Remote Phonebook and Fanvil X6

[Justin D]

I'm just setting up a cloud hosted (1&1) system using Fanvil X6's and I'd like to setup the remote phonebook download for the contacts.

Looking at the default Fanvil template it seems to have an entry but after provisioning the fields on the phone itself are empty (ie in the admin pages).

Am I missing something and not set something up correctly?

When I was testing the system using old Yealink phones it worked a treat.

The Fanvil's are running the latest 3CX firmware and everything else seems to work as expected.

 

[Justin D]

Doing further research, it appears that the phones aren't picking up the server address of the phonebook from the default Fanvil template.

Has anybody else had this issue?

 

[Justin D]

It appears that the %%PROVLINKLOCAL%% and %%PROVLINK%% links used in the templates aren't being created from the PROVISIONING_LINK_EXT and PROVISIONING_FOLDER variables?

Does anyone know if there is an issue with the templates and the PROVLINK links?

I can get it to work if I either add the link directly in the phone's setup pages or create a custom template in 3CX (both of which is not ideal as I'd like it all to be done from 3CX itself without additional messing around).

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[NickD_3CX]

I checked the default template and the provisioning file it generates when you set the provisioning method to "Remote STUN" and it is correct:


I am not sure though why you went into the Parameters for this, have you changed these values?

 

[Justin D]

Thank you for your reply.

I only went in to view the parameters in order to try and work out what was going on and havent changed anything.

I checked back through the provisioning file and it appears that I had been looking at the wrong section, I do have a similar section for the Auto_Pbook_Url which is populated correctly, however the phones are not picking it up (and Phonebook, Cloud Phonebook in the phone's setup pages is blank - adding the path manually there does work).

The phones are hardware V1.2, firmware R1.0.2, and 3CX is 15.5.0 and a Standard Perpetual license.

 

[NickD_3CX]

The Contacts are loaded in the interface under Phonebook --> Contacts, not under Cloud Phonebook, but when I tried it seems to work.
May I suggest resetting the phone to Factory Settings and trying everything from the beginning? Using default templates.

Also, from the phones display, if you go to the Contacts do you see something there?

 

[Justin D]

I've done a factory reset and tried again using the default template - they are still not picking up the contacts list.

On the phone when you go to Contact on the buttons directly under the screen you see Local Contacts (ie the other extensions), and if you press the main Directory button you see a list of phonebooks (Local Contacts, Black List, White List, Cloud Contacts, LDAP, Broadsoft Phonebook) and if you select Cloud Contacts it's empty.

In the phone's config the Contact List (which is the phone's own contacts) is empty, and the Cloud Phonebook has empty entries in the Cloud Phonebook URL section etc.

 

[Justin D]

I'm wondering if this is a STUN connected phone issue? (I've got four phones connecting via STUN, all with their own SIP and RTP ports and correct forwarding etc).

If I changed to using a SBC I assume that the phone book provisioning would be virtually the same as being on a local lan so may start working?

 

[NickD_3CX]

STUN or SBC, the way the phonebook is downloaded would be the same, over HTTPs.

Just toe clarify something though, the 3CX Phonebook contacts are listed in the same place where the other extensions are listed, under Contacts --> All Contacts. Just to make sure we are on the same page, I took a few pictures...





Is this where you are checking?

 

[Justin D]

Yes, the above is correct.

I've managed to get something working. It seems that if you create the contact list after adding/provisioning the phones the contacts don't get loaded on the phones, even after reprovisioning them.

I had to create the list, delete and reset the phones, then add them again to get the list to appear.

It now seems that if you add extra contacts afterwards they don't get pushed to the phone, even after restarting the 3CX services and restarting or provisioning the phones.

I think I'll give up on this aspect of the system for now, hopefully it will be fixed in a later template or firmware for the phones, the users will have to dial the numbers themselves.

 

[NickD_3CX]

We're getting somewhere. Could you try going to "Phones" in the Management Console and hitting the "Reprovision" button? See if that restarts the phone and if after it loads the new entries...

 

[Justin D]

Tried that, no new entries. Restarted all the 3CX services, reprovisioned the phones, no new entries.

I'll try and find time to reset the phones fully and re-add them later as I suspect that will do it, not quite the seamless experience I was led to believe lol! Thankfully this hasn't been put out in the wild yet...

 

[Justin D]

I reset all the phones, added them again, and the contacts showed up.

I tried adding a couple of extra contacts but they didn't appear on the phones, even after reprovisioning.

 

[NickD_3CX]

OK, so I did some more extensive testing and I think I know what is happening. When the phone tries to reprovision either at the set interval or when you manually tell it to reprovision, it does request the provisioning file from the 3CX Server that includes the link to the phonebook, but compares it to its current running config. Because it finds it the same, it just ignores it without also checking the phonebook entries.
If you would do a slight change to the Extension Settings in the Phone Provisioning tab, like e.g. remove/add a audio codec, then re-provision, then the phone would pull the new contacts as well as apply the change you made.

We have just notified Fanvil about this. At the moment we don't know when/if/how this will be addressed this just happened now, but try it again when there is a new firmware update for your phone available, this might be addressed by then.

In the meantime, the slight "trick" would be required for this to happen.

 

[Justin D]

That makes sense, if we add any more entries I'll "alter" something and re-provision accordingly.

Thank you for your input on this!

 

[Justin D]

Just had to add a new contact to the address list and re-provisioned the phones (with a change of config, in this case I changed the back light timeout) and now the contacts are empty on all the phones.

I'll have a go at factory resetting a phone and setting it up again but it would be useful if this could be sorted? I can't be the only one having this issue?

 

[NickD_3CX]

As I said, it has been reported to Fanvil and they should be addressing it in a newer firmware in the future. Unfortunately no ETA at the moment, but it is possible that the next firmware update for these models you see in 3CX will have this addressed.

 

[Justin D]

Thanks Nick

With a third re-provision they appeared, bit weird really!