Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
(OP)
So I've got 50 remote workers making calls no problem. when we try to call each other we get no audio. We solved this problem in our remote sites before by unchecking "Allow direct Media Path" on each physical extn. but this is greyed out for all my SIP Softphone extns. I have plenty of VCM channels available and everything else is working great. we've tried opening up all ports & all traffic between two PF Sense VPN endpoints as a test and that didn't work.
Anyone have any ideas? the SIP Softphone extns were auto generated it appears and they are assigned an IP address of each VPN user.
HELP!!!

Routes

Anyone have any ideas? the SIP Softphone extns were auto generated it appears and they are assigned an IP address of each VPN user.
HELP!!!

Routes

RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Rick
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Can you explain how that no user source number works? Where is it defined, what do I assign it to, etc?
We have to keep all of our users user login extensions as is. They are coded and referenced in literally dozens of places in our CRM, accounting, dialers, games, leaderboards, etc.
Jeff
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Stuck in a never ending cycle of file copying.
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
I'll be testing as soon as my CTO wakes up. I'm totally leaving him alone this AM - it's been a BRUTAL week, but we are now 100% remote in all offices in 3 states now. Absolutely heroic efforts by my entire management and tech teams.
EDIT: I tested w/ one of my mgrs who couldn't call me all last week and it works for him, so Im assuming its resolved. If not, I'll post here again.
Jeff
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
The main problem is that your IPO is acting like a router and that is why you can't do Direct Media.
You should never need more than a default route in the IPO and let your network equipment handle all the routing, there are only a few very rare cases where I would allow to have more than a default route in the PBX.
"Trying is the first step to failure..." - Homer
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Jeff
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
You want all routing to be handled by your routers/firewalls and not by specific devices (in this case IP Office).
In this case 10.222.1.0 and 10.223.0.0 points to another router, 10.201.1.0 and 10.207.1.0 points to a third router connected on LAN2.
There's no simple answer on how this can be fixed since it requires insight in how the network is configured to know what needs to be changed.
Basically you want to treat the IP Office as any other server placed in LAN, Server Network, VoIP Network or DMZ and let the firewalls handle who and what can connect to it.
"Trying is the first step to failure..." - Homer
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Would this be true when we have VPN's to 2 remote offices as well as other locations? the LAN2 connection is where all our VPN's traffic terminate. Not for any particular reason, I might add.
Also, what benefit is there to direct media paths from station to station? Assume I have plenty of VCMs available and I want the best possible quality on voice calls that I can get.
Jeff
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
"Trying is the first step to failure..." - Homer
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
We have one centrally located IP Office500V2
If our end stations are using a point to point VPN to reach our corp network, then routed to the switch to dial out which uses a SIP trunk line to call out over our SIP provider's network - by definition, aren't they are using a VCM in the switch? would direct media path benefit us in any way in this scenario?
Also, Once we started adding remote locations over site to site VPNs, we had to disable direct media path on all our deskphone extensions for audio to work on all internal calls to those remote site deskphones. We never did go further than that in investigating why, but clearly, it is a routing problem as described above.
I've been assured (not a strong enough word) by my CTO that he knows what he's doing wrt routing and keeping things more simple with each endpoint now using a personal VPN on their desktops, so many to one, hence why he says he set the routing entries on the switch on LAN2.
If we don't derive any benefit other than my internal calls being "better" then I'm going to recommend we leave well enough alone and not slay this dragon today as we already use the G711 codec on all calls as we have plenty of BW for it and they sound ok.
I'm curious as to why we even need to have LAN2 enabled to begin with rather than just using one default route as Janni78 points out.
I know this is complex, and to get it working, each VPN endpoint would need the ability to pass RTP to each other to establish that direct media path, not a trivial exercise. I personally find this topic very interesting, and I'm sure others are battling the same issues, either today or soon.
Jeff
Interesting info I found on comparing G729 and G711 codecs and bandwidth usage
https://fitsmallbusiness.com/g729-vs-g711-voip-cod...
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
That's why direct media will not work in that case.
IP Office remote service
Fixed price SIP trunk configuration
CLI based call blocking
SCN fallback over PSTN
RE: Softphone Direct Media Path - I can't disable it, no audio on internal calls - HELP!!
Bypassing this by disabling direct media is just fixing something the network team didn't think about.
In reality in some cases you need to disable direct media cause it's not possible to get direct routing to work in the current setup and the work it would require is to much.
"Trying is the first step to failure..." - Homer