MAC Already In Use

[eteam]

Hi Team,

We have an old Yealink phone that was previously registered to another customers 3CX. Since the phone has been sitting in the office for so long, no one remembers where it came from.

I have gotten Yealink to RPS Mac remove which they have stated is done. However 3CX is still reporting that the MAC is already in use.

Do I also have to get 3CX to remove it from their end or does it normally clear up once Yealink has processed the MAC removal.

Thanks,
Levi

 

[paulodagraca]

Hello eteam,

Go to your admin - users and klik export.
Open the file with notepad and do an CTRL F to find the phone MAC.
You should be able to find the extension having this MAC in use.

Paulo

 

[eteam]

Hello eteam,

Go to your admin - users and klik export.
Open the file with notepad and do an CTRL F to find the phone MAC.
You should be able to find the extension having this MAC in use.

Paulo

Hi Paul,

The issue is that we don't know which 3CX client had this phone.

Thanks,
Levi

 

[paulodagraca]

Hi Levi,

Did you try?
The 3CX does state the MAC is in use, so you must be able to find it in the export list.

Paulo

 

[KyriacosS_3CX]

Hi @eteam ,

The MAC is in use within your own PBX.

Best,
KS.

 

[ivank]

Enter the MAC in the Search field of the Phones or Users page and it will most likely show the user who has it

 

[SteveITS]

@eteam Also check if it’s still listed as an SBC on that page.

 

[darrenmaa]

Hey

One thing I recommend with yealink devices is signing up for their management service.

https://www.yealink.com/en/product-detail/management-cloud-service

We only have a small team and it’s a free service for us. It allows you to do a large amount of tasks with their phones.

1: add all your devices to their management account.
2: set your 3CX provisioning link to all your phones added to your account.

So when you do a factory reset, your phones will automatically be directed to your 3CX system without manually updating your device.

Once your devices are added you can then do a range of servicing tasks for your phone. Screenshots, grab current configuration. Restart and factory reset the device.

All from the management account and without touching the physical device.

This would also be helpful for you to interact with that MAC address and find out what it is currently doing.

Your 3CX instance will only be able to check MAC addresses within your own network not the wider 3cx network.

What model Yealink device is it? Some DECT devices are added in the voice & chat page in admin and not the phones page.

I have a lot of experience with these devices if I can help, more than happy to

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hey

One thing I recommend with yealink devices is signing up for their management service.

https://www.yealink.com/en/product-detail/management-cloud-service

We only have a small team and it’s a free service for us. It allows you to do a large amount of tasks with their phones.

1: add all your devices to their management account.
2: set your 3CX provisioning link to all your phones added to your account.

So when you do a factory reset, your phones will automatically be directed to your 3CX system without manually updating your device.

Once your devices are added you can then do a range of servicing tasks for your phone. Screenshots, grab current configuration. Restart and factory reset the device.

All from the management account and without touching the physical device.

This would also be helpful for you to interact with that MAC address and find out what it is currently doing.

Your 3CX instance will only be able to check MAC addresses within your own network not the wider 3cx network.

What model Yealink device is it? Some DECT devices are added in the voice & chat page in admin and not the phones page.

I have a lot of experience with these devices if I can help, more than happy to

Would not work in this specific case.

The problem is that the OP already has the MAC existing on their target PBX under some user extension or some DECT/FXS or Hotdesking account.

If all else fails, taking a backup and reading the XML will show you where the MAC is assigned on that particular 3CX machine.

 

[edwindrood]

I have the same problem. I suspect the end-user (who I made an admin) accidentally deleted the user without first removing the phone from the account. Now when I want to provision the phone it says the MAC address is in use. I now have two phones which cannot be used.
Factory defaulting the phone will remove it from the list of active phones, but still says MAC Address is still in use.

I cannot find where to remove it. 3CX Cloud Hosted -- no access to console.

 

[paulodagraca]

Hello edwindrood,

Do you have the same problem?
Did you actually try one of the sugestions? any result?

1) paulodagraca
Go to your admin - users and klik export.
Open the file with notepad and do an CTRL F to find the phone MAC.
You should be able to find the extension having this MAC in use.

2) KyriacosS_3CX
The MAC is in use within your own PBX.

3) ivank
Enter the MAC in the Search field of the Phones or Users page and it will most likely show the user who has it

4) SteveITS
Also check if it’s still listed as an SBC on that page.

5) JohnS_3CX
The problem is that the OP already has the MAC existing on their target PBX under some user extension or some DECT/FXS or Hotdesking account.
If all else fails, taking a backup and reading the XML will show you where the MAC is assigned on that particular 3CX machine.

If all this does not help you, it's not the same problem.
Then please report details like 3CX version, Exact type phone and version, things like this.

Paulo

 

[edwindrood]

Thanks so much for all your help. I believe you are correct -- this is not the same problem. There were only 8 users and only 8 Yealink T54W phones. Somebody accidentally deleted two users. The remaining 6 users work just fine. However, when I look at active phones I see all 8 yealink phones and all 8 mac addresses. The two orphaned phones are "greyed out" so that I cannot do anything with them. i cannot even check the box.
So when I search in the Users, the mac address does not show up.
When I factory reset the phone, the mac address disappears from the orphaned phone in the phone list, but I still cannot add that mac address to a new user (says it is in use)

I really appreciate everyone's help. This is truly a "bug" in version 20. I think I have to tell the customer that they must either pay $100 to 3CX to delete these two mac addresses from the system or just buy two new phones.

I may set up a test system to try and duplicate the problem. I think that if it were an on-premise system I may be able to find a way to fix it from an SSH console -- but when it is in the 3CX cloud, I do not have any tools to fix this.

 

[paulodagraca]

Hello @edwindrood,

Are you using 3CX SMB Free?
I do not know what you mean with "in the cloud"?

Paulo

 

[edwindrood]

Nothing free here. Customer pays for license (8 Simultaneous Connections) and pays for 3CX Hosting (not on-premise).

If it were on-premise, I think I would be able to do more digging.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Somebody accidentally deleted two users.

Any phones under the users also get deleted if that was the case.

when I look at active phones I see all 8 yealink phones and all 8 mac addresses

The two mystery phones cannot appear in the active phones list after the users get deleted. The credentials no longer exist, so they would become unregistered within a minute at most.

So based on your descriptions, perhaps you are simply not logged in with high enough privileges? You would not be able to see the two "missing" users, but their phones would still be registered, and you would not be able to reuse the MACs. This explanation best fits the evidence you presented.

 

[ivank]

Thought also about it, could be Department-related (multicompany install?)