Multicast after V16 upgrade not working

[Felicia King]

Multicast Paging on several phone systems we manage worked fine in V15. After the upgrade to V16 it does not function properly. All phones subscribed to the multicast paging group all play the same on-hold music. The only way to stop it is to press end call twice on the initiator phone. This appears to be an active software bug, but no one from 3CX has posted that this is an active bug.

 

[cobaltit]

I guess I'm confused as to how you determined this was a bug. Did you test this on multiple systems? As you mentioned I haven't seen any posts on the forums nor have I had any complaints from my installed base. What version of v16 are you on, what underlying OS, and what phones? Assuming supported phones can you confirm you have re-provisioned them with v16 templates and current firmware? Have you tried factory defaulting one of the phones and then re-provisioning?

 

[Felicia King]

Thanks for the suggestions.
Two independent phone systems, two independent networks. Both running on the latest Debian Linux. Both enterprise, both running 16.0.1.273 3CX flavor. In this exact same community category there is another post from May with someone with the same exact problem and for whatever reason the posting option was closed on that discussion. I would have posted an update there if it was allowed, but it was blocked.
Yes all the phones are reprovisioned using default v16 templates with and with the latest firmware as provided by the PBX itself. This all worked in V15.x prior to the upgrade to v16 yesterday. So bug, certainly seems so. Worked before and doesn't work after a software upgrade on the PBX where it just plays hold music tells me that the software is malfunctioning rather than something going wrong at the network layer. At your suggestion, I factory defaulted a phone. The phone defaulted and rebooted and then provisioned and rebooted and came back properly. I dialed the paging group number and same behavior.

The other post mentioned that their PBX said that the call was not completed. I get no such message. What I get is that the hold music starts playing. It is as if there is a call within a call because I have to press End call twice to get it to stop.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Felicia,

Care to launch your webclient real quick and give the mcast page group a call?

Please let us know if it works correctly, in this case I suspect your phone is also part of the multicast listening group

 

[Felicia King]

Yes my phone is definitely part of the mcast page group. And yes it works from the softphone client, but that's not a solution for our client.

We have a school client where I have to be able to have a call broadcast to all IP speakers and all IP desk phones at the same time. This is over 200 devices. And anyone needs to be able to dial the mcast page group from any extension.
This used to work in 15. Now with v16 and default templates for Yealink phones. The phones prioritize paging over calls, so apparently that means that the initiator handset puts the call on hold to then be part of the page group.

It's not an option to remove the desk phone from the page group. So I guess the other option is to then use a custom template for the Yealink phones to change the priority. These same exact phones with the same firmware worked correctly in V15 without a custom template. So perhaps the change the happened that caused this issue was that the templates for the phones changed with V16.
Isn't it standard that a call would always take priority over a call? So why isn't that in the default template for the phones in V16?

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi Felicia,

I fully understand your case is specific and that this is not an option.

The reason you noticed a change when upgrading from V15 is because we changed the behavior in 3CX Phone System Version 16, Release Candidate, Build 16.0.0.1570, March 2019 (https://www.3cx.com/blog/change-log/phone-system-change-log/)after we had requests to do so, hence we understand that it may affect people that fall within your specific customer's use-case.

The way it worked before would mean that anyone that was already on a call, would not hear the multicast or it would appear as a 2nd incoming call that they would have to answer manually, whereas now if there is an emergency, a single phone not part of the group would be able to take priority over any calls taking place and ensure everyone hears the multicast message (ie. the security guard's phone, or receptionist or admin lets say).

The only way to do it now would be as you suggested even though we would not recommend it as you would have to go down the custom template path, meaning that it affects support eligibility.

Just out of curiosity what brand(s) and model(s) are deployed at the site btw?

 

[Felicia King]

It is a mix of Yealink T46G, T40P, and T41P. I see the point of the change, I'm just confused then as to how those folks are supposed to actually execute the page.
If we need to be able to have phones that can send the page also receive pages when they come from other sources, then we can't use the use case specified above.

It sounds like there now a requirement that all paging can only be done with a headset and the softphone client or over the mobile client? It certainly works that way, but I think I'm going to have a hard time selling that to the clients. They are going to wonder why their desk phones are so stupid or why is the PBX not allowing them to use the desk phones for paging. Their 25 year old Iwatsu phone system could do this paging flawlessly, so they are really going to be dumbfounded about why the new fancy PBX can't do it.

I will have to talk to them about it and find out how they want to handle it. But I think I'm going to have a real hard time selling the idea that they can't page from anywhere.
I may have to use a custom template anyhow simply because the phones refuse to show anything but the mobile number in the PBX phonebook.
If I enter an item in the phone book and put a number in any field other than mobile, it shows up in the phone book as "none". Seems like a retarded limitation. My Polycom VVX601 cannot even see the PBX phonebook.

 

[cobaltit]

So no one said 3CX can't do it. As you said, it's a custom template which isn't that big of a deal. It just means if you have other issues, 3CX will ask you to test using the default template before reporting the issue. Ultimately what should happen is the ability to make the paging priority changes via the phone provisioning tab so you don't have to go the custom template route. As far as your Polycom, it's a Legacy phone so...

 

[Felicia King]

So no one said 3CX can't do it. As you said, it's a custom template which isn't that big of a deal. It just means if you have other issues, 3CX will ask you to test using the default template before reporting the issue. Ultimately what should happen is the ability to make the paging priority changes via the phone provisioning tab so you don't have to go the custom template route. As far as your Polycom, it's a Legacy phone so...

Your point is a good one where if 3CX provided us more configurable options through the provisioning tab, we would not need to use a custom template.
I wish they would have decided to take that approach when they just recently went through the effort to reprogram the multicast paging functionality.

 

[jholbrookFTLtechnology]

i have to agree with Felicia, i've been bitten by this "feature" as well in multiple businesses and there needs to be a better way to implement this than custom templates.

 

[berto]

This change in paging is absolutely stopping us from upgrading 3cx past 15.5

It is unacceptable in our office environment to have pages interrupt calls; it's also unacceptable to disallow staff at their desks from making pages simply because they can receive pages.

@JohnS_3CX you mention the change was made "after we had requests to do so " well consider this an additional request to change it back.

 

[jholbrookFTLtechnology]

i agree with changing it back greatly!

 

[wnyconsulting]

I also agree with changing it back.

I actually fail to see how it is supposed to work at all since any phone that belongs to a multicast paging group would not be able to page the group it belongs to. It seems strange that this behavior would be wanted by anyone.