phone number "can't take your call now"; outgoing calls get a busy signal

Fusion Voice service, features and help.
5 posts Page 1 of 1
by samvest » Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:56 pm
last night we had a PG&E power failure. today, after power was restored, the phone service is messed up. incoming calls get a message saying number "can't take your call now". outgoing calls get a busy signal.

yes, i reset the sonic box, used a second phone (same results), check all lines with a VOM (all passed continuity check).
I am at a loss as to what is going on.
by charles2 » Sat Jan 22, 2022 5:10 pm
We had a power failure last night, too. Did not check phone earlier, but at 5 .p.m. Saturday, incoming and outgoing work.
by ndwrmsv2 » Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:00 pm
samvest wrote:>>last night we had a PG&E power failure. today, after power was restored, the phone service is messed up. incoming calls get a message saying number "can't take your call now". outgoing calls get a busy signal.<<
Hope by now you're back online and everything's working, but if not (or just for future reference), I've found that these kinds of situations often result from timing issues, when one device (like your ATA) comes online faster than another device (like your router) which it's dependent on. The router, being a more complex device, takes longer to come online than the simpler ATA box, so if power is restored to both devices simultaneously, the router is not online yet when the ATA is ready and expects it to be.

Try unplugging everything from your AC power, then after a minute plug the router back in. Allow it the full five (or so) minutes to come online, and then power up the ATA. When it comes online and tries reaching out to the Metaswitch, the router will be ready to route the handshake.

The ATA ought to be smart enough to recognize when upstream communications isn't ready, and pause for some reasonable amount of time (say, 20 seconds) before retrying. If it keeps failing after some reasonable number of attempts, it should be smart enough to reset itself before trying again. (Maybe that is what it's doing, but I've encountered timing issues and "deadly embraces" enough times to suspect the Grandstream device is less than fully robust.)
by syntaxsid1 » Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:08 am
That is Solid advice since that's exactly what is happening here. The phone device tries to register over the internet connection within 2 mins of booting up. The router will could take a total of 5-8 mins to FULLY boot up and provide internet. This is why after a power outage (when all devices come online at the same exact time) the phone device fails.

Disconnecting the power cable for the ATA is the first thing you should do if you encounter a power outage. Once power is restored, and you actively have an internet connection, you'll then want to plug the ATA in. The phone will work 95% of the time after doing this. Sometimes it does require a factory reset by pressing and holding the reset button in the back for 10 full seconds. After doing this, it could take the ATA up to 30 mins to come back online. That is rare though. Unfortunately it's nothing we can change since its a simply matter of boot up times for the different devices.

If you ever have trouble getting the ATA back online after a power outage, please give our support team a call so we can check the setup. At times if the ATA is plugged directly into a wall outlet vs a surge protector, the ATA may get a high power spike which could potentially "fry" the ATA causing it to break. We'll need to replace it if this is the case, which is why you should call in if needed. You can also purchase a UPS battery backup so in the event of a power outage, your phone and internet connection NEVER go down! I hope this information helps. Have a good day.


Kind Regards,

Jeff M - CES
Jeff M. with Community Escalations @ Sonic
by apl » Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:00 am
Unfortunately it's nothing we can change since its a simply matter of boot up times for the different devices.
It's certainly something the manufacturer could fix in the firmware by adding a re-try when registration fails, as others have suggested.
Maybe they already have. The firmware version that Sonic uses is now 11 versions behind Grandstream's latest, and they have turned off the capability for users to update it.
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