Switchboard issues after upgrading to 5.0.1

[johnpitton]

I upgraded from version 4.6 to version 5.0.1. Everything appeared to function correctly after the upgrade, but I noticed two issues that arose today while users were active on the system.

First the small issue with the latest version of IE 9 browser. Prior to the upgrade one had to use Compatibility mode to properly view Switchvox user UI and its Switchboard. Now, the Switchvox UI displays correctly without using the compatibility mode, but the Switchboard still requires IE to be in compatibility mode to properly display all the panels. This is a bit of a nuisance for IE users to switch back and forth when logging in. Oh, and with Compatibility mode enabled, the UI login screen doesn't display any login buttons, so of course leaving it in Compatibility mode is not an option.

Second issue, which is much bigger due to the majority of my users requiring it to perform their jobs, is with the Switchboard losing connection to the PBX. Or at least it states it does via a pop up window with "Lost Connection to Server. Press ok to reload Switchboard." I've verified this happens to users using IE 8, IE 9 and Firefox 4. They press the OK button and the Switchboard reloads correctly. It does not drop their call before, during or after the issue occurs. However, it is a problem as they are 1, bothered by the error, and 2, temporarily have no Switchboard information. These same users also use, on the same PC, a Bria softphone for their primary phone. It's unlikely the connection between the PC and the server is interrupted due to the fact the switch ports the PCs are plugged into do not record any issues with traffic to/from the ports, and the other applications running on the PCs seem to continue to function normally during the issue, including active conversations through their softphone application.

Side note, yes Malcolmd I did open a support ticket, but I want to alert others of potential issues and see if others are experiencing the same issues.

[malcolmd]

Howdy,

Great, thanks.

[utpbx]

I've had a ticket open for days now for all kinds of problems with the switchboard. It's why I too, in an earlier thread, warned people not to upgrade to version 5 if the switchboard was critical to their business.

I should have known better not to upgrade so soon after a new release. This isn't the first time I've been burned by a digium upgrade.

[ctsysadmin]

We are experiencing the same issues - switchboard disconnects under all the browsers. We have a ticket in and are waiting for a callback from tech support; anyone found any work arounds? Our business relies on switchboard use, and this is driving the staff crazy.

UPDATE: We spoke with Digium, they sent us an ISO with 4.6 for a rollback - we had to purchase an external cd drive, crack open the PBX and roll it back manually. Finally, after a late night and early morning....the same problem still persists. I am at a loss, but will update if I find out anything else.

[johnpitton]

It looks like 5.0.2 has been released and ready to be applied. Anyone experiencing issues with the 5.0.1 upgrade apply this latest upgrade yet?

[utpbx]

They must have just posted the upgrade. I checked about 2 hours ago and there was still no update. Thanks for the heads up.

I sure wish digium would let those of us that have open issues know about the updates. I would have appreciated an email.

[kozakbev]

We've got issues with 5.0.1 as well. I'm running the 5.0.2 patch right now in hopes that it fixes our issues. A tech support call is also going to be placed, but I wanted to let others know of our issues.

Since we upgraded to v5 we've had intermittent dropouts of calls coming in and not ringing any phones, and extension to extension calls not ringing phones. The other person hears a ring, but nothing else and is never transferred to voicemail.

Here's hoping 5.0.2 is the fix

[utpbx]

We've had some weird things going on as well. In addition to the switchboard issues, at random times during the day, we'll pick up the phone and dial another internal extension or try and blind transfer a call and the call doesn't go through (by go through I mean start ringing the other phone) until about 20 or 30 seconds have passed by.

[johnpitton]

Applied 5.0.2 last night.

Today everything appears to be functioning correctly. There have been 0 reports from my users of Switchboard disconnects. Also, we are no longer experiencing lag times on internal calls and call transfers, where while on 5.0.1 some users, including myself, experienced at random times a lag of 30 seconds before a call successfully rang the internal extension being dialed.

IE 9 still isn't officially supported or listed as a recommended browser. But this isn't a big deal compared to the other issues we experienced in 5.0.1, and now seemed to be resolved in 5.0.2.

I'll update this post with my findings after a week of running 5.0.2

[cculver]

Couple things:

1. Digium has acknowledged some of the issues with 5.0 and posted them here:

http://www1.digium.com/en/products/swit ... hvox-today

All issues with the Switchboard should be addressed in 5.0.2 as well as call delays. If you still experience issues after the 5.0.2 then I would suggest open a ticket with support.

2. IE9 is only supported on Windows7 and Vista per their website:

http://www1.digium.com/en/products/swit ... er-support

Lastly, Digium offers a beta program for all software releases. Did anyone volunteer for this program?

[johnpitton]

cculver,

Thanks for the link to the issues, but they are for 5.0 release, not 5.0.1 or 5.0.2, at least none posted yet.

For your number 2, IE9 is NOT listed as supported, or at least on that table in the link you provided it's not. Also, if you use IE9 in 5.0.1 or 5.0.2, the first page you'll see is one that states your browser is not supported. This also goes for Firefox 5.

Lastly, yes, most of us are aware Digium has a beta program, but I must ask, in a production environment where the system supports an entire call center, would you volunteer to be a beta tester? If so, how would you explain this to your users and management that they may and most likely will experience issues with a system that is required to be up and functioning properly to take sales and support calls?

[johnpitton]

I've been running 5.0.2 for a few days now, and I'm still experiencing issues.

The main issue I'm experiencing is lag time increases with the Switchboard over time. Digium support found a possible issue with a postmaster process on my box taking up CPU resources to the point where the Switchboard functions lag for all users along with call functions being affected too. When I reboot the server, the issue appears to clear, but slowly comes back again, and thus the cycle continues.

We're planning on rolling back to 4.6.4. Has anyone found a way to do this and keep their users current voicemails and all the changes made since the upgrade?

Thanks,
John

[pkomorowski]

We upgraded to 5.0 > 5.0.1 > 5.0.2. Running on a DELL2650 dual-xeon (single core) server.

5.0.1 had major issues. Switchboard kep dropping and it was almost non-usable.

5.0.2 solved that but we were still seeing odd issues like garbled audio, dropped calls, calls not being able to be answered which my best guess was due to resource starvation.

Moved the software for a DELL1950 dual-xeon quad core server (clean install and restored backup). Initially we had major issues with our call queues, which would ring extensions but not hand-off the call to the phone (the call would go back in the queue). After rebuilding the queues things seem to be OK.

Monday was a trainwreck day (5.0.2 upgrade and issues as I outlined above). Yesterday seemed OK. We usually run 5-8 concurrent calls, so it's not a big install, but it sure looks like 5.x is a resource pig and not very good at managing resources.

[russellb]

The upgrade to V5 killed our AA60 , we had to swap to a cold spare. 5.01 at least more stable and less crashes than 5 but yet again just now our system crashed with 5.0.1

I am going away for 4 days so not game to upgrade to 5.0.2 until I get back.

While Switchvox is a great product when it is working in a stable configuration .. wish they would do more testing before offering upgrades.

V5 Resource hog, sure is .. I have to double the memory in our AA60

[pkomorowski]

Make the jump to 5.0.2 before you go away. 5.0.1 had major issues and you're less likely to encounter a complication from the 5.0.2 upgrade than the glitches that are throughout 5.0.1.

We're running flawlessly on 5.0.2 now (after upgrading the server and re-creating the call queues which glitched on us).

[cphastings]

Support just let me know that my Long Distance issues will be fixed as part of an update to 5.1 which should be coming in a couple of weeks. Not sure what other issues will be fixed, but at least they are working through them and getting updates out quickly.

[utpbx]

I second what pkomorowski said. I would upgrade to 5.0.2 before you leave. Speaking from experience, I had updated to 5.0.1 a few weeks ago and had to leave town for a week right afterwards. While I was gone, our business had all kinds of problems (and consequently I spent way to many hours while on vacation trying to correct the problems remotely). In particular, we had customers hanging up when we'd blind transfer a call because they thought the call had dropped. The calls didn't technically drop, it just took about 30 seconds for the call to start ringing the extension it was transferred to. Since upgrading to 5.0.2 we haven't had any major problems.

[jonbayless]

Similar issues here. I'm doing a new setup, moving from a cisco call manager 3 install (old as dirt), so this is a clean setup on 5.0.2 and the switchboard is more or less useless in Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 5. Tried Firefox 3.6 and that worked great. We can't make everyone roll back to that though. Hopefully this stuff will be fixed in the next release. Otherwise it will delay our switchover to the new system.

Everything else is very nice though, so far.

[Josh_E]

...switchboard is more or less useless in Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 5.

IE9 and FF5 are not supported by Switchvox.

Here's the link to the supported browser page on their site:

http://www1.digium.com/en/products/swit ... er-support

[jonbayless]

Yeah, I get the same info every time I go to the main web interface for user extension to login, doesn't really help much though since it is pretty ridiculous to expect a corporation to run antiquated/insecure browser software to appease the compatibility requirements of the phone system.

I can understand it can be tough to keep a web interface 100% consistent and functional across all current browsers but this is pretty much a complete failure in functionality on the 2 most popular browsers out there. Granted most people may not have updated to the latest release yet but the updates are automated these days so I would bet a majority of people will be using the new versions over the next year or so.

I'd be happy to hear "We're working on fixing it." from switchvox, rather than, "too bad, not supported." Especially since I just paid a nice stack of money for this stuff.

[Josh_E]

I dunno, I would hardly call IE8 and FF4 antiquated or insecure. For what it's worth, I use FF5 with my Switchvox and have yet to encounter any problems. I don't even get compatibility warnings.

Can't say for IE... I don't use it.

And assuming that Digium has limited resources to spend on development of their product, I for one, prefer that they spend those resources resolving more critical issues than browser compatibility for browsers which have only been out for 3 months.

The Early Media issues they're having in 5 springs to mind.

[icsjohnd]

The annoyance between IE9 and the Switchboard is annyoing, but what we've noticed is that with IE9 some of the admin areas do not work properly. Some of the boxes do not show up whether in regular or incompatibility mode.

[jonbayless]

I opened a ticket with Switchvox support on this to hopefully get some indication of when/if any work would be done to support newer browsers. Unfortunately, the response was basically, 'We don't support those, but IE with compatibility mode might work.' It doesn't though.

That's very frustrating.

Fortunately I have found that Chrome 12 seems to work for everything I have tried so far. I just hope it keeps working.

I really don't want to have to turn my office into one of those companies that has to block updates and freeze on some archaic software release to support a particular business aspect, like companies that are still stuck on IE6 for some stupid vendor software thing.

It's sad really because you can tell so much work went into the admin interface for version 5 and the Switchboard as well but not getting it to work with IE 9 or Firefox 5 is really sort of embarrassing since both were in preview/beta for a good while before Switchvox 5 was released, if I remember right.

Well here's hoping it gets fixed 'real soon now'.