Polycom VVX 301 Random Restarts

[opiumdot]

I am running a test environment of a cloud-based 3cx with three Polycom VVX 301 phones connected to it via STUN and running firmware 6.1.2.1127. All the phones can call each other and can make and receive outside calls. Everything is working great except... After provisioning the phones, two of the phones randomly restart throughout the day, sometimes as often as every few minutes. All three phones were provisioned the same way and the two phones run stable after being factory reset and before provisioning so it must be a provisioning setting that is causing the restarts. Each phone is using DHCP to obtain an IP and given a unique local SIP port of 5065,5066, & 5067 respectively. I have also tried different phones with the same result so it is not a hardware issue. Any ideas what is causing the restarts?

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi,

Do the phones say "Reboot initiated" on the screen when they restart?

How are the phones powered, is it with PoE or with an authentic adaptor from Polycom?

 

[opiumdot]

No, they make a chime sound and then they display "Restarting Phone". I have tried both POE and an AC adapter. It's not a hardware issue as they only start restarting after provisioning, before provisioning they do not restart which makes me think there is some phone setting or other possible network issue? that is creating a conflict and causing the restarts.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi @opiumdot

Firstly we expect you to have factory reset the phones, and be using 3CX 16.0.5.612 (or 611) with the latest provisioning template - no custom templates


Above you also said something that does not make much sense to me, if all 3 were provisioned the same way, wouldn't all 3 be randomly restarting if the provisioning was the problem?

On thing that I would recommend is to check all 3 extensions and ensure they are on the same template called "Polycom VVX 301" and not the SPIP301 (3.1.x)



So can you please confirm:

- Correct PBX version is in use
- Correct Template name is in use
- Correct Template version number for gen2 is indeed 97529

 

[opiumdot]

I have factory reset all phones before provisioning. They are all VVX301's. To be sure, I once again factory reset all phones and reprovisioned, the issue persists. I changed up the order of the phones I provisioned and oddly the first phone I provision seems the most stable (doesn't restart but the line does become unregistered every few minutes) The more phones I add, the more frequent the restarts.

I tried manually provisioning a phone and that was rock solid stable (no restarts) although there were problems answering a call (could place but not answer) I assume that's a SIP setting. So there is definitely something wrong with the auto-provisioning setup using the https link.

My 3cx version is: 16.0.611
I am not using any custom templates however, my polycomvx_gen2.ph.xml file version is 96893 in comparison to the 97259 version captured in your pic.

All phones are using the "Polycom VVX 301" template and not the SPIP301 (3.1.x).

 

[Saqqara]

If you click on updates within the management console, any updates ?. You may see template update

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi @opiumdot

Ok so these phones do reboot when they detect a network state change, I would start looking into my network environment right about now or deploying them in a different environment. The registrations/deregistrations seem to support the hypothesis that something is not right with the network at some level.

You can also deploy them in a different environment and see if they stop behaving this way (ie. if you plugged one at home and watched it for an evening) to see if there is any merit to this

But first things first: can you check your updates section and see if there are any pending updates?

 

[opiumdot]

No updates are available under updates, it says "Your system is up to date". Checked the template again, still version 96893.

Yeah, that was my next method to troubleshoot this, i'm going to bring the phones to my home tonight and see if they do the same thing. What's weird is we currently use another cloud voip provider in the office and have had zero issues with them and Polycom phones.

Today, I tried assigning static IP's to all three phones and port forwarded the Local Sip Ports as well as the RTP ports in the firewall to each IP hoping that would help, nope, the issue persists. I also changed the DNS from OpenDNS to Google, which did nothing either, phones still restarting randomly.

 

[opiumdot]

So to check all my bases I cleared my firewall rules and recreated them from scratch. That seemed to have helped as the 3 phones were then solid and stopped restarting Which is weird since the phones worked and could make calls, you would think the phone just wouldn't connect and not keep restarting!? Is the restart on network change or connection loss an option i can turn off? However since it was working, I started adding two more extensions and the last phone I provisioned is doing the restart thing, the other four are solid. I'm going to try deleting and recreating the extension and see if that helps.

 

[opiumdot]

Guess that did not fix it and now the other phones are back to restarting randomly again. I can confirm that a phone will NOT restart during a call. It will however popup: "NAT IP Changed" and then immediately after the call ends restart.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Is your PBX behind a dynamic public IP by the way?

 

[opiumdot]

My PBX is hosted on AWS with a static ip.

 

[opiumdot]

So I think it's just that Polycom phones don't play well with STUN and multiple phones on the same network. Once I add three or more phones, the restarts start and become more frequent with subsequent phones, however, having only two is solid! I have read other posts of users with other manufacturers' phones and they are all reliable. I think my best solution is to build an SBC which I was trying to avoid due to the expense and additional on-site equipment for only 5 phones. For now, I created a workaround by manually configuring all phones in 3CX instead of using the HTTPS link to provision. Doing it that way wasn't ideal since it's more work, I can't control the phones from the web app, and I lose access to the corporate directory but all the phones are completely solid and not one restart . I'm going to continue to check this post for replies for other ideas and things to try on another test set of phones since i'm really getting into learning as much as I can about VOIP and 3CX. Thanks all.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Yeah SBC would be a great idea if you have 5 or more. I have 6 of them however (including the 301) on my desk and they have been running on STUN for over a week without any random restarts except when I take the SIP server offline. As soon as they figure out the SIP server is not there, they will all reboot one by one.

Manually configuring them might pose a problem with audio (if NAT is not enabled on them so they can resolve their external IP via STUN).

In the manual config, I imagine you do not enable this feature? This might explain why they don't restart in manual-config mode.

 

[opiumdot]

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, it's right on the line, if I had like 6 or more I would definitely use an SBC. This is a weird problem and incredibly annoying to debug when I only have a few minutes to review settings before the phone will restart again. I know it's network-communication related and gets worse with the more 301's I place on the same network in STUN. Two: solid, three: starts restarting a few times an hour, four and five: restarts every couple of minutes.

So far the sound hasn't been an issue in manual-config mode and 24 hours in and no restarts . I did initially have a problem where the phone would not answer a call (either by handset pickup or hitting the answer softkey) which was resolved by changing my Outbound Proxy line setting transport method to TCPPreferred instead of DNSnaptr. I did not enable NAT on them.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

After our whole conversation, I am now reasonably certain the issue is due to the stability of your network. Here is the evidence:

1. We know that using 3CX default provisioning enables the STUN NAT-ting feature on those phones.
2. We know that those phones are designed to reboot when they lose the connection to their PBX when the above option is enabled (manufacturer defined behavior specific to Polycom)
3. We know that the issue does not happen when you manually register them (thus disabling STUN feature and disabled their factory behavior when STUN is active)
4. We know you had issues answering incoming calls, but not making outgoing calls (firewall probably shutting down ports when idle for a while, but reopening them when you initiate an outgoing calls)
5. You are very likely relying on the firewall handling the traffic to ensure audio passes (since no STUN mode enabled would make the phone use local IPs)

Conclusion: You will either have to take a deep dive and figure out why your firewall cuts the connection to legitimately provisioned STUN phones, thus triggering their built-in auto-reboot behavior, or install an SBC to try and work around the problem so that even if the connection drops temporarily, they will not reboot since they are no longer in a STUN scenario.

If you have any additional questions I would be glad to address them.