Solved Extensions won't register after 3cx license reverted to standard annual license

[rudek]

We have our 3CX on AWS with a public fixed IP address and a FQDN. Our LAN Phones in the office are behind the office public fixed IP address and access the services using the FQDN in all their settings. We also have a few 3CX Windows clients installed on PCs. It all worked fine for over a year until a few days ago when our 3CX trial license changed to standard annual license. So all LAN phones extensions now try to access the 3cx server and some phones register some not. Then we rebooted the 3CX server, only one phone registered. Then we rebooted the firewall and 2 different phones registered but the first one did not, etc. All 3cx Windows phones register fine.

All LAN phones are allowed to access "outside of LAN" (i.e. the Disallow use of extension outside the LAN is unchecked) and all firewalls on the route do not block any IP addresses involved.
Can this issue be related to the change in license? As far as I could find out the only difference with the free license is that you can only have 4 simultaneous calls and you can not chose a different FQDN, which should not matter in this case. Does anyone know how to make this work?

Thanks in advance,
Rudy

 

[cobaltit]

3CX version? It sounds like you were either using a custom FQDN which you no longer get with the free/trial version or you are on an older version that can't talk to the activation server so your 3CX FQDN isn't resolving properly.

 

[rudek]

Thanks. The FQDN is 3cx.3cx.ch which I got when we installed 3cx. It does not seem possible to change it from the console. How do I know if this is a custom FQDN? The version is
Standard Annual 15.5.15502

Any ideas?
Rudy

 

[Yellow_Flash]

Thanks. The FQDN is 3cx.3cx.ch which I got when we installed 3cx. It does not seem possible to change it from the console. How do I know if this is a custom FQDN? The version is
Standard Annual 15.5.15502

Any ideas?
Rudy

It looks like a 3cx provided FQDN and not a custom FQDN.
Your 3cx version is an old one, you will have to upgrade to v15.5 SP6 or v16, as the old versions will no longer be able to contact the activation server.

 

[rudek]

Thanks. I updated to V16.0.676 following the updating instructions and restored from backup. All trunks are on line. The Windows Softphone is online, but only one or 2 of the IP phones register. I tried several 3CX service restarts and a firewall restart to get rid of caching, but the situation remains exactly the same as described in my first post. So, updating to V16 did not seem to help.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Rudy,

It would help if you told us what phones you are using, what their firmware edition is, which provisioning method you used, and whether you are running 3CX templates or custom ones.

https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/information-to-provide-when-requesting-help.67558/

 

[rudek]

sorry about that: all phones are htek UC924 with FW 2.0.4.613. They are all provisioned the same: Direct SIP / Stun using 3CX templates. They worked fine with V15.5 for just over a year. Then the trial period ran out, the license reverted to standard annual, and the Hteks can not register anymore. We run the 3CX on Windows server 2016 on AWS. Trunk provider is Peoplefone, but the trunks all register fine. Firewall tests passed fine.

Thanks for any tips,
Rudy

 

[JohnS_3CX]

What type of license did you have before it reverted? Was it always a free license or was it a commercial one that reverted to free?

 

[rudek]

It was always a free license.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Ok then, I suggest you check that there is no blacklisted IP keeping the phones from registering.

You must also ensure your HTTPS port is accessible on the server ie. the management console or web client is reachable via your web browser, from the same LAN that the STUN phones connect, and then try to reprovision one of your phones.

 

[rudek]

Blacklist on the 3CX server is empty.
HTTPS port is accessible from the same LAN as the phones.
Tried reprovisioning one of the phones, and after several tries, that worked (finally!!!).

One question: there is no visible reason for the phones not to register automatically after a license change. I did notice on the 3CX Extensions menu that all Htek phones have a small red triangle before the first name saying "HIGH ALERT: extension insecure + external registration allowed". This probably has to do with the passwords we chose. Could this be the reason that the PBX rejects an automatic re-registration?

Thanks everyone for your help, and I hope this thread helps people in a similar situation.
Rudy

 

[Yellow_Flash]

No, the alert is just because of the password not adhering to 3cx standards. It wouldn't cause the phones to unregister or not register.

Glad the issue is resolved.

 

[rudek]

Thanks everyone for your help!
Rudy

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Rudy,

We recommend to select the extensions and regenerate the passwords. The system will generate compliant and secure ones for you (some phones might fail with very short passwords).

If your phones are registered at that time, they will also be provisioned automatically to receive the new regenerated credentials otherwise they need reprovisioning from scratch.

This is both for safety but also for compliance with the minimum password length and complexity that the firmware requires from each supported phone provider.

 

[rudek]

hmmm. all our passwords are 10-figures, and a combination of lower case, upper case, numbers and signs. We thought that would be secure enough according to the error message displayed in the Extensions menu. We now increased the password for one phone to 16 digits, but the red error is till showing. Not sure what the real requirements are.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hover mouse over the triangle and it will tell you which fields.

Or better yet, use the Regenerate button so you don't have to worry about it at all.