Sonic.net

I've already discussed this issue with your tech support folks (they're amazingly great!), who suggested posting a trouble ticket in the Labs forum, so I hereby comply.

Brief Description:
Incoming faxes to Faxline
a] hint (grammatically) that a fax was received
b] fails to generate a pdf of the fax to webmail and
c] fails to send e-mail notifications of fax receipt (or fax failure)

Detailed Description
Faxline log (fax history) indicates that

a] Faxline says faxes were received--they're in the log. Sadly, the log prints a deceptive 'pages received' string when in fact no pages were received. (Concatenating a page count on the 'pages received' text string works if pages were received, but fails when the page count is null or zero or there is an error, which is what appears to be happening)
<snip from fax history>

• nnn-nnn-nnnn FAXCOM Anywhere 978-367-2725 BISCOM pages received May 11,2015 3:53PM
  nnn-nnn-nnnn 7075955299 707-595-5299 SANTA ROSA CA 1 pages received May 11,2015 3:38PM [SONIC.NET]
  nnn-nnn-nnnn FAXCOM Anywhere 978-367-2725 BISCOM pages received May 6,2015 8:24AM
  nnn-nnn-nnnn unknown 415-274-3211 FIN WEST GROUP pages received May 2,2015 11:53AM
  nnn-nnn-nnnn unknown 415-274-3211 FIN WEST GROUP pages received Apr 21,2015 4:08PM
  nnn-nnn-nnnn unknown 415-274-3211 FIN WEST GROUP pages received Apr 21,2015 4:08PM

<end snip>

b] Faxline doesn't forward PDFs of some received faxes: Only one (1) of the above faxes (The test fax from Sonic's tech support, which was received 11 May 2015 at 15:38) e-mailed a PDF to my Sonic Webmail and Gmail: None of the other faxes sent PDFs to my e-Mail

c] Faxline doesn't forward a fax received notice to e-mail for every item in the log. The only fax notification that arrived was for the Sonic test fax. None of the other faxes in Fax History e-mailed a notification for either a fax receipt or fax failure.
<snip from Sonic webmail>

• You have received a new fax.
  Received 1 page. from:
  Remote Station 7075955299
  Caller ID 707-595-5299
  Caller Name SANTA ROSA CA

<end snip from Sonicwebmail> and
<snip from g-Mail>

• You have received a new fax.
  Received 1 page. from:
  Remote Station 7075955299
  Caller ID 707-595-5299
  Caller Name SANTA ROSA CA

<end snip from g-Mail>


Validation Steps & Expected vs Observed Behaviour
1. Validation demonstrating Expected Behaviour: Sonic tech support sent me a test fax.
RESULT: The Sonic Test Fax was logged in Fax History and sent a fax received e-mail with an attached PDF of the fax to both my Sonic Webmail and gMail accounts
2. Validation demonstrating Observed/Aberant Behaviour: I had one critical fax resent (originated from Biscom/FaxCom Anywhere; c.f. Fax history log above)).
RESULT: Sonic Fax History logged the fax as received (the log indicated 'pages received'). No no fax notification or PDF was e-Mailed to Sonic Webmail or gMail.
3. It appears some faxes successfully arrive at Sonic, were logged and forwarded to my e-mail, while other faxes (sent just minutes apart) are logged, but never received & forwarded.


Additional Information
1. Other Faxline Lab Forum users seem to have similar problems—Sonic not receiving faxes from other fax servers (e.g. my faxes from BISCOM/FaxAnywhere & other users report faxes from governmental entities (Sonoma County; the CA court system, both of which rely on fax servers.) Perhaps the mix of fax servers and eFax services are no longer talking nicely to one another?
RECOMMENDATION: Test Sonic's fax system against other fax servers & eFax systems.

2. Grammatical error/misleading report log formatting. Okay, I'll concede that 'page(s) received' is useful text in a report log, provided that pages were indeed received, however it falls apart when the pages are 0 or null or if an error condition is logged. [Tech Support found my logged faxes which were NOT forwarded also had no pages received. If so, this should trigger an error message, not a null value preceding the 'pages received' string]
RECOMMENDATION:
1. Fix the log text to reflect when zero or null pages are received,
2. Add error messages to the log text when there is a transmission error and
3. e-Mail a message to the account holder when there is a transmission error
These are standard features on even simple fax machines. They allow the user to respond to abnormal end of jobs, rather than be left in the dark.

3. While the preferred procedure is to pin a reply to an existing forum post, I feel a separate post is warranted: I'm hoping that by squeaking the wheel yet again, that maybe Sonic will find a little grease.
3.1. Yes, Faxline is a 'free' service, but some of us rely on it because it has (in the past) worked reliably.
3.2. I'm hoping that a detailed trouble ticket, consolidating several Faxline symptoms in one place, will help Sonic isolate the problems and develop a fix.
3.3 Sorry, but a few Sonic's forum responses came across as snarky or dismissive. Just because Faxline is 'free' and beta', doesn't mean it's unimportant or that customers reporting issues are whingers or imagining things. We're telling you because we're used to Sonic's service and reliability. When something disappoints us and we open trouble tickets, we're serving as Sonic's 'free' acceptance testers, and responsibly telling you how to make your products work better for us.

Thanks for a providing consistently reliable ISP service and the best Tech Support crew I've had the pleasure of talking with in decades.

Good luck with the "squeaky wheel gets the oil" technique and your groveling compliments regarding the "best tech support." The fact is sonic's faxline service died and sonic inc. does not care.

For reliable cloud fax service check out http://www.ringcentral.com/plansandpric ... alfax.html

I do appreciate hearing your feedback. While there is considerable work still to be done. We have fixed Member Tools to show '0 pages received' if we cannot successfully receive a fax. It's a small change to be sure, but it was certainly bugging me as well.

Thanks Joe! (grovel)

(Squeek!)

"0 pages received" is far more meaningful than "pages received", assuming the zero is accurate.

I'm having the same problem. In my log I also notice that the people faxing me have to make multiple attempts to fax as evidenced by 1 - 3 "0 pages" attempts followed by a fax with more than zero pages.

When I fax myself from another line it works. When I dial the fax number I hear the connect tones. I do notice that it seems a bit different from what I recall from back in the day when I heard the tone regularly. In this case when the line picks up I hear the familiar fax tone briefly immediately followed by a different tone. Then silence and the fax tone picks up again and does its periodic repetition. Could it be that the "other" tone confuses some fax machines?

(Squeek!)

I agree that the fax service is important. I also think that it should be elevated out of labs and become yet another great Sonic feature (grovel). Those of us who use it rely on it. While we could use another service (such as the one advertised above) it seems a shame since it has worked so well for so long.
(Squeek!)

Chris

I setup and email account just for the faxline - '[email protected]' and setup the line to send the PDF to it. The log says 0 pages received when I called it with my cellphone to test, which was correct. Today I had a client FAX a signed agreement to it and the log says '2 pages received' which should be right, but no PDF. I'm going to add additional email addresses, but I'm not sure why this doesn't work. The webmail shows nothing in the inbox. Is the syntax for my email address to forward it to correct? Should it say @sonic.net? Please help our business needs FAX capabilities. Now I have to call my client and say we didn't receive it. It's embarrassing.