AnyPhone to SoftPhone timed out

[jmchep]

It seems like at our company it is a 50/50 proposition of trying to put our phone into softphone mode. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is going on? We just cannot consistently get this to work. I'm in my hotel room right now, VPN is on, can change my status from Home to OfficeAnywhere but cannot change to softphone.:confused1:

[Forum]

Is softphone greyed out?

[jmchep]

the softphone option is not greyed out. When I choose option, about 10-15 seconds go by then a message pops up hat says "AnyPhone to ...".

[JasonC]

We have this problem with unreliable internet connections.

We have some user's that have crappy DSL or Cable modems. The ping times may be good, time < 50ms, but then there would be 2-3 packets in a row with request timed out.

[saimike]

Experiencing the same issue. Not an issue w reliable internet access. Coming from FiOS connection w a persistent ping to the shoretel server & switch returning sub 50ms responses.

The "changing from softphone <-> home <-> office anywhere works for all options excpet the softphone. The phone icon is visible for about 5 seconds, then the status changes to "phone disconnected, line not in service".

This works fine from inside the building and is only a problem when VPN'd in. This did work for 2 users for the first few days of implementation then suddenly stopped working.

Is there a firewall issue that needs to get set?

[lmarschner]

Experiencing the same issue. Not an issue w reliable internet access. Coming from FiOS connection w a persistent ping to the shoretel server & switch returning sub 50ms responses.

The "changing from softphone <-> home <-> office anywhere works for all options excpet the softphone. The phone icon is visible for about 5 seconds, then the status changes to "phone disconnected, line not in service".

This works fine from inside the building and is only a problem when VPN'd in. This did work for 2 users for the first few days of implementation then suddenly stopped working.

Is there a firewall issue that needs to get set?

Saimike, did you ever get this figured out? We seem to be having the same problem where it will sometimes work for some people. We have enough licenses, but it just does not work sometimes.

[toverbo]

Softphone issue

It has to do with the way the users have access through the vpn. I don't work with that equipment so I can't really say what we did. What they did is create a group with the softphone users with access through the vpn. I was able to get the phone to act like it was working but wouldn't dial etc.
Then they had to open it up - whatever that means and it has worked fine. It seems to me this is a new area for our techs. You have to allow access to certain parts of your network through the vpn. Some users may have more access than others. Maybe that is why some work. I would check thier settings and see if you can put them in the same group or give them the same access.

[Palitto Consulting]

To be more specific, you need access to 1. The ShoreWare server 2. Any ShoreWare switches that host trunks. 3. Any IP phones you wish to call.

The latter two are for call signalling and audio streams.

You may also need: 4. Access to the other ShoreWare switches.

[saimike]

Problem fixed

Yes. The problem wound up residing in our Firewall config and the "point of origin" from the Shoretel system. The ST "dials out" un-initiated, so your FW has to support a packet out to a VPN client without a preceeding request.

Running PPTP and enabling out worked fine.

[jacee]

I'm experiencing this same problem except in my Local Area Network. I'm on an XP machine with plenty of resources and my firewall is turned off. There is no internal firewall between my machine and any of the ShoreTel equipment such as switches (including those with extensions and trunks) and the ShoreTel server. I've double checked my settings in the ShoreWare Director to make sure that the SoftPhone is allowed. When I change my PCM to SoftPhone it succeeds almost immediately but after a couple of seconds I get phone disconnected, line not in service. I'm getting the impression that I may not have the SoftPhone installed on my PC, but I'm not sure how that can happen if I have the PCM installed.

[Jlorenz]

First off, Any Phone is a feature of the ShoreTel System. It needs to be correctly established for ANY IP PHONE to allow reassignment. This includes the use of the Softphone.

The COS for the user must be setup correctly to allow this to happen

Edit COS Telephony Features >
check Allow Extension Reassignment
check Allow External Call Forwarding and FindMe Destinations / Allow EXTERNAL extension Reassignment

Remember as well, if the Softphone is enabled the TAPI service Icone will be / out due to the softphone and external assignment is not using the same TAPI service as the ShoreTel IP Phone.

The Firewall/VPN must be UDP aware, the Softphone does not do its keep alive over TCP unk: