Avaya 1220 phone will not auto-recover after network outage without reboot

[DebbiPatton]

Avaya 1220 firmware 062AC8G using lldp with Cisco 3560 PoE switch.

We had an instance where the phones retained connectivity and power to the local switch, however, the back-end WAN link went down, i.e. the signaling server could not be reached by the phone.  In testing, if we leave the phone untouched, even after 12 hours it will auto-recover connectivity to the signaling server when the WAN connection is restored.  However, if the user picks up the handset at any point, say, to check for dial tone while the WAN link is down, the display will go to "server unreachable" and the phone will not re-establish connectivity to the signaling server without a reboot.  Is there any parameter on the server or in DHCP that will make the phones recover server connectivity without a reboot in this case?  The phone appears to be set for auto-recover, it says the auto-recover flag is set, if that is important.

DHCP call manager parameters:  Nortel-i2004-B,s1ip=172.21.14.72;p1=4100;a1=1;r1=5;lldp=y;

Debbi

[Michael McNamara]

Hi Debbi,

That's a very odd issue... I'm wondering if the UNIStim 5.2 release firmware (062AC8G) has a bug in it. All the Avaya/Nortel IP phones have a watchdog timer that expires when they loose connectivity to the Call Server or Signaling Server. This watchdog causes the IP phone to reboot in an attempt to recover.

What happens if you try to load UNIStim 5.1 release firmware (062AC8D) on to the IP phone? Does it still behave the same?

I'm also curious if using the Nortel-i2004-B provisioning string make a difference, you might just try a test using a IP phone that's configured statically - does it behave the same?

Good Luck!

[DebbiPatton]

Thanks for your kind reply.  Not sure we would want the phone to reboot automatically, that would cause a blip in the inline PC connectivity.  062AC6O behaves the same.

Could try the "A" string or static address, will try it when I get a minute.

Is the watchdog timer in the phone or is that parameter something I would look for in the server?  I hope you will forgive my ignorance about this.

I did find a workaround... the phone recovers if DHCP renewal kicks in, so if I lower the DHCP lease time it will recover without rebooting.

Debbi

[Michael McNamara]

A reboot will definitely cause a brief loss of connectivity to any device connected to the PC port of the IP phone. However, that was standard behavior prior to Call Server release 6.0. Now with UNIStim software release 5.x the IP phones will attempt to re-register to the Call Sever or Signaling Server without rebooting.  The IP phone should still watchdog (not a configurable parameter as far as I know) and reboot if it's ultimately unable to communicate with the IP telephony back-end infrastructure.

Cheers!