Polycom SNTP Client does not sync with NTP Server

[r_penalo]

Hello,

I have several Polycom 335 phones, and the provisioning is working fine from the boot server, except the the time SNTP client from the Polycom phones are not synching with the provided NTP server.

My DHCP server is sending correctly the NTP server information (Option 42), and the phones are receiving it. The Wireshark captured files shows NTP packets between the Polycom 335 and the NTP Server, and the server is responding the Polycom phones NTP requests whith the correct timestamp, but the phone does not update the internal time and date, and repeat the NTP request again for several times, always receiving the NTP server response but never updating the time info.

The tests were done with a Linux NTP server and a Solaris NTP server, getting the same unsucessful result with both of them.

Please note that according to the Wireshark captured packets the NTP port used by the Polycom 335 phones is the "mxxrlogin (1035)" ??, while the servers always use the right one: ntp (123).

Thanks in advance for your help.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello r_penalo,

welcome to the Polycom Community.

You did not post the UCS/SIP Software Version you encounter this issue with.

• Have you tried instead to use pool.ntp.org?
• Have you made any manual changes (General =>Time) to the Phone via the GUI or Web Interface before provisioning the Phone via a Server?

The latest UCS 3.3.2 release has been uploaded => here <= and I checked the Release Notes for UCS 3.3.2 and found:

68382: Phone shows incorrect time when IP address on the NTP server is 12 digits example 192.168.100.200

Above has been fixed in UCS 3.3.2 and if you can still reproduce the Issue once upgraded I would recommend to contact your Polycom Reseller and/or Polycom Support directly and provide the following:

• A Wireshark Capture taken on Phone with an unfiltered Trace starting with Booting the Phone so all Network Traffic is captured and then reproduce the Issue
• Your<mac>-app.logand<mac>-boot.log best taken from a FTP Server as complete logs are needed
• Your configuration Files used by the Phone

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services

[r_penalo]

Hello Steffen,

Thanks for your prompt response !!

Because they're brand new, the 335 phones were running the factory pre-loaded BootROM and UC/SIP versions, that is:

BootROM ==> 4.2.1.0275
UC/SIP     ==> 3.2.1.0078

Really old versions. Following your suggestions, I've installed the currently last versions:

BootROM ==> 4.3.0.0246
UC/SIP     ==> 3.3.2.0413

The new versions installing from the provisioning server was smooth, and with no problems, but the time server problem still remains:

1. The DHCP server send the NTP server ip-address to the phone.
2. The phone receive it, and establish an NTP protocol communication with the time server, requesting timestamp.
3. The time server send the timestamp to the client (335 phone) but the phone don't update the factory registered time and date.

All steps above, confirmed by the Wireshark captured packets. Also looking at the <mac>-boot.log file, confirm the described process, showing the following error message:

"Could not load time from 192.168.x.xx"

Later I configured the DHCP server for to provide a public Stratum Two NTP Server external ip-address to the phone, and this time the phone did set the provided timestamp from the public external time server.

Finally, I just want to note that the local/internal NTP servers are working fine with other clients than the Polycom phones, so I don't know the reason why synching with the 335 phones does not work, but these last ones sync the external time server. May be an special and very specific config at the time server for the SNTP of the Polycom phones ?

Best Regards,

Raul Peñalo

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello,

as suggested above if you can still reproduce the Issue once upgraded I would recommend to contact your Polycom Reseller and/or Polycom Support directly and provide the following:

• A Wireshark Capture taken on Phone with an unfiltered Trace starting with Booting the Phone so all Network Traffic is captured and then reproduce the Issue
• Your<mac>-app.logand<mac>-boot.log best taken from a FTP Server as complete logs are needed
• Your configuration Files used by the Phone

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services

[James]

Hi  r_penalo,

I had to try several different syntaxes with my own DHCP server to get it working with my IP phone.

Not sure what DHCP server you're running, but this is what seems to work in DNSMasq or similar:

dhcp-option=42,132.163.4.103
dhcp-option=2,-25200

 And a capture of DHCP with SNTP for comparison to your own

Hope that helps