanks for the help!

 

[nfedei0522]

Ok. So I changed the registration time to 240 and I am still getting the dead air this morning. The problem is very similar to the other users who can temporarily resolve the issue by unregistering call centric and re-registering it again. Not sure what else I can do.

 

[lneblett]

Having just reread the post from the beginning, I am wondering if maybe I missed something. You originally stated "it shows the trunk is active, but when calling from outside the lan, it is dead air or sometimes the error message from Call Centric".

The above implies that you have an external extension and that when you try and reach a number that is routed through CallCentric, you have the issue. I am wondering if perhaps we morphed this into a different problem.

Can you advise on the following?:

1. Internal, extension to extension calls are fine?
2. You do have external extensions?
The calls from an external extension to an internal extension are fine?
The calls from an internal extension to an external extension are fine?
3. The calls from internal extensions through CallCentric are fine?


I am trying to understand if the issue is associated to external extensions or if it really makes no difference if external or internal, but going to CallCentric is the issue...or if both.

 

[nfedei0522]

Ineblett,
Thank you for your response.

1. When calling our external phone number provided by CallCentric, intermittently you will get dead air or sometimes an error from callcentric. When the system is working correctly, you dial the phone number provided by CallCentric, you reach our auto attendant asking to select an option.
2. The trunk says it is active and when watching the trunk while making an incoming call; when working the trunk will go orange to state there is activity. When it is dead air, the trunk remains green.
3. I have no problems dialing out from inside the 3CX. All of the extensions within 3CX are working just fine and never have any problems making calls to other extensions inside 3CX or out of 3CX to CallCentric. I have never had an error while making a phone call from within the system. Only having trouble calling into the system from outside the network.

I strongly believe the issue is with CallCentric. However, I have worked with their support team who gave me several items to try and to this point they insist an issue with 3CX. At first I was convinced the issue was with my router as I was using a Sonicwall Pro3060 firewall which in many of the other forums stated can cause problems. Therefore, I upgraded to a Cisco RV180 Small business router. Previously, I was not able to pass the firewall checker, but now I am with the new router.

 

[lneblett]

OK, now I understand. Thanks for the clarification.

On the surface, I want to agree with your assessment, but what is a little troubling is your statement about never having any issue dialing out.....only in. This again could be a router not opening and forwarding unsolicited packets correctly or possibly Callcentric not being able to resolve your IP address at the time of the call. When you make a call, the router is opening the ports and leaving them open while expecting a response. If you make an outbound call through Callcentric and keep the call going, can you then make an inbound call? Your 3CX server does not have more than one NIC installed does it?

You might try and register a phone directly to Callcentric and see if any change, but you will need to also change the router port forwarding.

 

[DBOD]

I have been using CallCentric for a year now and the best thing I ever did was finally quit using STUN. The firewall checker in 3CX is not as conclusive as I would hope for. I could pass the checker and still had intermittant problems. My situation may differ from yours but I have a dynamic IP on a U-Verse line. You can not simply check the "Turn Off STUN requests" in the management console >Network Settings>STUN server tab in my case because the 3CX software requires you to enter a static IP address. What you can do it go to the 3CX Management Console under Voip Providers>Edit "Your" Voip Providers>Advanced> and configure it the way Callcentric want. That is

Require registration for "In and Outgoing calls"

Also and more importantly

Which IP to use in 'Contac' field for registraion: Internal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This will cause STUN to not be used by Callcentric. Don't be confused though because 3CX will still periodically test STUN. It just won't be used. And if you can't pass the STUN test you probably have a configuration problem anyway. But even with passing STUN I would lose registration to Callcentric almost daily. Now that is gone.

One more pearl. You always hear about opening the ports on your router which is important. But equally important is opening ports on your PBX server and almost no one mentions that. I run a small business with only 7 phones. My 3CX Phonesystem runs on a Windows 7 Pro machine. I had McAfee firewall on it for awhile and it gave me fits. To start with opening ports on McAfee didn't open anything. It allow 3CX to open them but you have to remember to restart 3CX services for that to happen. McAfee had other issues also so I went to using the Windows Firewall with more success. It was much more relaxed about automatically opening what was needed. The following link was useful to me to understand which ports were critical. Remember you need to communicate to the SIP phones over a lot of differnt ports also and the firewall checker does not check the path to the SIP phones as far as I can tell. And I can't say enough about Wireshark in helping me diagnose what was happening on the PBX server. And it is a free diagnostic tool!

http://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/ports-used/