Can't subscribe to Call Parking BLF lamps

General
1

Hello fellow voip enthusiasts,

I’m trying to subscribe to my voip.ms Call Parking BLF lamps from my Polycom VVX411 phones, but I keep getting SIP 404 Not Found response.

call_parking_blf_extensions
call_parking_blf_extensions808×636 45.7 KB

Example response and request:

Session Initiation Protocol (404)
    Status-Line: SIP/2.0 404 Not Found
    Message Header
        Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.168.1.51;branch=z9hG4bK7e6ef329A76EF439;received=71.192.0.144;rport=26535
        From: "40000_RECEPTIONIST" <sip:40000_RECEPTIONIST@montreal.voip.ms>;tag=CDFF7B0A-128CDC58
        To: <sip:P701_2565@montreal.voip.ms>;tag=as506af22e
        Call-ID: 68bdd99d403cda514aa9e349237b5558
        [Generated Call-ID: 68bdd99d403cda514aa9e349237b5558]
        CSeq: 2 SUBSCRIBE
        Server: voip.ms
        Allow: INVITE, ACK, CANCEL, OPTIONS, BYE, REFER, SUBSCRIBE, NOTIFY, INFO, PUBLISH, MESSAGE
        Supported: replaces, timer
        Content-Length: 0

Session Initiation Protocol (SUBSCRIBE)
    Request-Line: SUBSCRIBE sip:P701_2565@montreal.voip.ms SIP/2.0
    Message Header
        Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.168.1.51;rport;branch=z9hG4bK7e6ef329A76EF439
        From: "40000_RECEPTIONIST" <sip:40000_RECEPTIONIST@montreal.voip.ms>;tag=CDFF7B0A-128CDC58
        To: <sip:P701_2565@montreal.voip.ms>
        CSeq: 2 SUBSCRIBE
        Call-ID: 68bdd99d403cda514aa9e349237b5558
        [Generated Call-ID: 68bdd99d403cda514aa9e349237b5558]
        Contact: <sip:40000_RECEPTIONIST@192.168.1.51>
        Allow: INVITE,ACK,BYE,CANCEL,OPTIONS,INFO,MESSAGE,SUBSCRIBE,NOTIFY,PRACK,UPDATE,REFER
        Event: dialog
        User-Agent: PolycomVVX-VVX_411-UA/6.4.6.2640
        Accept-Language: en
        Accept: application/dialog-info+xml
        Authorization: Digest username="40000_RECEPTIONIST", realm="montreal.voip.ms", nonce="541f3bac", uri="sip:P701_2565@montreal.voip.ms", response="10052451b09a789b3fb036c4254bc21c", algorithm=MD5
        Max-Forwards: 70
        Expires: 3600
        Content-Length: 0

Polycom phone config:

attendant.resourceList.71.label="Parking Slot 1"
attendant.resourceList.71.address="P701_2565"
attendant.resourceList.71.type="automata"

This all works PERFECTLY on my own FreePBX parking lots, but not with voip.ms.

What am I doing wrong with Voip.ms?

Thanks!

2

Hello BigVoIP

We recently replied back to your ticket, please verify

3

Hello @William , thank you for replying. Yes, it appears that BLF hadn’t been fully enabled on my account the first time around. Support team has fully enabled BLF for extensions and parking slots now.

1 Like
4

How did you know it wasnt “Fully” enabled? Ive been struggling, i sent in a chat and the enabled BLF again…but it was already enabled. :person_shrugging:

5

Hi @KelownaVoip , I’d love to help, but it’s difficult without more context. What specific phone hardware or softphone are you trying to use BLF on? Have you used Wireshark to inspect the SIP requests and responses from your device? Because BLF configuration is complex and differs for every manufacturer, voip.ms probably can’t do much to help you. A packet trace showing those SIP 404 responses to a valid BLF subscription request (see in my post above, you can use Wireshark to make these) will prove if it’s not yet fully enabled on your account.

6

I’m struggling with this as well - I’m starting to get afraid that I’ve done too much and just need to wipe all my phone configs and start over. it shouldn’t be this hard right?

I’m using the GDMS.CLOUD hosted platform to config the phones and it seems so dead simple yet it just won’t work!

7

I really wanted to use BLF on VoIP.ms. It’s such a cool feature for the small office.

But sadly it was never reliable enough for me to count on it. I gave up and use my own FreePBX, which works perfectly.

Until BLF is a first-class feature on VoIP.ms, I’d recommend staying away from it.

8

It’s really not reliable? Why not?
Were you using a xxxx2.voip.ms or a xxxx1.voip.ms pop server?

It’s been reliable for me so far….

9

I gave up when I realized that my phones did not support the feature (perhaps in a future firmware upgrade). Similar to the example in this thread, I wanted to use BLF for parking lot status so I could see when a call was parked. Using $55 phones instead of $40 phones would give me the feature.

My only complaint with the voip.ms implementation is that one has to go through support to turn it on. One can add BLF to the parking lot but support has to enable the accounts and sub_accounts.

I imagine that there is some security issue to make sure customers are not snooping the status of other customer’s devices. I expect that if I had support enable BLF on my current sub_accounts I would need to contact them again if I added another phone. If it is a feature that can be turned on once at the account level and include any additional sub_accounts and parking lot extensions without future support contacts I would probably spend more time considering it.

10

Well I’m using higher end phones, the BLF feature works fine across all my subaccounts. You have them enable on the pop server not the subaccount. Seems like it would work regardless because it also works on the $54 cheepy phones that I rarely but sometimes use.

Works in the call park also

11

The wiki suggests “I want to enable BLF feature for my account and all linked subaccounts, which are registered to the specific Voip.MS voip server, montreal3.voip.ms”. That leads me to understand that they are enabling accounts and sub_accounts at the server level (eg: linking sub_accounts 000000_1, 000000_2, 000000_3 to allow ‘snoop’ and ‘notify’ between those sub_accounts when connected to server.voip.ms). If one adds a new sub_account later one would need to contact support to link the new sub_account to the others. If one needs to change voip.ms servers the links would need to be rebuilt on the new server.

Most other voip.ms settings can be changed by the customer without a ticket. Some are understandably blocked. Waiting on support is a temporary delay not a deal breaker.

12

No, once enabled, it works for all new subaccounts is my experience. I created new accounts and set them up yesterday and blf works out of the box on my pop.

13

That is good to know. Thanks!

14

After the back-and-forth with support to enable BLF, it worked great for a few months. I was using Polycom VVX 410/411 phones, which are dirt cheap and fully support BLF.

Then one day BLF simply stopped working on Voip.ms. I showed packet captures to support team showing that I was still making valid subscription requests, they claimed to have “re-enabled it”, but it never worked again.

So I gave up and switched to my own PBX.

15

I did notice that once mine quite working, but it was because of a firmware update that needed BLF server ip added separately from the SIP Server address, but as that was a phone end thing and voip.ms wasn’t involved I didn’t consider that an issue with voip.ms.

However I seemed to have jinx myself because today I’m fighting BLF not working on a new customer. But they worked in my lab so it’s likely a firewall issue. Hopefully.

16

I decided to give it a try on my system. I added a Grandstream 1630 to my system, asked support to activate BLF and three hours later they completed the request. The lights are working.