Faxing issues after 8.1

[napoleon41]

After installing 8.1, over 50 percent of our faxes are failing. The are failing inbound to our MultiTech fax server, and they are failing inbound and outbound from our fax machines.

All fax devices and servers are connected to analog ports on shoretel switches. No SIP other than what is inherent in the shortel architecture. Switching environment is all HP procurve POE switches with Gigabit fiber backbone to a core HP Procurve 5412 switch. Never more than =1ms with an occasional 2ms hickup. Clean, clean, clean.

I've played with the Site settings for fax codec, going from pcmu/8000 only on all calls to the Fax - High Bandwidth and finally building various combos.

While there has been a slight variance in the percentage of failed, nothing has fixed the issues we have been having. After reading every forum topic that a "fax" search returned, I have some questions:

1.) Does changing the faxing codec under the site affect devices plugged directly into a shoretel switch? There doesn't seem to be a need for SIP at all in that scenario.
2.) Does the fax codec setting under Sites affect extensions set to Fax Machine and Fax Server both? Neither? Documentation is completely fuzzy on that.
3.) People reference locking down jitter, but I don't see a place to do that. Some help finding that setting would be great.
4.) Tried and true codec settings that should make my faxes work as well as they did on 7.5?
5.) What the heck changed so much between 7.5 and 8.1 that causes a near perfect faxing system to go so nuts!
6.) Do I need to restart anything (switches, service on the server, fax machines and servers) after making codec changes? Changing the codecs seems to make almost no difference.

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

[VJ]

Kaput faxing

Same issues with us. Inter LATA is worse. Out of LATA generally clear. No it is not the carrier-- two separate carriers tried, same results.

If any thing - SIP trunks worked better.

[Talkshore]

Oh gezzz - another issue of 7.x to 8.x

Sorry I cannot add much to this thread - however I am very interested to know the answer to the FAX issue, as we were just about to start using analog ports to feed our fax's machines as well.

Napolean41 have you contaced ShoreTel Support on this issue?

Please update this thread if you have or when you do.

Cheers,

-DS

[ccm399]

We have a customer running the latest 8.1 build with VERY similar issues. The only difference is they seem to only have the issue inbound.

They have one site that the faxes come in on a PRI to the machines and the second site the faxes come in on an analog trunk to the machine. All trunking is local to the machines though.

We have ZERO jitter on the calls (according to call logs). The interesting thing is when we record the tones on the analog port, they go really "HOT" and we are thinking there might be some clipping of the audio going on. We cannot seem to correct this though.

We have tried trunk gains, port gains and codecs none of which seem to help. The best we can do is 80% or so of the faxes coming in.

I would love to hear from someone who has been able to get this working. Oh, setting the machines to 9600 Baud rate did not help either. Nor did turning off error correction (or something like that) Those were the first things TAC had us do.

[ccm399]

Napolean41 have you contaced ShoreTel Support on this issue?

Please update this thread if you have or when you do.

Cheers,

-DS

Not Napolean41 but... we have contacted TAC. Still working through it though. I'll keep everyone posted as well.

[napoleon41]

All outbound and inbound line are PRI.

Adjusting Gain levels and baud speeds also did nothing for us.

I have spoken briefly with our shoretel dealers (service) and they recommended tweaking the codecs.

I could bring them out but feel that they will likely just waste my time as this seems to be something with the build; possibly directly with the PRI components of the build.

[ccm399]

Thanks for the update! Glad to know I am not the only one chasing my tail...

As a side note we changed the Codecs to g722 and put that first in the list, so far so good but it's only been one day....

[napoleon41]

First in the list for what?

I guess what I'm wondering is which codec setting under the site affects faxes, and does it affect "fax machine" and "fax server"? or just one. Did you change just the fax setting or also the intrasite and intersite codecs as well.

The documentation is pretty much non-existent about codec usage.

[Talkshore]

ccm399

Question:

Wondering if your client was on 7.x with the same fax configs and working "fine and dandy"? ... then moved to 8.1 and now having issues?

I am starting to wonder HOW 8.1 can move the GA if we are seeing all these issues?

-DS

We have a customer running the latest 8.1 build with VERY similar issues. The only difference is they seem to only have the issue inbound.

They have one site that the faxes come in on a PRI to the machines and the second site the faxes come in on an analog trunk to the machine. All trunking is local to the machines though.

We have ZERO jitter on the calls (according to call logs). The interesting thing is when we record the tones on the analog port, they go really "HOT" and we are thinking there might be some clipping of the audio going on. We cannot seem to correct this though.

We have tried trunk gains, port gains and codecs none of which seem to help. The best we can do is 80% or so of the faxes coming in.

I would love to hear from someone who has been able to get this working. Oh, setting the machines to 9600 Baud rate did not help either. Nor did turning off error correction (or something like that) Those were the first things TAC had us do.

[VJ]

The choir responded: AMEN!

[ccm399]

ccm399

Question:

Wondering if your client was on 7.x with the same fax configs and working "fine and dandy"? ... then moved to 8.1 and now having issues?

I am starting to wonder HOW 8.1 can move the GA if we are seeing all these issues?

-DS

Not this particular customer but I have basically the exact same situation on a 7.5 system (down the the same PRI provider) and it works fine. As far as you how can Shoretel go GA with this issue, we had major issues with Fax redirect in early releases of 6.1.

I would not say there are "all these issues" but it seems what used to be near plug and play has become a bit less stable.

Who knows maybe I am doing something wrong but 3 Shoretel TAC people have looked at this as well as two other Shoretel techs in our company and we are still having issues. So I guess time will tell.

Do you have any advice on the subject?

Thanks,

[napoleon41]

I'm still wondering about the specifics of changing the codecs to g722. Was that on the fax functions under the site, or did you change that across the board?

[ccm399]

Here is the adjusted list: (Sorry I was wrong it is G729/8000)



I then went into the sites and set the FAX codec and set them to the Low Bandwidth Codec list.

Still so far so good...well we have had 1 failure that I know of but that is MUCH better then we had been getting.

Hope this helps.

[napoleon41]

Thanks. Got that setup. Switches don't need to be rebooted or anything, do they? Nothing to make the changes "live" or anything.

I'm a bit superstitious by now with all of the changes we have made that things aren't really making a difference. lol.

[ccm399]

The changes should not require a re-start of anything. I am with you on other changes making little to no difference. Truth be told this was a bit a hail Mary on my part.

Good luck!