Solved FQDN down, but can reach admin area via IP address

[BarnOwlTrust]

I am on the standard annual plan, using free hosting with 3CX.

About once a week the system becomes unavailable through the FQDN after performing a backup (backs up to remote FTP server). It is still accessible through the IP address, and all appears normal.

If I try to restart services from the instance manager this works 50% of the time and it is accessible through the FQDN after a few minutes

If this doesn't work I try rebooting from the instance manager. This does not work - the system does not go offline.

Next option is restoring from most recent backup - this usually solves the problem.

However, sometimes - even after restoring from a backup - the system comes back up and is available through IP address but not through the FQDN.

If restoring from the backup still does not restore access from the FQDN, I restart services from the instance manager, then access through the FQDN after a few minutes.

There is a persistent message on the instance manager "A system service is down and affects telephony"

Is there a specific service I can try restarting which might restore access through the FQDN?

This outage is happening about every week, and sometimes even on consecutive days.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Alan

 

[AndreasY_3CX]

Hi @BarnOwlTrust,

As i can see, your FQDN now points to the correct hosted 3CX IP address at the moment.This is usually happening when your license key is installed and running on more than one machine. In order to resolve this, you will need to remove or shutdown the machine that is running on your private side.

 

[BarnOwlTrust]

Thanks for your reply. Indeed, at the moment the FQDN points to the correct hosted 3CX IP address. However the license key is not installed and running on any other machines - we have no other instances of 3CX running on other hosting platforms. As mentioned in the original posting, on almost a weekly basis, the FQDN fails to point to the 3CX IP address - meaning that the clients cannot access the service, even though the service is running and is accessible via the 3CX IP address. In this case, power-cycling (rebooting) from the instance manager does not work (the system does not go offline and then restart) - and remains running. Sometimes RESTART SERVICES from the instance manager restores things to normal. Usually I have to restore from the most recent backup, and then restart services for the FQDN access to be restored.

Any help with this irritating intermittent problem would be much appreciated.

 

[NikosT_3CX]

@BarnOwlTrust we can definitely see activations from 2 different public ip addresses coming to our activation server with your license key.
Now if you are sure 100% about this, please open a ticket and we will provide you with the second ip address from where the requests come from. We can not do this publicly in the forum.
Now about the Reboot you mentioned, I can see that this has happened 3 times until now :
Mar 9, 2021
Apr 29, 2021
May 11, 2021
This means that Reboot works from Instance Manager for your hosted Instance and when your FQDN resolves to this ip address.
Did you try to Reboot more than these 3 times the PBX from Instance Manager ?
Because, pay attention Instance Manager will go and reboot the machine where the FQDN Resolves to not the machine you want as this can not be specified. with an ip address.

 

[BarnOwlTrust]

Hi there, thanks for this. I have done some investigation.

I first set up 3CX on Google Cloud hosting, then I migrated 3cx to Amazon Lightsail, then I migrated to 3CX hosting.

While there is nothing still running on Amazon Lightsail, an instance was still running on Google Cloud. I have now shut this down, pending deletion.

This may have solved the problem

Can you tell me if there is now only one activation from one public ip address coming to your activation server with our license key.

Thank you

Alan

 

[DimitrisL_3CX]

Hi @BarnOwlTrust,

As i can see, your FQDN now points to the correct hosted 3CX IP address at the moment.
If it remains like this you will have zero problems.

 

[BarnOwlTrust]

@BarnOwlTrust we can definitely see activations from 2 different public ip addresses coming to our activation server with your license key.

Hi Nikos - I have shut down the Google Cloud instance that 3CX used to run on.

Can you confirm that there is just 1 activation from 1 IP address now going to your activation server with our licence key?

Thanks

 

[NikosT_3CX]

@BarnOwlTrust yes correct, at the moment we see only from your Hosted by 3CX PBX activation.

 

[BarnOwlTrust]

Excellent - I hope this will have solved my problem - thank you