Strange issue: Phones registered but show offline after 500 days

[mcbsystems]

3CX Standard 16.0.8.9 on-premises on Windows 10.

Very strange customer call today: about six of eight extensions have disappeared from the list in 3CXPhone (Windows app).

In the dashboard: Extensions tab: the missing extensions show red. Phones tab: the missing extensions are completely gone.

If I log in to the Yealink T42S web UI, the missing extensions show as Registered. But the offline ones all show Uptime = 500 days with varying hours and minutes like 1:22, 1:29, 1:32, 1:41. That's 720,082 - 720,101 minutes, if my math is right.



Easy fix was to reboot the extensions. Everything reappeared.

Has anyone seen this before? What's the magic about 500 days? Should I put it my calendar to reboot 499 days from now?

Thanks,

 

[VasilisV_3CX]

Hi @mcbsystems,

There is no known issue regarding a magic 500 days causing any issues, it may have been coincidence. I'll leave this open in case anyone else has experienced this and can weigh in on it.

 

[Evolute IT]

First thing is: is the phone even up-to-date at that point?

Firmware upgrades trigger a reboot and reset of that counter... 500 days is longer than the last firmware age so surely some issues might come from unsupported firmwares, or even templates.

 

[mcbsystems]

Thanks Vasilis and Frederick. I'm sure the phone firmware is out of date, but the customer has a custom Yealink template, so updating can get complex. I was actually kind of proud that there system and UPS-backed POE switch have been so stable that the phones hadn't rebooted in 500 days! The consistency across about six phones made me think it was not a coincidence. The other extensions, online less than 400 days, were still visible in the dashboard.

What is the mechanism that 3CX uses to know that the phone is "there" (i.e. to put it on the Phones tab) and to turn it from red to green on the Extensions tab? Some kind of MAC address broadcast? My hunch is that the Yealinks stopped broadcasting due to some overflow or timeout that is rarely encountered because phones are usually rebooted more often.

This is kind of an academic exercise now, since I rebooted all phones, but I like to understand causes when possible!

Regards,

 

[Evolute IT]

Thanks Vasilis and Frederick. I'm sure the phone firmware is out of date, but the customer has a custom Yealink template, so updating can get complex. I was actually kind of proud that there system and UPS-backed POE switch have been so stable that the phones hadn't rebooted in 500 days! The consistency across about six phones made me think it was not a coincidence. The other extensions, online less than 400 days, were still visible in the dashboard.

What is the mechanism that 3CX uses to know that the phone is "there" (i.e. to put it on the Phones tab) and to turn it from red to green on the Extensions tab? Some kind of MAC address broadcast? My hunch is that the Yealinks stopped broadcasting due to some overflow or timeout that is rarely encountered because phones are usually rebooted more often.

This is kind of an academic exercise now, since I rebooted all phones, but I like to understand causes when possible!

Regards,

Firmware and templates are not the same, and why is the customer using custom templates? If only for a few edits, you can copy them into the new version of the template, and update the firmware.

 

[mcbsystems]

Firmware and templates are not the same, and why is the customer using custom templates? If only for a few edits, you can copy them into the new version of the template, and update the firmware.

True, though in my experience, 3CX may update the standard template when they update the firmware. Glancing at this customer's changes, it might not be too bad, though Yealink doesn't make it easy (link). But if it's working perfectly for the customer (500 days without an issue), and if there is no security issue, why update? Maybe we'll make that part of the v18 upgrade project, which will likely be sooner than 500 days.