Intermittent bad audio on incoming calls

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 5:29 pm

Hi. I have just found this discussion group and I come with a Magic Jack problem that has been bugging me.

I've been reading the problems expressed here and found several similar to mine but none have mentioned the trouble being intermittent.

Occasionally I get a call on my MJ where the voice is garbled, scratchy or sometimes completely un-hearable. The caller can hear me fine but I cannot understand what he is saying.
I can always fix the problem by hanging up and calling him back -- 100% of the time so far. I have never experienced bad audio on any outgoing call.

The bad audio does not always come from the same caller(s) and the same caller with bad audio can often call back later with crystal clear audio on my end.

I have spent time with the MJ chat tech's and have done all the settings on my computer that they have suggested (to no avail).

I really believe the problem is not in my computer because the garbled audio also occasionally shows up in the MJ voice mails -- which are recorded when my computer is not even turned on. There is nothing wrong with my wave players -- most of the voice mails are just fine and play perfectly as are most of the incoming calls. The problem only happens sometimes. My feeling is that the trouble occurs somewhere in the route through the internet from the caller to me. I cannot, however, think of any logic that would explain why the trouble never happens on outgoing calls.

I am not using MagicJack plus or any other MJ help software. I have win XP and internet explorer ver. 8.

Anyone have any ideas on this??

Wayne League

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 4:11 am

You might want to try changing the proxy server that your MJ connects to. It could be that the one you normally connect to is one of their more congested ones. I've never done it, but a search in here will lead you to various discussions and links that will walk you through it.

Here is one :

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MagicJack/ ... oxy_Change

kevin8629 · Post by **kevin8629** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 7:41 am

Wrlea wrote:Hi. I have just found this discussion group and I come with a Magic Jack problem that has been bugging me.

I've been reading the problems expressed here and found several similar to mine but none have mentioned the trouble being intermittent.

Occasionally I get a call on my MJ where the voice is garbled, scratchy or sometimes completely un-hearable. The caller can hear me fine but I cannot understand what he is saying.
I can always fix the problem by hanging up and calling him back -- 100% of the time so far. I have never experienced bad audio on any outgoing call.

The bad audio does not always come from the same caller(s) and the same caller with bad audio can often call back later with crystal clear audio on my end.

I have spent time with the MJ chat tech's and have done all the settings on my computer that they have suggested (to no avail).

I really believe the problem is not in my computer because the garbled audio also occasionally shows up in the MJ voice mails -- which are recorded when my computer is not even turned on. There is nothing wrong with my wave players -- most of the voice mails are just fine and play perfectly as are most of the incoming calls. The problem only happens sometimes. My feeling is that the trouble occurs somewhere in the route through the internet from the caller to me. I cannot, however, think of any logic that would explain why the trouble never happens on outgoing calls.

I am not using MagicJack plus or any other MJ help software. I have win XP and internet explorer ver. 8.

Anyone have any ideas on this??

Wayne League

When mine started this I swithed my setting to aird card and it cleared up. My problem was primarily magicjack to magicjack calls. You can give it a try, hope it helps

Kevin

KMNugent52 · Post by **KMNugent52** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:24 am

Hi Wrlea,
There is one person who calls me and their call is always garbled. I have to call them back in order to be able to hear them.
The only reason I've come up with for this constantly happening is that they use a Satellite connection to the internet.
HTH -Kevin N.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 12:26 pm

Thanks for the replies, guys!

nailgunner: I've started reading the link to proxy change - - this seems more complicated than I have the courage to try. I am totally clueless in this territory. But I will continue to study this process - perhaps I will muster enought courage to try it. Hanging up and calling back seems the least dangerous path, though. Thanks for the tip!

kevin8629: I just recently noticed the air card setting on my mj. So I'm trying that setting now. It will take many clear calls to decide if it worked but only 1 bad one to know it didn't. We'll see -- thanks, Kevin

Kevin N: Thanks for checking in, Kevin. My garbled calls are completely random. The garbled caller today may be completely clear tomorrow. I cannot identify a single common feature among them!

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:09 pm

Wrlea wrote: nailgunner: I've started reading the link to proxy change - - this seems more complicated than I have the courage to try. I am totally clueless in this territory. But I will continue to study this process - perhaps I will muster enought courage to try it. Hanging up and calling back seems the least dangerous path, though. Thanks for the tip!

You're welcome. I don't think it's as hard as it reads, but that's easy for me to say since I've never tried it. Sounds like the Air-Card setting could be the issue anyway. Hope that fixes it for you.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:08 pm

[quote="nailgunner
You're welcome. I don't think it's as hard as it reads, but that's easy for me to say since I've never tried it. Sounds like the Air-Card setting could be the issue anyway. Hope that fixes it for you.[/quote]

Well, I dunno. I tried finding my mj proxy using the pmdump.exe download as per the instructions, but the resulting mj_dump.txt file turned out to be a binary file that could not be read by a text editor. hmpf! I'll keep picking at it though. learning as I go . . .

The air card setting did nothing. I've already had two garbled calls since I set that. But it narrows down the list of what does not help.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 4:53 pm

Wrlea wrote:Well, I dunno. I tried finding my mj proxy using the pmdump.exe download as per the instructions, but the resulting mj_dump.txt file turned out to be a binary file that could not be read by a text editor. hmpf! I'll keep picking at it though. learning as I go . . ..

Well, I did figure out the pmdump file . . . it seems there was a binary character between every text character in the file. Once I got my notetab to filter out all the binary characters, then the required text string could be found.

So I found out what my SIP proxy server is and also the RTP/vms (not sure what all these letters stand for). I understand the RTP server carries the voice both in and out.
I wonder if putting the ip addresses of these servers in the trusted zone of my Zone Alarm free version firewall would be the thing to do?

I'm also on AT&T's uverse internet with their wireless modem/router which I think is called SSID: 2wire153. (there go the letters again)
On that router I have UDP ports 5060-5070 set up as "pinholes" or port forwarding.

I did put the ip addresses above in the zone alarm and have had a couple of clear calls since then and no garbled ones. I don't get a lot of phone calls, and calling the mj from our cell phones has never been garbled. It may take a long time to figure out if the problem must be solved, since this thing is so intermittent.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 4:42 pm

Which proxy server does your MJ use? You can run wireshark while your MJ's connected and see what proxy server it connects to. If you eventually decide to try another server it's easier than using pmdump to see what's going on.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:02 pm

sabresfan wrote:Which proxy server does your MJ use? You can run wireshark while your MJ's connected and see what proxy server it connects to. If you eventually decide to try another server it's easier than using pmdump to see what's going on.

My proxy server is proxy01.atlanta.talk4free.com (216.234.78.8 ) which is where I am. The RTP server was nashville.talk4free.com (216.234.76.11) - fancy that!
I checked it again the next day and the proxy server was still atlanta but the RTP server was then tp09.atlanta.talk4free.com (216.234.78.53)

I still haven't had any garbled calls since I set the SIP & RTP servers in the zone alarm trusted zones. But have had only 3 calls and 2 of them were from my wife's cell phone, which never has been garbled. (just don't get many calls)

I'll check out on how to use the wireshark and prepare for the next garbled call. I can't believe it won't come.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:41 pm

Well, I'm still getting garbled voice on incoming calls occasionally. Nothing I've done so far has worked.

And I don't think the problem is with the proxy server or more specifically the RTP connection, for the same server handles both incoming and outgoing voice traffic. The outgoing voice has never been a problem.

But I did see a new twist on the problem today. I got a perfectly clear incoming call and as the call progressed the caller's voice slowly got worse, scratchy and choppy. Not bad enough that I couldn't understand it, though, so I didn't need to hang up and call back.

I've been reading about the new Magic Jack Plus that is about to come out. Perhaps I'll just hang tough until that gets here. From what I've been reading on this forum, there seems to be confusion about when it's coming, whether it's already out or not, etc.
According to the website I found, they say they're trying harder now and still testing it to get it right. Here is a quote from the site I found:

"Originally the magicJack Plus was slated to be released during the first quarter of 2011 but this time around magic Jack and VocalTec are doing it right and putting their new product through a lengthy testing phase before its release. At this time only 200 magicJack Plus units have been sold and magicJack is using feedback from these users to work out any kinks and get the final design ready for release."

Here is the site that this came from:

http://www.magic-jack.com/category/magic-jack-plus/

Anyway, I put my name on the list there to be notified when it's ready.
Or maybe I'll go with nailgunner's suggestion and just wait till it gets out to Walmart or Best Buy, or where-ever.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:54 pm

Try going to your MJ "Menu" and selecting "volume/headset control". Place the volume for both speaker and microphone 1/3 of the way from the left.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 6:24 pm

It's just an uneducated guess from an uneducated clown, but if the calls are also bad coming into your voice mail with your computer off, as stated in your initial post, I'm not sure what playing with the volume controls will do to fix it. But I guess it's always worth a try.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:00 pm

It may still be worth a try and block the Atlanta server. My MJ is set for the Atlanta server and while I tried many things that slightly improved it"s performance changing the server and QoS are the 2 things that improved my MJ's performance the most. Some of MJ's servers are overloaded at certain times. I remember that phone calls at midnight sounded fine but calls at 8pm were terrible. California servers San Diego and Sacramento have always given me great calls while NY, LA, Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas have always been poor. Here's an article about switching servers http://ezinearticles.com/?Fix-MagicJack ... id=3792286 I use wireshark to see which server my MJ connects to it's easier and gives more info than pmdump imho. Good Luck

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 8:20 pm

nailgunner wrote:It's just an uneducated guess from an uneducated clown, but if the calls are also bad coming into your voice mail with your computer off, as stated in your initial post, I'm not sure what playing with the volume controls will do to fix it. But I guess it's always worth a try.

If the shoe fits then wear it! The OP stated problems with voice mails also but did not mention how he was hearing the voice mails.

If he is listening to them via the MJ and not via email attachments then the acoustic noise cancellation properties of MJ remain in play.

So yes it is worth a try! It is a very simple thing to try and has caused many problems with poor sounding audio with MJ.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 8:25 pm

VaHam wrote:The OP stated problems with voice mails also but did not mention how he was hearing the voice mails.

If he is listening to them via the MJ and not via email attachments then the acoustic noise cancellation properties of MJ remain in play.

He kind of did:

There is nothing wrong with my wave players -- most of the voice mails are just fine and play perfectly

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:10 pm

nailgunner wrote:
VaHam wrote:The OP stated problems with voice mails also but did not mention how he was hearing the voice mails.

If he is listening to them via the MJ and not via email attachments then the acoustic noise cancellation properties of MJ remain in play.
He kind of did:

There is nothing wrong with my wave players -- most of the voice mails are just fine and play perfectly

And of course listening to the emails via the MJ would be an outgoing call, which he is having no issues with.

And your making assumptions; and we know how that goes; and you can leave me out of that.

His statement regarding wave players could simply be mentioned as evidence that his audio works well with waves that he is listening to not necessarily MJ voice mails; although that may very well be the case.

So your making a guess it could be a good guess or it could be a bad one. I wouldn't know without further information.

Also not mentioned by the OP is whether there is a pattern of call quality differences using the softphone vs a handset. If he is using a cordless that can effect his router's signal.

One has to be careful of what audio level changes may be made by programs other than MJ since the levels in MJ are sometimes effected by the outside changes.

If the problems are indeed related only to differences between inbound vs outbound calls then they are almost always a NAT issues.

Also a good thing to try would be to repeatedly run voip tests using a site such as http://myspeed.visualware.com/indexvoip.php

The more detailed the information provided the better the advice can be.

However following the KISS method trying something as simple as audio settings without further information is a nice simple place to start in trouble shooting with limited info to work with.

But I'll tell ya what; here is you chance to demonstrate your expertise nailgunner. You work with the OP until you get his problems solved and I'll stand by and watch.

Have at it! It is your responsibility now!

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:16 pm

VaHam wrote:
But I'll tell ya what; here is you chance to demonstrate your expertise nailgunner. You work with the OP until you get his problems solved and I'll stand by and watch.

Have at it! It is your responsibility now!

Oh, don't quit now. I thought you were doing so well with the sliding the volume control advice.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:29 pm

To clear up the volume control question - - I have heard the garbled voice mails on both the phone and from playing the email wave file. They are garbled both places (just the ones that are bad, that is). The volume control did not stop the problem.

I did notice that the headphone setting prevents the computer volume from going all the way up nor all the way down. I put the setting back on telephone so it does not affect other program's volume.

But the proxy server being overworked does sound like a logical reason to cause the problem. So I finally learned how, and blocked the atlanta proxy server, made a call to mj with the cell phone, and wireshark told me I was using the LA proxy then. Since your experience with it was bad also, I blocked it also. Now for the SIP server I'm getting 67.111.81.6 - - the kloth.net lookup cannot identify it as a talk4free server but info on wireshark seems to indicate that it is a talk4free place. I can't tell where it is, though. Also, it takes me back to an atlanta RTP/vms server to handle the voice. Atlanta seems to have many RTP servers - - I wonder if I might have to block all of them? how many?
I think I'll wait for now with these two proxys blocked and see if any more garbled calls come in.

Thanks, guys!

editing message:

hey, guys, I don't want to start anything here!

I don't listen to calls on the soft phone because I'm not comfortable with it and I haven't heard any telephone sound from it anyway. Not a problem with me.

And I do have a cordless phone but it is not logical that it would act up just occasionally on incoming calls and never on a person that I have called.

Also, here are those letters again, what does NAT stand for. And what does OP stand for?

Anyway, ALL suggestions are appreciated, no matter what!

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:38 pm

Wrlea wrote:To clear up the volume control question - - I have heard the garbled voice mails on both the phone and from playing the email wave file. They are garbled both places (just the ones that are bad, that is). The volume control did not stop the problem.

I did notice that the headphone setting prevents the computer volume from going all the way up nor all the way down. I put the setting back on telephone so it does not affect other program's volume.

But the proxy server being overworked does sound like a logical reason to cause the problem. So I finally learned how, and blocked the atlanta proxy server, made a call to mj with the cell phone, and wireshark told me I was using the LA proxy then. Since your experience with it was bad also, I blocked it also. Now for the SIP server I'm getting 67.111.81.6 - - the kloth.net lookup cannot identify it as a talk4free server but info on wireshark seems to indicate that it is a talk4free place. I can't tell where it is, though. Also, it takes me back to an atlanta RTP/vms server to handle the voice. Atlanta seems to have many RTP servers - - I wonder if I might have to block all of them? how many?
I think I'll wait for now with these two proxys blocked and see if any more garbled calls come in.

Thanks, guys!

It's on this list of MJ servers. Doesn't look like the list has been updated for a while, but your 67.111.81.6 shows up as San Diego:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MagicJack/ ... roxy_Find2

Edit: Missed your edit. Ignore us.

OP stands for Original Poster

NAT refers to your routers firewall.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:58 pm

nailgunner wrote:It's on this list of MJ servers. Doesn't look like the list has been updated for a while, but your 67.111.81.6 shows up as San Diego:

Great!! That is encouraging. That's one that sabrfesfan said gave him good sound quality.
Now I'm waiting for the next garbled call.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:09 pm

Wrlea wrote:
nailgunner wrote:It's on this list of MJ servers. Doesn't look like the list has been updated for a while, but your 67.111.81.6 shows up as San Diego:
Great!! That is encouraging. That's one that sabrfesfan said gave him good sound quality.
Now I'm waiting for the next garbled call.

If I read sabresfans posted article correctly, unless you block all the other proxies you can't be guaranteed you will connect with the San Diego one every time. He would have more insight into that but I would at least block all the bad ones he mentioned.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:30 pm

NAT = network address translation

And is a process performed by your router not firewall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_ad ... ranslation

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:31 pm

OK I have now blocked Atlanta, LA, NY, Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Now to wait and see. Hope the wait for garbling is a long one

Thanks, guys!

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:48 pm

I hope the proxy trick works for correcting poor audio on your calls. Below is a current list of proxies:

216.234.78.8____proxy1.Atlanta.talk4free.com
67.107.82.70____proxy1.Austin.talk4free.com
67.111.250.134__proxy1.Baltimore.talk4free.com
216.234.69.8____proxy1.Chicago.talk4free.com
67.88.10.198____proxy1.Cleveland.talk4free.com
66.104.96.198___proxy1.Columbus.talk4free.com
67.107.71.134___proxy1.Dallas.talk4free.com
207.155.164.198_proxy1.Denver.talk4free.com
67.91.177.70____proxy1.Detroit.talk4free.com
216.234.74.8____proxy1.houston.talk4free.com
67.90.80.134____proxy1.LasVegas.talk4free.com
216.234.70.8____proxy1.LosAngeles.talk4free.com
67.91.96.134____proxy1.Memphis.talk4free.com
67.88.183.70____proxy1.Minneapolis.talk4free.com
216.234.77.8____proxy1.Nashville.talk4free.com
216.234.64.8____proxy1.NewYork.talk4free.com
216.234.65.8____proxy1.Newark.talk4free.com
216.234.65.8____proxy1.Philadelphia.talk4free.com
66.104.81.70____proxy1.Phoenix.talk4free.com
67.88.11.6______proxy1.Pittsburgh.talk4free.com
67.88.208.198___proxy1.Portland.talk4free.com
67.109.32.70____proxy1.Sacramento.talk4free.com
67.108.236.70___proxy1.SaltLakeCity.talk4free.com
67.111.81.6_____proxy1.SanDiego.talk4free.com
64.1.213.70_____proxy1.SanFrancisco.talk4free.com
67.88.218.6_____proxy1.Seattle.talk4free.com
67.110.56.198___proxy1.StLouis.talk4free.com
67.90.16.6______proxy1.Tampa.talk4free.com
216.234.68.8____proxy1.Washington.talk4free.com

What router do you have?

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:32 am

Changing proxies can be helpful if your problem is with a congested proxy. Selecting one closest to you is a good idea from the view point of latency as well.

You seem savvy so while your making adjustments you may want to try and find the proxy with the least latency from you. If your in Atlanta that will probably be the best but it it easy enough to check by running ping plotter to the different MJ proxies to see.

As far as audio problems with voice mail sent via email; since I believe all voice mail is processed in Nashville I don't think changing proxies will help you there.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:25 am

VaHam wrote:Changing proxies can be helpful if your problem is with a congested proxy. Selecting one closest to you is a good idea from the view point of latency as well.

You seem savvy so while your making adjustments you may want to try and find the proxy with the least latency from you. If your in Atlanta that will probably be the best but it it easy enough to check by running ping plotter to the different MJ proxies to see.

As far as audio problems with voice mail sent via email; since I believe all voice mail is processed in Nashville I don't think changing proxies will help you there.

That is very interesting. I had guessed that voice mails were being processed in Nashville because when I was first learning how to identify the proxy and using the pmdump command, I had to make at least one call before I could get the proxy info. The phone call I made was to check my voice mail. My normal proxy was atlanta but the RTP/vms server was nashville. When I tried it again with a normal call, the RTP/vms was back to atlanta. Interesting!

But all the talk so far has been about blocking proxys. No one but me has mentioned trying to block RTP servers. But my normal proxy is atlanta and that's where most all of my calls go through. Live calls that are garbled are really the annoying ones. Voice mails only happen when I'm rebooting the computer or when some early bird calls before I get up and turn the computer back on in the morning. The one or two that were garbled made me think the problem was not in my computer.

From what I've heard, it seems that you cannot choose which proxy you want to use. You can only block the ones you don't want to use.

So now I have blocked the atlanta proxy since that's where all my calls up to now have come from/thru, and I also blocked all the ones that sabresfan said didn't work well for him.
So, now if I should get a bad call while using the San Diego proxy, for example, and it has sent the voice traffic back to an atlanta RTP server, as the test call I made earlier today, then should I think about trying to block all the atlanta RTP servers? I know atlanta has several of them, no telling how many. Trying to block all RTP connections on all bad proxys might be a daunting task!

Right now I'm not planning to do anything else until or if I get another garbled call. Then I'll cross that bridge.

As I said, I appreciate all suggestions, no matter what!!

edit:
oops - missed your question:
my router I got from AT&T when I recently subscribed to uverse internet. It is a 2wire153. It has a firewall inside and also a wireless network thingy.
I have it set for port forwarding UDP ports 5060-5070.

I have WinXP and also am using the zone alarm free firewall.
I also use system mechanic pro, which includes the anti-virus and anti-spyware.

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 5:06 am

VaHam wrote:NAT = network address translation

And is a process performed by your router not firewall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_ad ... ranslation

I knew you couldn't stay away.

As with most things there is sometimes more than one usage for a term.

Here is one where it says it is used by both firewalls and routers:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/NAT+and+VOIP

And this is a serious question. I'm not trying to argue with you or doubting your source for MJ proxies, but it is a bit shorter than the link I posted, which could make sense if it's more current, but it doesn't list the notorious Miami proxy. If they eliminated that one, it could certainly account for why there seems to be issues with Atlanta which would be the next closest for the whole state of Florida.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 5:23 am

It is possible to decide which vms server your MJ uses http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/choo ... t6581.html only problem is your router has to do this. When I block the server I don't want to use on my xp machine it also blocks the vms servers for that as well. It's been reported in the past that this has not worked for all. They can block the server but the vms connection goes back to the original server. So you could try blocking Atlanta's vms servers and see what happens (if memory serves it 5 or 6) and see if things improve. Washington and Pittsburgh have been the best servers I have found. If you start blocking to many servers (more than half 15 or so) it will take your MJ forever to connect to a new server. An update awhile back made it more difficult to pick 1 or 2 servers to use and ditch the rest. That's where iptables commands come in very handy. I can have my sip registration with Atlanta but my vms connection immediately switches to Washington for the duration of the call. So my MJ connects to it's regular server at startup but when I make or receive a call it uses my preferred vms server. I wish I would have learned about this a long time ago but learning new things is what this forum is all about.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 5:36 am

Wrlea wrote:That is very interesting. I had guessed that voice mails were being processed in Nashville because when I was first learning how to identify the proxy and using the pmdump command, I had to make at least one call before I could get the proxy info. The phone call I made was to check my voice mail. My normal proxy was atlanta but the RTP/vms server was nashville. When I tried it again with a normal call, the RTP/vms was back to atlanta. Interesting!

Yes you can confirm Nashville also by examining the email headers I think you find they originate from bladeXX.talk4free.com where XX is a number. If you do a ping trace to that url you'll see that is in Nashville.

Wrlea wrote:But all the talk so far has been about blocking proxys. No one but me has mentioned trying to block RTP servers. But my normal proxy is atlanta and that's where most all of my calls go through. Live calls that are garbled are really the annoying ones. Voice mails only happen when I'm rebooting the computer or when some early bird calls before I get up and turn the computer back on in the morning. The one or two that were garbled made me think the problem was not in my computer.

From what I've heard, it seems that you cannot choose which proxy you want to use. You can only block the ones you don't want to use.

So now I have blocked the atlanta proxy since that's where all my calls up to now have come from/thru, and I also blocked all the ones that sabresfan said didn't work well for him.
So, now if I should get a bad call while using the San Diego proxy, for example, and it has sent the voice traffic back to an atlanta RTP server, as the test call I made earlier today, then should I think about trying to block all the atlanta RTP servers? I know atlanta has several of them, no telling how many. Trying to block all RTP connections on all bad proxys might be a daunting task!

I think you'll find that which RTP server is used for normal calls will be determined based on which proxy you connect to for signaling. The exception to this, as I think you already found out, is that when you retrieve voice mail Nashville is used; since that is where voice mail service is maintained.

That is why the two issues mentioned did not make sense as a related problem. If you were using the atlanta proxy for normal calls. Both atlanta and nashville would have to be having you troubles. If you were, as you later made clear, listening to the garbled voice mail vial email enclosures then that doesn't add up to be a common problem either.

That is why I had hoped you were listening to your voice mail via the softphone and in that case acoustic noise cancellation with the audio setting too high could certainly give you troubles both with calls and retrieving voice mail. So I was looking for a common problem.

Unfortunately there does appear to be one which can cause both symptoms as you describe; unless both the atlanta and nashville servers are having troubles.

Wrlea wrote:Right now I'm not planning to do anything else until or if I get another garbled call. Then I'll cross that bridge.

As I said, I appreciate all suggestions, no matter what!!

edit:
oops - missed your question:
my router I got from AT&T when I recently subscribed to uverse internet. It is a 2wire153. It has a firewall inside and also a wireless network thingy.
I have it set for port forwarding UDP ports 5060-5070.

I have WinXP and also am using the zone alarm free firewall.
I also use system mechanic pro, which includes the anti-virus and anti-spyware.

I am a firm believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it"

If you do have further problems see below:

You really shouldn't need to do any port forwarding in the router. MJ should open up the ports for you on a properly working system. Did you find that you had to do port forwarding in order to get MJ working at all? If so that may be a hint that MJ opening ports for you could be a problem.

Do you have any other voip device on your LAN?

RTP ports are opened by MJ randomly in the higher port number range and as you already concluded this is where the audio path occurs. I did a quick Google search to see if your router were known to have issues and didn't pop any up right away but a more extensive search may be in order.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 5:52 am

nailgunner wrote:
VaHam wrote:NAT = network address translation

And is a process performed by your router not firewall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_ad ... ranslation
I knew you couldn't stay away.

As with most things there is sometimes more than one usage for a term.

Here is one where it says it is used by both firewalls and routers:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/NAT+and+VOIP

Yes your link says firewall/router then goes on to describe the NAT process which only has to do with routing. They loosely used the term firewall/router since most home devices contain both those separate functions as well as a switch and WiFi.

nailgunner wrote:And this is a serious question. I'm not trying to argue with you or doubting your source for MJ proxies, but it is a bit shorter than the link I posted, which could make sense if it's more current, but it doesn't list the notorious Miami proxy. If they eliminated that one, it could certainly account for why there seems to be issues with Atlanta which would be the next closest for the whole state of Florida.

No it is very possible I don't have them all these are just the ones I have personally discovered.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:58 am

sabresfan wrote:It is possible to decide which vms server your MJ uses http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/choo ... t6581.html only problem is your router has to do this. When I block the server I don't want to use on my xp machine it also blocks the vms servers for that as well. It's been reported in the past that this has not worked for all. They can block the server but the vms connection goes back to the original server. So you could try blocking Atlanta's vms servers and see what happens (if memory serves it 5 or 6) and see if things improve. Washington and Pittsburgh have been the best servers I have found. If you start blocking to many servers (more than half 15 or so) it will take your MJ forever to connect to a new server. An update awhile back made it more difficult to pick 1 or 2 servers to use and ditch the rest. That's where iptables commands come in very handy. I can have my sip registration with Atlanta but my vms connection immediately switches to Washington for the duration of the call. So my MJ connects to it's regular server at startup but when I make or receive a call it uses my preferred vms server. I wish I would have learned about this a long time ago but learning new things is what this forum is all about.

After blocking my atlanta proxy and by chance used the San Diego proxy in a test, the voice traffic did go back to an atlanta vms.
So, if I still get garbled calls then maybe to unblock all the proxys and just block the atlanta vms servers would be the next thing to try. Well, I have that waiting in the wings.

I'm interested in the iptables commands you mention but your info indicates they are used by or with the router. I don't know if I could use them with my router.
On closer inspection of my router, the unit's model no is i38HG with the brand name '2wire'. It seems to be just the inside unit for the specific AT&T NID (network internet device) which is mounted on the outside of the house with a cable going to the smaller box that would be used for the normal land line if I still had one. Another cable goes thru the wall to inside where a unit containing a backup battery connects to a power outlet. The SSID: 2wire153 seems to be just a name for the local wireless network to use. I can configure the i38HG with the necessary wireless settings, but I don't know what many of the settings are for and I don't dare touch those.

So, how would you use iptables commands if your/my router could use them? I would probably find out if it could or not by trying to do them If I knew how.

VaHam wrote:You really shouldn't need to do any port forwarding in the router. MJ should open up the ports for you on a properly working system. Did you find that you had to do port forwarding in order to get MJ working at all? If so that may be a hint that MJ opening ports for you could be a problem.

Do you have any other voip device on your LAN?

I 'port forwarded' the udp ports 5060-5070 because the MJ tech site recommended to do it. And, of course, it did not make any noticeable difference at all. Perhaps I will remove them.

I do not have any other voip device. I've been thinking about getting one, but for $20 per year I can tolerate this problem that I can always fix by hanging up and calling back.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 3:24 pm

You can check and see if router is supported by dd-wrt http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database if not then your best bet is to try and block the vms servers for Atlanta and see if things improve. I have no experience with at&t equipment but you can check and see if it's compatible with dd-wrt.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 3:31 pm

Wrlea wrote:So, how would you use iptables commands if your/my router could use them? I would probably find out if it could or not by trying to do them If I knew how.

Your router would have to allow the use of iptables to start with. http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Iptables_command will give you more information about using iptables. A quick search for dd-wrt support for your router resulted in no joy. I do believe that 2wire is BSD based so someone may have worked the iptables capability for it. So you may want to do more research on that.

I have not had to block the vms myself so perhaps Saberfan has a list of them. They are a little harder to deal with since some are leased from AT&T or XO and don't have convenient urls, like vmsxx.atlanta.talk4free.com

Since you said you were not having problems with outbound calls then my guess would be that you want to leave Atlanta alone and not block it at all.

When you place an outgoing call the vms server location used is normally the same as the proxy your registered to in an unaltered system and in your case that would be Atlanta based on your MJ phone number.

Incoming calls are a different beast. These are initiated from an invite passed to your MJ from whatever proxy your registered with but the vms server is chosen and passed in this invite by YMAX (magicjacks parent company) based on the location of the calling party's connection.

So your incoming vms server will change depending on where the call is originating from under normal circumstances. I would imagine YMAX has some fail-over and so it may be that you can block some particularly bad vms servers but I have never tried this myself.

Wrlea wrote:
VaHam wrote:You really shouldn't need to do any port forwarding in the router. MJ should open up the ports for you on a properly working system. Did you find that you had to do port forwarding in order to get MJ working at all? If so that may be a hint that MJ opening ports for you could be a problem.
I 'port forwarded' the udp ports 5060-5070 because the MJ tech site recommended to do it. And, of course, it did not make any noticeable difference at all. Perhaps I will remove them.

If it ain't broke don't fix it

By that I mean opening ports should be unnecessary; so why open them up to the world.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 4:23 pm

Here's and old thread over at dsl reports that has more info on blocking vms servers http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r218176 ... vms+server hopefully this will help.

Wrlea · Post by **Wrlea** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:38 pm

sabresfan wrote:Here's and old thread over at dsl reports that has more info on blocking vms servers http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r218176 ... vms+server hopefully this will help.

What I get from reading the above thread is the feeling that we probably should not be doing this proxy blocking in the first place. Many people doing it would put a strain on the system and if everybody started doing it the whole system would probably crash. According to various posts here it used to be that if you blocked a proxy, all the associated vms servers were also blocked. Now, by my own experiments, I see they are not. Seems to me someone may be doing some defensive modifications on the system.

I have observed that when making a call now, with 8 proxys blocked, it takes a noticeably longer time of silence before the call gets connected. So I have decided to unblock all proxys and tolerate the occasional static. Surely Magic Jack is aware of the problem and hopefully will increase their capacity to solve it. Maybe Magic Jack Plus will do that. $20 per year for phone service is virtually free and is less than the tacked-on junk fees I used to pay the telephone company for my telephone. I would be willing to pay a little more than that to help them increase their capacity or to ease their growing pains.

I'm going to back away from this problem because the solution is not in my computer -- it lies elsewhere. And I see by the number of readers of this thread and other threads that the problem is well known.

Wayne League

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:58 pm

Wrlea wrote: and tolerate the occasional static.

You are more tolerant than I would be. Sorry it didn't work. Hopefully there will be more suggestions headed your way. Occasional static is one thing, completely un-hearable calls is another, that shouldn't be happening.

sabresfan · Post by **sabresfan** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 2:40 pm

If the vms servers aren't blocked as well I don't blame you for not wanting to mess with it. With both of my MJ's when I block the proxy the vms servers are blocked as well. Good luck and keep us updated.

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Intermittent bad audio on incoming calls

Intermittent bad audio on incoming calls

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