VVX 300 Skype for Business Online firmware automatic downgrading

[cseaman]

The base SfB firmware (5.4.0A.10182) through at least 5.4.3.x do not allow our phones to connect to Skype for Business Online.  When I manually upgraded all of them to the latest 5.5.0.x or 5.5.1.x, everything works great.  But now we're finding that phones are being automatically downgraded all the way back to 5.4.0A.10182 (!!).

How can I find the latest Certified for Skype for Business Online and On-Premises (3PIP) version and target that...and more importantly, is there any way I can use these phones with Skype for Business Online and prevent downgrading?!

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello cseaman,

welcome back to the Polycom Community.

Did you ever solve your other issue => here <= ?

The community's Skype for Business FAQ contains this post here:

Feb 02, 2016 Question:How can I prevent a Polycom VVX Business Media Phone to be downgraded / upgraded automatically via Skype for Business and/or Office365?

Resolution:Download, unpack and import the attached lyncDeviceUpdateEnabledOFF.zip

Please ensure you always check the community FAQ and/or utilize the community search before posting any new topics or follow up post’s.

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

[AndrewMAG]

Where can I find the lyncDeviceUpdateEnabledOFF.zip or config file?  Thanks.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello AndrewMAG,

welcome to the Polycom Community.

In the referenced FAQ or in my signature

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

[AndrewMAG]

Thank you Steffen.  Was losing my mind trying to find it.  Couldn't find it in your signature and the FAQ didn't have a link near the Feb 02, 2016 post.  Tried different browsers and was about to give up.  Then scrolled down the FAQ and found it... Mondays :)

[SynergisBrandon]

Hello,

I also had a similar issue today where some of our phones automatically got downgraded to firmware v5.4.0A.10182 SFB-Lync Only.  They were previously running the latest firmware v5.5.1.15937 with the Skype profile enabled.  After a few issues getting the phone back upgraded to the latest release, I wanted to make sure this doesn't happen again so downloaded the config file mentioned in this thread.  I opened the web config and went to Utilities > Import & Export Configuration.  It successfully imported the cfg file.  However, when I export the device settings, they still show:

device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled.set="1"
device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled="1"

In the cfg file, the bottom entry is supposed to be set to 0.  So it looks like it's not actually updating the config.  I tried restarting and rebooting the phone as well.  I don't want the phone to automatically downgrade again.  Am I missing any steps in getting this to work?

[cseaman · Accepted solution]

SynergisBrandon, I think the file that Steffan is including is missing one value.  Jeff Schertz' blog from July specifies that the file should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<PARAMETERS device.set="1" device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled.set="1" device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled="0" lync.provisionDeviceParams.enabled="0" />

Setting lync.provisionDeviceParams.enabled is not in Steffan's file, and I was having the same issue before I updated to this one.  From the blog: 

The first two parameters must be set to 1 in order to write changes to any phone parameters in the device settings partition.  The last two parameters will then disable device updates in addition to ignoring any device parameters currently being provisioned in-band during the SfB registration process.  Obviously changing only the device update parameter would not be sufficient as the next time the phone applies the client policy settings then it will simply revert back to the server-provisioned behavior.  Setting the lync.provisionDeviceParams.enabled parameter to 0 makes sure that does not happen

It is important to note though that setting this parameter to ‘0’ will actually disable more than just device updates as the phone will also ignore all of the following parameters controlled by the Set-CsIPPhonePolicy cmdlet:

"EnableDeviceUpdate"
"IPPhoneAdminPasswd"
"LocalProvisioningServerAddress"
"LocalProvisioningServerUser"
"LocalProvisioningServerPassword"
"LocalProvisioningServerType"

Keep in mind you can alternatively (or additionally) use the PowerShell cmdlet Set-CsIPPhonePolicy with its EnableDeviceUpdate parameter set to $false in order to disable device updates tenant-wide from the Skype for Business Online side...other params let you turn on Better Together Over Ethernet globally by default and set phone pairing mode to Automatic (default is Manual for some reason).

[SynergisBrandon]

Thank you for the info.  Just to confirm, if I don't want to import the cfg file on the phone directly, I can change the tenant wide policy using PowerShell and that will prevent the phones from ever downgrading again?  I have made the changes as well as made tweaks to the BToE settings as you suggested since we're using that as well.  Here is my config now, let me know if I'm missing anything else or you have any other recommendations.  Managing Skype for Business via PowerShell is new to me.

[SynergisBrandon]

Nevermind, just found the blog here and read through it all.  Thanks again for the help!

http://blog.schertz.name/2016/07/device-updates-with-skype-for-business-online/

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello all,

The proposed file from the FAQ post contains:

<test lync.provisionDeviceParams.enabled="0"
 device.set="1" 
 device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled.set="1"
 device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled="0"/>

Without the device.set all follow up parameters are ignored.

The mentioned lync.provisionDeviceParams.enabled set to 0 only prevents some inbound provisioning to be accepted by the Phone.

This will not affect stuff like BToE etc.

A good idea is also to disable the Skype for Business server to change the Phone's logging levels so a customer can work with Poly support and enable the right logging levels.

<server server.log.setting.enabled="0" />

EDIT 09/06/2021 A new Parameter was added to 5.8.3 or later for VVX Deskphones only:

<web feature.lync.overrideIpPhonePolicy="1"/>

The above stop Power Saving Settings or BToE from being disabled

It is important to note though that setting this parameter to ‘0’ will actually disable more than just device updates as the phone will also ignore all of the following parameters controlled by the Set-CsIPPhonePolicy cmdlet:

"EnableDeviceUpdate" 
"IPPhoneAdminPasswd" 
"LocalProvisioningServerAddress" 
"LocalProvisioningServerUser" 
"LocalProvisioningServerPassword" 
"LocalProvisioningServerType"

All settings:

Get-CsIPPhonePolicy

As shown in the above this also sets Parameters for the Provisioning Server like type to FTP and can change the User and/or Password.

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

UPDATE 21/04/2022:

• The attached file Zip file lyncDeviceUpdateEnabledOFF.zip contains all the above relevant settings including disabling the Phone Lock and the automatic Lock out of the Web Interface:
  

  <web device.set="1"
  	device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled.set="1"
  	device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled="0"
  	lync.provisionDeviceParams.enabled="0"
  	feature.lync.overrideIpPhonePolicy="1"
  	server.log.setting.enabled="0"
  	feature.deviceLock.enable="0"
  	httpd.cfg.session.maxSessionAge="86400"
  />​

  
  NOTE: Please edit the files to remove changes not required!

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services