vvx 411 randomly loses association to Skype for Business?

[Alex John]

Greetings folks -

I have a little situation here...

• We are a mid-size church with eight polycom vvx 411 phones.
• All phones have been factory default reset.
• All phones are specifically used for Skype for Business with our O365 account.
• Most of the phones are standalone units  (no BToE or connected to a computer)
• All phones local admin and web GUI password has been changed from default
• All phones are powered by a Unifi 750w PoE switch
• All phones firmware is 5.9.0.x (I tried firmware 6.0 but there was a constant problem when downloading/updating)
• All phones are all configured manually -- that is web-sign in on phone, with corresponding aka.ms/sphone code and password for O365 account.

Recently, the minister and a couple other people have approached me about their phone getting disconnected or dropped from their Skype for business account. I've checked everything and it all looks good, but clearly they are dropped because the phone screen show vvx 411  with a 'x' and there is no dial tone. Furthermore if I try and connect I get a failed sfb provisioning error (photos attached.)
 
When I logged into the phones web gui > Diagnostics -> Skype for Business Status > Skype for Business CCCP - >  I see that there is no entry with a default tag, when it should be the user ID and email.
 
I've done some scanning through the logs in the phone's web GUI and think I've notice "invalid password", but that can't be true.. For the sake of ease of management, I've set all the O365 passwords the same and disabled 'reset password after 90 days' option in the O365 account specifically for this purpose. Anyway... to solve the issue, I had to reset the O365 passwords (to something else) and then reconnect the vvx 411 back to SfB.
 
This wouldn't be too much of a problem, but this is the third or fourth time this has happened with different users and different phones at different times. We got the phones last year and there's no indication they are a bad batch. They all work fine up to a certain point and then just.. get disconnected from Sfb. It's inconsistent and doesn't make sense. Most of the phones are always used, so I don't think it's a "log out of Sfb because of lack use" type of thing. 
 
Looking for a solution to stop having the phone lose association to Sfb. Any one have any comments,thoughts, ideas? 

Is this the correct place to post phone log files for help? 
 
Also, aside from the individual phone web GUI, does anyone know of a free and easy way to uniformly manage these phones? I've look at the Powershell tool located here, but I'm not that good with powershell, nor do I think need that much sophistication.
 
Thanks in advance.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @Alex John ,

welcome to the Poly Community.

We would need to see some logs to try and help you to troubleshoot this

Please ensure you always check the FAQ's and/or utilize the community search before posting any new topics or follow up post’s.

Jan 17, 2017 Question:How can I troubleshoot simple Skype for Business, LYNC or Office365 issues?

Resolution: Have a look => here <=

If you struggle with the above please use the shortest route and open a Ticket with support.

In order to raise a support ticket you need to work with your Poly reseller as they need to do this for you.

End Customers are unable to open a ticket directly with Poly support.

If this is some sort of an Internet discounter providing your MAC address or your Poly devices serial will enable us to look up who would be able to support you. This may not be who you purchased the Poly device from.

If the unit is no longer within the warranty please be prepared to Pay Per Incident / PPI. This is all outlined in detail here

In order to manage these units and for example receive alerts if anything is wrong please look at our PDMS-E cloud solution.

Please ensure to provide some feedback if this reply has helped you so other users can profit from your experience.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[Alex John]

I have attached the logs of our conference phone which dropped from Sfb like I discussed  in my original post.

>>In order to manage these units and for example receive alerts if anything is wrong please look at our PDMS-E cloud solution.

This is a paid solution which is an onslaught of features no church will ever need or could afford. Thanks, but I was requesting free and easy... no worries, I think the answer is to just work the phones web GUI.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @Alex John ,

Your reply is missing the MAC so I cannot look up who should support you.

In addition, the attached log does not contain sufficient logging information to guess what the issue is:

0530173823|auth |2|00|m_RetVal[-1] eReqRspID[18] curlReturn[7] HttpRspCode[480] messageLen[0]

or

Caller Service(145)AuthServiceCallerEwsAutoDisc:IndicationCode(400)Failed to Get UT
,TransactionID(1674556021)

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @Alex John ,

just to follow this up.

The PDMS-E service is per device per year around 3$

Polycom Device Management Service.Per Audio Device Managed,pre-paid 1-yr plan effective on service commitment. Service includes Prem support.Device maintenance not included.No cancellation or reduction of the plan or scope allowed.(Qty 1-9,999 only)

€2.71

4870-09902-641

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[Alex John]

Hello Steffen and community, my apologies for the long delay.

Steffen thanks for the pricing on support. Although it seems low, I just have a hard time swallowing paying for support for phones that should work. You power it on, you connect to SfB, you make phone calls.  But here again, it's happened again -- a phone just lost it's association to SfB. This particular phone was attached to a computer. Funny, the computer had an established a network connection, the phone did not --- but the main feed is coming into the phone and then the computer -- I just don't get it. I had to power cycle the phone and reconnect the phone for Sfb to work.  I've attach the app log from the phone. Are there any other logs I should provide for help?

Steffen in terms of MAC address and who should support us.. I mean, we are a church trying to leverage some of the O365 features. We purchased two batches vvx 411 phones from Amazon, from two different sellers. The fact that all phones are losing their association to sfb suggests that it's not a bad batch of phones but something else.

Furthermore, and now more importantly.... I just discovered Microsoft is changing over to Teams and plans to decommission Sfb as of 2021.  I wish I knew that before we purchased all these phones, but now that we have them, will the VVX 411 be compatible with the Teams solution Microsoft is coming out with? To be clear, my goal is to allow church staff to be able to pick up a phone and dial out and receive calls. I do not need them to necessarily have the full-feature-benefit of Teams or a 'Team certified phone.'  In other words when I ask will our existing VVX 411 phones be compatible, I meant to say will they work? I've emailed TeamMicrosoft@polycom.com but no response, so I'm looking here for help.

Is there anyone currently on Teams and using physical VoIP phones? Any pointers or suggestions?

Much appreciated!

Thanks

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @Alex John 

the VVX and any other partners 3PIP certified phone will only work with Skype for Business on Premise or Online.

The Microsoft Teams Solution will be an Android client running on hardware that requires far more CPU and Memory as the VVX phone can offer. We will release the CCX range later this year which are compatible with Microsoft Teams.

Poly and other manufacturers do not control these Timelines set by our Partner Microsoft.

A MAC address will tell us who Amazon purchased these phones from so we can point you to the distributor who can get this into Poly support.

Your log only covers 2 seconds and as I am on holiday at present I have not got the means to look into this.

PDMS-E as an example gives you the option to schedule a reboot of the phone so it would be in a fresh state in the morning for your users to use as an example. It also lets you program the devices etc.

Bit again without the MAC's I am unable to point you in the right direction.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[Alex John]

Steffen thanks for your response, hope you are having a good holiday!

>>the VVX and any other partners 3PIP certified phone will only work with Skype for Business on Premise or Online.

I hear that - and I'm also seeing parallel and conflicting stories indicting the VXX will work with Teams 

• Here in this thread you said the VVXs will only work with SfB / Premise or Online
• Your official documentation says in so many words, the VVX are supported but not 'teams-certified (working natively with teams.)'
• 3rd party link #1 says VVX may work, but no new updates
• 3rd party link #2  says VVX are not supported

The bottom line is even if the VXX's do work, they are longer supported by Poly. 

>>We will release the CCX range later this year which are compatible with Microsoft Teams.

 
Yes, I saw a concept photo of the CCX line. It looks appealing (touchscreen only) but I have to be realistic -- we just invested in the VXX phones.

>>Poly and other manufacturers do not control these Timelines set by our Partner Microsoft.

Understood, and I'm not faulting Poly. It's just really unfortunate the VXX phones were purchased before I found out about the discontinuation of Sfb

>>PDMS-E as an example gives you the option to schedule .. <snip>

I can appreciate your return to the PDMS-E for management, but in my mind it's more reason to stay away. Why would I purchase a phone support system, for unsupported/legacy phones, on a soon to be unsupported platform, on a subscription basis?

In terms of the MAC address, I can give you what I have, but I still don't see how long term this is going to solve the issue.

Even if the VVX's do work with Teams and they still continue to randomly disconnect from the new Microsfot Teams service (as my users are experiencing with Sfb) I'm right back where I started.

For security purposes it's probably better if I PM you the MAC addresses.

Thanks!

[rgsteele]

Third-party IP (3PIP) phones like the Polycom VVX will continue to work with Microsoft Teams until July 31, 2023 as documented here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/faq-journey#device-compatibility

The "limited set of functionalities" referenced in the FAQ are listed here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Blog/Skype-for-Business-Certified-IP-Phone...

If, like you say, your users don't need the full feature benefits of Teams, you may be better off setting these devices up with a different cloud-hosted phone system provider that supports SIP.

I'd also add that I would think a service like PDMS-E would be perfect for your scenario as you can just subscribe for as long as you need it.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @Alex John ,

as already outlined by @rgsteele PDMS-E is a one-off yearly cost per phone that will enable you to monitor, program and configure or reboot etc. phones and makes the administration of multiple phones very easy.

Stating the above I looked into the serials you send me and the stripped history of these is as follows:

Product Sold to	Product sold to site	Shipped Date	Part Number
SYNNEX-Westcon Canada	WESTCON-CANADA	26/11/2018	2200-48450-025
SYNNEX-Westcon Canada	WESTCON-CANADA	20/06/2018	2200-48450-025
SYNNEX-Westcon Canada	WESTCON-CANADA	13/05/2018	2200-48450-025
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	01/05/2017	2200-48450-001
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	01/05/2017	2200-48450-001
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	01/05/2017	2200-48450-001
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	01/05/2017	2200-48450-001
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	01/05/2017	2200-48450-001
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	01/05/2017	2200-48450-001
GECDF-NETXUSA	GECDF-NEX-001	10/04/2017	2200-48450-001

I will send you the whole list via Private email as you and others hopefully can see by the above that none of these phones is actually a Skype for Business SKU (-019 or Lync -018) aka therefore missing the additional Polycom per device license:

Please be aware of the following when utilizing UCS 4.1.0 or later:

The use of Polycom UC Software versions 4.1.X (“Software”) requires the purchase of a separate Software license for every device that will use the Software in a LYNC / Skype for Business environment. You may not install, access, or use the Software in a LYNC / Skype for Business environment on more devices than are listed on your license until additional licenses have been purchased and authorized by Polycom. These licenses should be purchased from the same company from which you purchased the devices. You may operate devices against a LYNC / Skype for Business server for trial purposes for up to 30 days without purchasing a license. Use of the Software is subject to the terms and conditions of the End User License Agreement.

Polycom reserves the right to audit your deployment to verify that you have sufficient licenses to match the number of devices being used.

Information in regards to License Part Numbers can be found here

Without this license or proof of this, you are not allowed to use these Phones in a Skype for Business environment. This is usually $15/ per device.

Your first step should be to acquire the license for all of these phones or proof to us that you have these via a  Sales Order Number so Polycom can look these up.

The next step would be to reach out to SYNNEX-Westcon Canada as they are your Tier 1 support partner for the phones still within warranty. They can open a ticket for you with Poly support proving that the phones have the relevant license in place to be using these with Skype for Business.

As also outlined by @rgsteele Poly always adds features to our devices to have the broadest support in the industry. Once our Partner Microsoft no longer supports the VVX hardware in a Skype for Business online scenario simply move away to an openSIP provider and you can use the hardware for many more years with probably more features that you can use today.

Please ensure to provide some feedback if this reply has helped you so other users can profit from your experience.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier