Noise in Winspm causes factory restart? 2

[CarGoSki]

I suppose that anyone who has dialed into a Merlin knows that sometimes the screens will flash by uncontrollably and the program starts dinging. In all of the years and times this has happened to me I have simply disconnected with no ill effects. Nothing on the system was ever changed.

Well it happened to me yesterday and I disconnected. I found out this morning that the system appeared to have factory restarted in key mode with two digit extension numbering. The customer does not know if the system was still working after I had disconnected or if there was a issue overnight.

How many of you out there have had an issue that you could say was caused by the winspm dings and how many of you have never had an issue?

 

[SYQUEST]

I have had that problem in the past, and I think it is prevalent in all versions, as I have been using version 6.25 of SPM for the longest time. Whatever "noise" issue is generated, it causes all kinds of garbage to be sent back and forth as shown on the SPM window on the PC. With the garbage being generated, you never know how the switch is interpreting the garbage, and what commands it thinks it is receiving. So, it is entirely possible for that situation you experienced to occur! I guess I have been lucky when it has happened. To my knowledge no ill effects...

....JIM....

 

[CarGoSki]

Exactly and up until yesterday I have had no reported incidents caused by that issue. Usually the first thing to change when it happens is the language or it lands on creating a monitor log file or backup ams file. None of those are system changing or affecting.

I suppose it would be a rare event indeed for this to occur.

 

[SYQUEST]

Rare event indeed, but remember garbage in, garbage out! It is amazing what those bits can do if they are the right ones!

....JIM....

 

[merlinman]

My 2 cents worth.

I was dialed into a system and had completed what I needed to do.

I got a couple of line hits (noise) and it kicked me out of SPM.

That was fine with me and I went on my way.

4 hours later the client finally got in touch with me and said they couldn't DO ANYTHING with their system. Apparently it had gotten half way into a restore or something when I got kicked out.

Not good, but a simple power down and back up fixed it.

I dial into MANY MANY Systems and have all kinds of issues with "noisy" lines. It's just part of the job.

Now, VOIP Service on the other hand is a totally different story.

As in, IMPOSSIBLE to use.

http://home.comcast.net/~merlinman

 

[dagwoodsystems]

I have nearly nothing to offer after Jim and Jack's post other than "I feel your pain". Maybe if I had taken my earlier path at being a programmer, I might have put in a check for "bad data due to modem retries". It would have been simple to implement...almost as simple as the decision to use inexpensive modems on the switch to begin with. But that's another story.

I am FASTIDIOUS about backing up both before AND after my switch work. I have funny ways to name files...usually something to do with AM or PM / BC or AD as a suffix. In any case, I know which file is which. If you do the same, you can restore a switch to a known point no matter what. That's the only point that I can bring to the party. It's an old, worn idea, but seems valuable to rehash given your story.

Tim Alberstein

http://www.dagwoodsystems.com

 

[CarGoSki]

Well I can live with knowing that it is a rare event.

 

[Westi]

so far I got lucky and the worst that happened to me was that it changed my display language to Spanish and I had to find my way through to change it back. Language = Idioma I have found out.
I am glad that I only dial into these about 2-3 times a year as I am on the install side of things otherwise I would not dare to jinx it here

Joe W.

16103

 

[telecomtekperson]

I can tell you a GREAT story with Tim A. He was working on a system for me in NY, i think....he was in Monitor, and the dirty noise renumbered the system.
He freaked, we laughed afterwards.....

Sorry TIm, cant let ya ive that one down.

Matt