‘Call Failed’ error when making calls

[Retired-George]

This issue has the following symptoms:

For version 1 Sure Signal (the one with four lights on the front):

• Lights one, two and four are all solid
• Incoming calls, texts and internet all work correctly
• When making a call on a registered phone, the error ‘Call Failed’ or similar is displayed

For version 2 Sure Signal (the one with 3 lights on the front):

• The power and system lights are both solid
• Incoming calls, texts and internet all work correctly
• When making a call on a registered phone, the error ‘Call Failed’ or similar is displayed 

For version 3 Sure Signal (the plug in version):

• The power, internet and service lights are all solid and the in use light is either solid or flashing
• Incoming calls, texts and internet all work correctly
• When making a call on a registered phone, the error ‘Call Failed’ or similar is displayed

Troubleshooting steps:

Check for planned maintenance:
Planned maintenance can cause periods of downtime, so check the forum for any planned maintenance. If there is, this will be announced at the top of the Sure Signal forum.

Reset your Sure Signal:

For versions 1 and 2:

1. Hold in the reset button until all lights go solid
2. Pull the power lead out with the reset button still pushed in
3. Continue to hold down the reset button and reconnect the power lead
4. Wait for all lights to come on and then release the reset button

For version 3:

1. Locate the button on the base of the box next to the Ethernet ports.
2. Press and hold the button for approximately 30 seconds.
3. Once the lights come back on, release the button.

The Sure Signal will be back online in around 1 hour.

If you’re still unable to make calls, there may be a compatibility issue with your Sure Signal and your location information (also known as SAC/LAC compatibility).

A SAC (Service Area Code) connects to a mast and is used to determine the rough location of where a call’s made. It's needed for the emergency services to know where a call was made from.

As a Sure Signal can be used anywhere in the country, it doesn't automatically come with a SAC. The SAC is generated based on the postcode you enter when registering your Sure Signal and it's created based on the nearest cell to your location.

In order for calls to be made, they must go over an MSC (Mobile Switching Centre). If the MSC doesn't hold the SAC for your area on its database, the call will fail.

The MSCs should now hold all SACs for Sure Signal calls. For anyone who is still affected please post in this thread and we can look into it further.

Thanks,

Jenny

[Jenny]

Hi alex_vdm,

If you can let us know your Sure Signal serial number, we can check things at our end for you.

Thanks,

Jenny 

[Jon_H]

Hi there,

I have been having the same problem. There has been no change to our VSS in terms of location, handsets or ISP. It has been connected and working for over a year. However recently we have been unable to make calls. We have three handsets in the house and all have the same problem. The call will drop as as soon as the connection is made.

I have followed the trouble shooting and reset the VSS. It is a V2 and the power and internet lights are solid. The call light will light up when I try to make a call but go out as soon as the call drops.

I have been on the phone to VF support and they suggested it might be an issue with the ports so I have set up port forwarding on all the numbers they gave me. Unfortunately we still cannot make calls.

We have Sky fibre broadband with 40mb download and 10mb upload speeds. The internet continue to work fine.

My IP is 94.12.81.49

The VSS serial number is: 40110734221

Please help,

[Retired-Andy]

Hi Jon_H,

Are you still seeing dropped calls?

If so, try a factory reset of your device:

• Hold down the reset button until all the lights show/flash (about 30 seconds)
• Keeping the reset button held down, remove both the Ethernet cable and power lead
• Re-insert the power lead
• Once all the lights display, release the reset button
• Re-insert the Ethernet cable.
• The Sure Signal will come online in around one hour

As part of the process, a resync is automatically performed.

If this doesn’t help, we’ll need a little more information from you.

Can you provide the following:

Your speed test results from here.
Your ping test results from here.
The results of a traceroute.

VSS Traceroute command

On a PC:

Click on Start and select Run
Type CMD into the Run box and press enter/click ok
A black box will appear.
In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter
Paste the output of this command into your reply.

Thanks,

Andy

[Jon_H]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I did the reset on the VSS as instructed and we are unable to make outgoing calls.

The extra info is:

Download Speed 38.01 Mbps

Upload Speed 8.70 Mbps

Packet Loss 0%

Ping 44 ms

Jitter 10 ms

Output of VSS Traceroute:

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms ip-84-38-37-10.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.10]
4 74 ms 12 ms 32 ms ae51.edge6.London1.Level3.net [212.113.9.53]
5 11 ms 10 ms 10 ms vl-3616-ve-240.csw2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.166.94]
6 10 ms 11 ms 15 ms ae-225-3601.edge3.London1.Level3.net [4.69.166.146]
7 10 ms 9 ms 10 ms CABLE-WIREL.edge3.London1.Level3.net [195.50.124.26]
8 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 195.2.30.61
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

I really hope you can help.

Thanks

Jon

[Jon_H]

Andy, 

Possibly coincidence but like AndrewSwaffer I am also in the Haywards Heath area and our Sure Signal stopped working about the same time as he reports. 

Something worth investigating I think?

[alex_vdm]

@Jenny:

Hello Jenny, thanks for coming back to me.

The VSS S/N is 40133462537.

Let me know what you find.

Alex

[Retired-Matt_B]

Hi Alex_vdm,

Your Sure Signal is running the correct firmware so nothing looks out of place at this end.

I've requested a resync of your Sure Signal as you're now using a different broadband connection. Please reset the Sure Signal to complete this process by following the steps below:

• Hold the reset button till all the lights come on or flash (about 30 seconds)
• Once all the lights come on or flash, release the reset button
• The VSS should come online within the hour

Thanks,

Matt B

[alex_vdm]

Hello Matt B:

Did a reset on VSS, and I still get call failed.

What else do you suggest ?

Alex

[DaveCD]

Hi alex_vdm, rud, Jon_H and rugycat.

I've forwarde your Sure Signal serial numbers for further investigation as all appears fine. 

We'll post back here as soon as we have more information, or if we need to gather some more details.

Hi AndrewSwaffer

Your speed test results from here.

Your ping test results from here.

Your external IP address from here.

The results of a traceroute.

Your Sure Signal serial number:

VSS Traceroute command

On a PC:

Click on Start and select Run

Type CMD into the Run box and press enter/click ok

A black box will appear.

In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter

Paste the output of this command into your reply.

This will help us get the quickest possible resolution for you.

Thanks

DaveCD

[alex_vdm]

Hi DaveCD:

This is where it gets even more complicated.

*Bandwidth is: Down: 37.50 Mbps, Up: 9.45Mbps

*Pingtest: IE gets into a couple of redirect loops that ends in a Website restore error page and and gives me the following error messsage: "A problem with this webpage caused Internet Explorer to close and reopen the tab." I'm behind a VPN, so that might be the reason.

From the cmd line:

L:\>ping 8.8.8.8

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data&colon;
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=52
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=52
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=52
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=52

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 15ms, Average = 14ms

L:\>ping bbc.co.uk

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104] with 32 bytes of data&colon;
Reply from 212.58.246.104: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=50
Reply from 212.58.246.104: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=50
Reply from 212.58.246.104: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=50
Reply from 212.58.246.104: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 212.58.246.104:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 12ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 13ms

* IP4: 81.156.108.198 ; IP6: ::ffff:519c:6cc6

* Serial: 40133462537

* Traceroute:

L:\>tracert 212.183.133.177

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  BTBusinessHub.home [192.168.1.254]
  2    10 ms    11 ms     8 ms  172.16.17.130
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4     7 ms     6 ms     7 ms  217.41.217.77
  5     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  213.120.181.10
  6     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  217.41.169.57
  7     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  217.41.169.107
  8     7 ms    41 ms     7 ms  acc1-xe-1-3-0.sf.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.251.75
]
  9    19 ms    13 ms    16 ms  core1-te0-0-0-4.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.25
1.153]
 10    17 ms    13 ms    13 ms  109.159.252.61
 11    13 ms    13 ms    14 ms  t2c3-xe-2-1-3-0.uk-lon1.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.19
4]
 12    15 ms    15 ms    16 ms  166-49-211-254.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.254]
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 27     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 28     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 29     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Since I sent the first message, I have opened up all recommended ports, moved the VSS to the DMZ, resetting every time, and there is some progress in that I can now call my own landline (Sky phone), but cannot call my own (personal) O2 mobile, nor my BT business landline (where the VSS signal goes) yet both register a missed call every time.

Running out of ideas, your help is greatly appreciated.