Polycom phones disconnect from network spasmodically

[Old_Lethal]

Hi forgive me if this is posted somewhere else I have searched for some time to find an answer...Hopefully someone can help.

We have a customer with 18 handsets, we have all the handsets running on 2 POE switches in 2 buildings and these are connected to 2 LAN ports on the firewall. We have a server doing the DHCP etc. Some of the PCs where/are connected from the phones for data. We have now changed to a dedicated link some 6-7 weeks ago and added a better firewall. Every thing has been fine. These phones have been in place for the past 5 months and there were no issues until last week. 

Now we are getting a situation where the ALL phones will disconnect from the network, the PC's connected via the Phones are still working even though I have now split them to a separate switch to reduce the load on the POE  switches. At first I thought it was the main switch causing the issue but after separating the 2 buildings in to the firewall it has made no difference.

So all the phones drop out, cannot ping from the phone to ext IP, the phones are getting IP etc from the server. We have been rebooting the switches to power cycle the phones and this does not always work. but generally after a period 30 to 120 mins after another power cycle they will suddenly all work again!?!?!

We have asked the provider for support and they continue to tell us it's the network, okay we believe them but where do we look?

We are new to the Polycom handsets and the intracacies of this technology and therefore would appreciate any help or advice or pointers of where to look?

Thank you

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello Old_Lethal,

welcome to the Polycom Community.

The community's VoIP => FAQ <= contains this post here:

Jan 19, 2012 Question: How to troubleshoot Polycom VoIP related Issues?

Resolution: Please check => here <=

Above explains in detail how to use either Wireshark or the phones log's to troubleshoot issues.

An important information is that all phones lose the connectivity to what I assume is an external SIP provider.

You should check the following:

• Can the phones Ping each other ?
• Can the PC's ping the Phone ?

Above would clarify that it is either the connectivity to the external provider that is lost or a firewall issue.

You then would need to investigate further on that end with either the VoIP provider or the firewall provider.

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