501 phone fails to boot, is stuck in endless cycle of failure

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello JoshuaDrost,

welcome to the Polycom Community.

Thanks for replying to this post but I had already advised the customer to setup a local server to recover his phone.

That way it would have been able to boot most likely if it is not defective based on the age of the unit.

Unfortunately so far the user has not responded or provided any kind of update.

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

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services

[Anonymous]

Yes, I had replied, long ago. 

TL;DR:  the phone itself is not defective, the design is - even when it was a current shipping model.

I indicated that if I had time to set up a server on the phone network to setup an sftp service to reload the config files; I would do so.

Far too much work to enable a phone that should be resettable from the menu, like the earlier 3xx 4xx series.

chuck

[Anonymous]

I agree, it's quite a Catch-22.

And yes, as I was pointing out, the solution is NOT end-site friendly.

Best of luck to you.

chuck

[Anonymous]

Glad you got operational.

I suspect the solution was what I did not have time and patience to do - build a server on the network to run the sftp service and force load the config files.

Again, glad you were able to get operational.

chuck

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello chuck,

welcome back to the Polycom Community.

I am unsure what "earlier" 3xx or 4xx models you are talking about but the only "older" 3xx models would be 300 and 301 which would have the exact same menu structure like a end of sale back in 08/20/2009 SPIP501.

Any later 32x/33x or even 430 or 450 would have a newer operating system with more features.

As you can see by the above date the SPIP501 was already no longer sold nearly 3 years after your original post.

Not knowing its serial number I am unable to confirm when you purchased this unit but we did have a user recently using a 10 year old phone which now became defective.

You did not provide any information on this phone either so I got no history if you purchased this phone from new or if this had been running for years or if it is a second hand unit.

Development progresses over time with our various phone models but even if you would have formatted the file system you would still need to point it to a provisioning server or it would not load anyway.

Simply following the provided instructions would have gotten the phone back in no time.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the welcome.

Since there was no option available when I posted my initial issue; I have had no reason to return.

Then I got notification that others had the exact same issue I had, so I stopped by.

First, let me make this very clear; I know the phones are old and not sold as new within even the timeframe from my initial posting.  I see that response in nearly every reply.  BIG DEAL.  The issue was that this phone model had no way to break the boot loop; unlike the 301's and 410's - AT THE TIME OF MANUFACTURE.

So whether new models do or these are old or anything else - none of that  matters.  At the time of manufacture, they had this issue.

My initial posting simply was trying to get the 501's (and probably 601's) to reset the file system to get past the bad file issue; without having to set up a new server on the phone network with a tftp service running to reload the erroneous files.

Since the issue is with the series and NOT with a specific serial numbered phone; your comments about that are simply a red-herring.

(As were your comments regarding when I purchased the handsets.)

And you hit the nail on the head with the "even if you would have formatted the file system" comment.  If I had been able to reformat the file system, the phone would have had to get a new config file from the provisioning server.  However, it was/is NOT possible to do that.

Simply allowing the end-user to reset the file system, the same way the 301 and 410 could; would have solved my problem BEFORE I even posted my initial comment.

I think this interchange has gone on long enough.

I simply wanted to find how to reset the file system; and Polycom simply wanted to point out that the phones were old.  I indicated that I did not want to build a new server on that network and set up an tftp service; and Polycom simply wanted to point out that was all I needed to do.

Anyways, we have more than a dozen of the 301, 410, 501 and 601's (I think I have the series correct), working splendidly within in our various companies.  Couldn't be happier with them.  For more than a decade.

I now have a provider that has the necessary (virtual) server (laptop they bring on-site) to get my boot-looped phones completely operational.

thanks,

chuck

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello Chuck,

As this is the official Polycom community hosted by Polycom and moderated by Polycom employees allow me to close this post as you are correct as we seem to go in circles.

You mention no option for you to recover the phone was available but my first reply => here <= already contained this very option.

Questioning the age and a serial number of the device could have given us an insight on the Hardware Revision and possible BootROM software state.

Without this we can only guess and confirm that older phones and / or older BootROM Versions did not have this option.

Attempting to flash a new software may have overcome this but you decide not to.

Our phones constantly go through further software development and are delivered with newer software versions carefully planned to suit our larger enterprise customers.

You may have newer SIP software / BootROM's on these other phones but not following up as advised never cleared up the issue for this single phone.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services