SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

I have all my outgoing except for "800" and "911" (free long
distance and emergency respectively) going out to my VOIP
provider via a LinkSys SPA3102 gateway.

It had been working 100% a-ok until a couple of months ago.

Then, occasionally, we would dial a long distance number and it
would just ring forever or would return "Busy".

Upon investigation, it turned out that the number was not busy
and re-booting the SPA3102 by unplugging/re-plugging the power
supply remedied the situation.

This has happened maybe a half-dozen times since the first
occurrence.

My kneejerk reaction is to put a timer on the power supply and
just turn it off for a minute and then back on every 24 hours.

But it begs the question "Why?".

Has anybody been here?
--
Pete Cresswell

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On Sat, 08 Sep 2012 13:03:36 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)" <x@y.Invalid>
wrote:

>I have all my outgoing except for "800" and "911" (free long
>distance and emergency respectively) going out to my VOIP
>provider via a LinkSys SPA3102 gateway.
>
>It had been working 100% a-ok until a couple of months ago.
>
>Then, occasionally, we would dial a long distance number and it
>would just ring forever or would return "Busy".
>
>Upon investigation, it turned out that the number was not busy
>and re-booting the SPA3102 by unplugging/re-plugging the power
>supply remedied the situation.
>
>This has happened maybe a half-dozen times since the first
>occurrence.
>
>My kneejerk reaction is to put a timer on the power supply and
>just turn it off for a minute and then back on every 24 hours.
>
>But it begs the question "Why?".
>
>Has anybody been here?

Could be a DNS issue. Try puting in the IP address of the SIP proxy
instead of the domain name.

Or you could turn off the DHCP client in the ATA and assign a static
IP, gateway, and DNS manually. You are not tied to your ISPs DNS
server pair, you can use OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220)

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

Per Graham.:
>Could be a DNS issue. Try puting in the IP address of the SIP proxy
>instead of the domain name.
>
>Or you could turn off the DHCP client in the ATA and assign a static
>IP, gateway, and DNS manually. You are not tied to your ISPs DNS
>server pair, you can use OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220)

Reading between the lines, I come away thinking that:

- The symptoms could indicate inability of the 3102 to
connect to my VOIP provider

- Re-booting somehow remedies that situation. Maybe something
like "N" unsuccessful tries by the 3102 and it gives up
until the next boot?
--
Pete Cresswell

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:03:22 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)" <x@y.Invalid>
wrote:

>Per Graham.:
>>Could be a DNS issue. Try puting in the IP address of the SIP proxy
>>instead of the domain name.
>>
>>Or you could turn off the DHCP client in the ATA and assign a static
>>IP, gateway, and DNS manually. You are not tied to your ISPs DNS
>>server pair, you can use OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220)
>
>Reading between the lines, I come away thinking that:
>
>- The symptoms could indicate inability of the 3102 to
> connect to my VOIP provider
>
>- Re-booting somehow remedies that situation. Maybe something
> like "N" unsuccessful tries by the 3102 and it gives up
> until the next boot?

The ability or not to register with the provider usually is only an
issue with incoming calls.

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:03:22 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

> Per Graham.:
>>Could be a DNS issue. Try puting in the IP address of the SIP proxy
>>instead of the domain name.
>>
>>Or you could turn off the DHCP client in the ATA and assign a static IP,
>>gateway, and DNS manually. You are not tied to your ISPs DNS server
>>pair, you can use OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220)
>
> Reading between the lines, I come away thinking that:
>
> - The symptoms could indicate inability of the 3102 to
> connect to my VOIP provider
>
> - Re-booting somehow remedies that situation. Maybe something
> like "N" unsuccessful tries by the 3102 and it gives up until the next
> boot?

If it's still responding, and not 'frozen', reboot it via the web browser
port: just use some program (perhaps run regularly) to access:

http://my-spa3102.example.com/admin/reboot



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On Sat, 2012-09-08 at 13:03 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
> My kneejerk reaction is to put a timer on the power supply and
> just turn it off for a minute and then back on every 24 hours.

A very strange first reaction. Surely the first reaction should be to
look at a packet dump of your local network, and see what the offending
device is actually doing when you try to make the failing call?

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

Per David Woodhouse:
>On Sat, 2012-09-08 at 13:03 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
>> My kneejerk reaction is to put a timer on the power supply and
>> just turn it off for a minute and then back on every 24 hours.
>
>A very strange first reaction. Surely the first reaction should be to
>look at a packet dump of your local network, and see what the offending
>device is actually doing when you try to make the failing call?

It would probably work around the problem - albeit not very
elegantly.

Well, now I can at least spell "Packet Dump"....

Can anybody name a utility that can record packets continuously
for days at a time (which I'm guessing is the prerequisite to
creating a packet dump)?
--
Pete Cresswell

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On 2012-09-16, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

>Can anybody name a utility that can record packets continuously
>for days at a time (which I'm guessing is the prerequisite to
>creating a packet dump)?

tcpdump to do the recording, wireshark to do the analysis.

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On Sun, 2012-09-16 at 17:39 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
>
> Can anybody name a utility that can record packets continuously
> for days at a time (which I'm guessing is the prerequisite to
> creating a packet dump)?

Roger already answered, but I'll point out that you don't need to do it
for days at a time. You said it was repeatable once it starts occurring.

So wait for it to occur, start tcpdump, make a (failing) call, stop
tcpdump. Then you have a nice simple capture demonstrating the problem.

Try to capture only traffic to/from the SPA3102, and of course you need
to make sure that you run it on a box which will *see* that traffic.
Your router is the best choice.

Re: SPA3102: Intermittantly Needs Reboot?
 

On 2012-09-16, Andy Burns wrote:

>First you need to make sure the PC running tcpdump (why not let
>wireshark do the capture too?) is seeing the same packets that the SPA
>device is seeing ...

The answer to the second question answers the first too - run tcpdump on
the router, which (if it's set up right) won't have the GUI that
wireshark requires, and then copy the packets across to a desktop box
for analysis.

If your router can't run tcpdump, you're probably naffed. I suppose you
could bodge together a dual-ethernet box to sit in front of the SPA and
record everything that goes through it.