Dropped calls.... If it helps...

Cabin Fever · Post by **Cabin Fever** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 7:42 pm

I see quite a few people are battling dropped calls with Magic Jack Plus.

I started using MJ+ in early January. It worked fine, no problems. In the February/March timeframe, that all changed. Calls were dropped after 5-10 min. Seemed to be both incoming and outgoing. I chatted with MJ support a few times with absolutely no luck! (Their first line of customer support is absolutely worthless BTW! If you need to call, be upfront and insist on speaking with a supervisor or a top 10% rated customer support person.)

Anyway, this last person "MAY" have fixed the problem for me. I have since made and received several calls, lasting from 15min - 1hr and 15min, with NO dropped calls! Crossing my fingers that it stays that way!!!

This is the chat log of what was done. Maybe it will help someone else...

You are now chatting with 'Faye'
Faye: This is Faye, a Higher Level of Support. I will be assisting you.
Faye: Please do tell me if the MJ plus is plugged on your router?
Me: Yes it is.
Faye: May I know what is the brand and model of your router please?
Me: Its a Netgear N600 Wireless Duel Band Router Model #WNDR3400v2.
Faye: Please wait while I check that for you
Faye: 1. Please click start and in the Start Search type CMD and press enter, the command prompt will open.
Faye: 2. On the command prompt, type IPCONFIG and press enter then tell me the IPv4 address and the Default Gateway
Me: I don't see an IPv4. I do see a IPv6. it says 2001:0:5ef5:79fd:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX Default Gateway is 192.XXX.X.X
Faye: Please wait while I check that for you
Faye: Please click here
Faye: By default the username is admin, and the password is password. Click the Ok button to log in to your router.
Faye: Okay. Do you see the attached devices?
Me: Yes
Faye: Okay. May I know if you see the MAC Addresses: 6C:33:XX:XX:XX:XX X
Me: Yes, I see it.
Faye: What is the IP address of that?
Me: 192.XXX.X.X
Faye: Okay.
Faye: Click the Port Forwarding
Faye: Put a dot into the Port Forwarding radio button.
Me: There was already one there.
Faye: Click the Add Custom Service button near the bottom of the page.
Me: OK.
Faye: Please add this
Faye: Service Name:Magicjack 1
Faye: Service Type: UDP
Faye: Starting Port: 5060
Faye: Ending Port: 5060
Faye: Server IP Address:192.XXX.X.X
Me: OK. Thats done.
Faye: Service Name:Magicjack 2
Faye: Service Type: UDP
Faye: Starting Port: 5070
Faye: Ending Port: 5070
Faye: Server IP Address:192.XXX.X.X
Me: OK. That's done.
Faye: Okay.
Faye: Now please unplug and replug your magicjack device on your router.
Me: OK. Thats done.
Faye: Please try a test call.
Me: The call went through OK, but sometimes it takes up to 10 minutes before it usually drops the call, so I won't know for a few minutes if the changes helped or not.
Faye: Okay. please try another call.
Me: I would like to see if this call will drop, before placing another call.
Faye: Okay. inform me if it is working now.
Faye: Is there anything else I may help you with today?
Me: Its now gone for 15 minutes and has not dropped the call. I hope this is good sign that the problem has finally been resolved.
Faye: Great
Faye: Before we end this chat, may I ask a *5 seconds to read my survey if I did an Excellent job. Thank you!!
Me: Yes. Could you please email me a copy of the chat log?
Faye: Thank you for stopping by to chat, I hope I did a good job at addressing your concerns. Please take a second to answer a one question survey about the service I provided. Please click the word "CLOSE" button on the top right of this screen and the survey will appear. Thanks again!
Faye: We are not allowed to send emails but you can copy that that and placed it on the notepad.

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:39 pm

For: Faye: Service Name:Magicjack 2
Faye: Service Type: UDP
Faye: Starting Port: 5070
Faye: Ending Port: 5070
Faye: Server IP Address:192.XXX.X.X

Which IP address you put, your computer or the Magic Jack ip?

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 9:10 am

Guys, I have been trying to find an answer for the same issue (dropped calls) impacting many of us (and I still keeping my kitchen knifes not reachable from my wife as I wasn't able to fix this issue). This is the first article with a clear example of how to resolve it -except which exact ip address that was specified when configuring port forwarding but from the context looks was the IP address for the Magic Jack Plus.

I have tried this and so far it is working. There is perhaps one missing step which is to reserve (lock) the MJ+ IP address so it doesn't get assigned to another device when computer or router reboots. What I have done on my router (CISCO-DPC3825) and most likely all have this feature is the following:
Setup->Lan Setup->Pre-Assigned DHCP IP Addresses->
MAC address: put the MAC address of your Magic Jack plus
Assign IP Address: Put the ip address of your Magic Jack Plus

This will ensure that independent of how many devices you connect or if power fails, then, the IP address will always remain the same for your MJ+

From other posts what I had done even before this Port Forwarding, was to put the IP address of my MJ+ in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which in my case had helped a lot but I still got couple of dropped calls after. Hope all these + port forwarding will resolve this anyoing issue.

Cabin Fever · Post by **Cabin Fever** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 11:43 am

arevaa wrote: Which IP address you put, your computer or the Magic Jack ip?

It was the MJ+ IP. I hope this helps. I know how frustrating this problem is!! Its been a few days now and several calls over 10+ minutes, with NO more dropped calls. Sure hope it stays this way....

Be sure to update. Hopefully this will be the answer to many others problems as well.

profster · Post by **profster** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:22 pm

many of us have done this already and still are getting dropped calls. Its all smoke and mirrors. They did something to their system in February sometime and the dropped calls started. I have all the settings you have plus the DMZ and it still drops calls here and there. You never know when and that is what pisses my wife off. I put my plus on a computer usb because that is the only way to truly stop the dropped calls at the moment.

I have suggested to those top 10% including Faye that they look into the problem as being a hardware problem with their units and that they need to upgrade their firmware to stop the dropped calls.

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Tue May 01, 2012 4:06 pm

Even with all changes I made to port forwarding (+ DMZ + locked IP address), dropped calls continue but at a lower rate (still annoying for sure). Hope MJ support find the root cause as this keeps bothering many. I may need to switch to computer/USB configuration if the situation gets worse (is bad right now but my wife is dealing with it).

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Fri May 04, 2012 1:54 pm

Status Update: dropped calls are substantially less. No dropped calls during the last 2 to 3 days.

mh1983 · Post by **mh1983** » Fri May 04, 2012 4:15 pm

You mean it's been better since you put your MJ+ on your computer?

boogmeister1 · Post by **boogmeister1** » Sat May 05, 2012 2:28 pm

I have been getting dropped calls like crazy! I have narrowed it down to cell callers, though. Every time I get a cell call my MJ+ drops after EXACTLY 3 minutes 53 seconds. It doesn't matter who the carrier is... att, verizon, tmobile...

I'm about to throw this POS out the window and switch to Ooma. I have been a loyal MJ customer for the last 3-4 years and never had a problem until I "upgraded" to MJ+... what a major disappointment.

I hope you guys find a solution to this problem, I think I might just switch to Ooma. If MJ+ get's fixed, I might use it for travel.

Boog

docooo · Post by **docooo** » Sat May 05, 2012 5:09 pm

What about calling out to a cell ..??

I have had none of these problems with my MJ+ .. I run WRT54G running WRT Firmware .. Did not do any of the port forwarding stuff .. only thing I did was to get the MJ away from the pwr so it does not heat up

Doc

krb · Post by **krb** » Sat May 05, 2012 6:12 pm

I've been using MJ+ for 3 months and have found the call quality decreasing and the frequency of dropped calls rapidly increasing - almost every call gets interrupted with no consistent time limit before the drop.

This is a great concept but it is just not dependable, in my experience at least.

If anyone has any experience with Vonage or netTALK, I'd love to hear opinions - there's NO way I'm going back to Rogers...

Tks

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Sun May 06, 2012 10:23 am

arevaa wrote:Status Update: dropped calls are substantially less. No dropped calls during the last 2 to 3 days -still connected wired to my router. May.06=Status update: continues running fine. dropped calls is less and less

Cabin Fever · Post by **Cabin Fever** » Mon May 07, 2012 4:46 pm

Well, for whatever reason, I started getting dropped calls again!!! I just talked for 2 min and 50 sec, then the call dropped. Called the person back, and the POS dropped the call AGAIN after 4 min! I am so frustrated with this POS!! It worked fine until Feb/March, then it went to hell!!

Is it possible to roll back to a previous version to see if that would help??

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Thu May 10, 2012 2:44 pm

same thing here. Yesterday some more dropped calls. No idea what to do next and technical support not sure can give us an answer. May need connect to the USB port on my desktop. argg.

mh1983 · Post by **mh1983** » Fri May 11, 2012 7:49 am

Yeah, I'm tapped out from trying workarounds for MJ+ to work properly plugged into a router.

Thinking of going the USB route, too, which defeats the purpose of the device (for me), but at least we know it's more reliable.

I see a lot of posts about thin clients, but I've only seen the regular MJ mentioned in those threads.

Has anyone gone the thin client route with their MJ+? If so, can anyone recommend a specific type of client that works well?

Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks!

spc · Post by **spc** » Sat May 12, 2012 8:44 am

You may want to try the latest mj upgrade, ver 2.06073.4413

upgrades.magicjack.com/upgrade/magicJackSetup.exe

profster · Post by **profster** » Sun May 13, 2012 5:24 pm

spc wrote:You may want to try the latest mj upgrade, ver 2.06073.4413

upgrades.magicjack.com/upgrade/magicJackSetup.exe

What is the date of the latest mj upgrade you are saying works here. If it is not in the past week or less, it does not help a bit with the dropped calls. I further checked the digital signature on that file and it is dated February 1st, 2012. I'm wondering if that is the file that is causing all the problems with dropped calls. It was in February when the dropped calls started for many of us.

mh1983 · Post by **mh1983** » Mon May 14, 2012 7:34 am

Hmmm, interesting, although we got our MJ+ late February and it worked fine for around a month. THEN the dropped calls started. So the degraded service may have to do with the trial period being over?

I'd like to troubleshoot the MJ+ firmware, though, and roll back to an earlier one. How would I go about doing that?

donorakh · Post by **donorakh** » Mon May 14, 2012 1:33 pm

Yeah, these dropped calls are getting ridiculous. My router has it's firewall turned off, so the port forwarding solution is irrelevant for me. I also started encountering a significant amount of dropped calls around late march and onward. I hope this situation gets rectified soon, otherwise I might have to go back to traditional phone service

tcgc70 · Post by **tcgc70** » Mon May 14, 2012 5:59 pm

I have 2 regular MJ's and they work fine plugged into the computer. I bought a plus in October 2011 when they came out, and like a lot of others it worked fine until February, and then started dropping calls. I have changed routers, modems, longer usb cables, and still have dropped calls. It works fine when plugged into the computer. It has to be a downgrade "they" did!

thealien · Post by **thealien** » Tue May 15, 2012 2:41 pm

From day 1, (bought new in october 2011) my MagicJack+ never quite worked properly as a stand alone. It would drop calls, have occasionally choppy sound coming and going in "waves", sometimes not even getting a dial tone.

But when connected to my computer, it always worked better. Not perfect, mind you, but definitely better. I still get the occasional dropped calls.

I did have several sessions with online help, and things got a little better for a while (mostly after the January major firmware update) but since then, things have gone back to the same thing.

It's definitely not at my end (even when connected directly to a dedicated cable-modem, no router, it doesn't work 100%).

The dropped calls seem to be caused by connection recycling, due to lack of available free connections and overloaded server on their network.
As a potential clue of that, I can't even get a dial tone after a dropped call for several minutes...

So we've come to call it MagicCrap minus, in our neck of the woods... But still it's pretty inexpensive. So I guess we get what we pay for...

One thing for sure, at the end of my one year, I won't renew my subscription. Never more shall I be a victim of stupid infomercials.

black_icon · Post by **black_icon** » Tue May 15, 2012 6:26 pm

My MJ plus is now 3 months old and it's working flawlessly. I'm also experiencing drop calls sometimes but the overall compliment is that, it's pretty good.

In my own opinion, it depends on how you use your MJ and configuration of your system has something to do on it.

Keizer · Post by **Keizer** » Tue May 15, 2012 8:09 pm

black_icon wrote:My MJ plus is now 3 months old and it's working flawlessly. I'm also experiencing drop calls sometimes but the overall compliment is that, it's pretty good. In my own opinion, it depends on how you use your MJ and configuration of your system has something to do on it.

I'm having the same experience with my MJ plus. I have had a dropped call a few times, but when it happened, I was able to call them right back instantly. Otherwise, call quality has been equal to that of a land line. Mine is connected directly to my modem/router and I haven't done any of the port forwarding stuff. Heck, I have had dropped calls with my land line before when calling my girlfriend.

I talked to my girl friend last night long distance for over an hour. No delays, or drops, or nothing. Great call quality all the time. Plus, my son is usually online gaming when I make calls in the evening.

I wonder if dropped calls has something to do with peoples internet connection? Maybe it's not stable at times? I have DSL, and the phone company just installed all new fiber optics and increased our speed for free. My internet connection is really stable.

Melman · Post by **Melman** » Tue May 15, 2012 10:23 pm

I'm having the same experience with my MJ plus. I have had a dropped call a few times, but when it happened, I was able to call them right back instantly. Otherwise, call quality has been equal to that of a land line. Mine is connected directly to my modem/router and I haven't done any of the port forwarding stuff. Heck, I have had dropped calls with my land line before when calling my girlfriend.

I talked to my girl friend last night long distance for over an hour. No delays, or drops, or nothing. Great call quality all the time. Plus, my son is usually online gaming when I make calls in the evening.

I wonder if dropped calls has something to do with peoples internet connection? Maybe it's not stable at times? I have DSL, and the phone company just installed all new fiber optics and increased our speed for free. My internet connection is really stable.[/quote]

My internet is stable as well using Comcast high speed internet connection at 35 mbps download and 5 mbps upload, setup with a netgear 3400 dual band 3400 wireless router and a magicJack plus hooked up to the router. We also have experienced the dropped calls, sometimes after several minutes or after a long telephone call.

With reading these forums on a regular basis, my conclusion is that many of us have different routers and configurations and yet we are all experiencing the similar dropped call syndrome. It's nice that we can try to voice our opinions here, but how can we send these messages over to the magicJack tech guys, so they can come up with a solution to solve these glitches? I'm sure they are aware of the problems and complaints.

So far I can live with the few dropped calls, as when I am on the phone the quality is as good as a landline, and since I have been a magicJack user since 2008, it has saved me a ton of money. But I want to be perfect like everybody else here including magicJack. We need MJ to help us be loyal customers and for that business to succeed is to let us users be aware that they are working on this problem, so we have patience and faith on a fix.

Cabin Fever · Post by **Cabin Fever** » Thu May 17, 2012 6:14 am

I've resorted to plugging the MJ+ into my PC via USB. It's been like that for a week now, with no dropped calls....... YET anyway! Time will tell! Defeats the purpose of getting the "+", but it sucks otherwise with dropping calls.

black_icon · Post by **black_icon** » Thu May 17, 2012 7:33 pm

Goodluck to all of us...

profster · Post by **profster** » Mon May 21, 2012 10:31 am

After many chats about dropped calls, I finally got them to admit that the problem is not from the router settings as long as you have port fwded or dmz.

I received an email from them that says the following:

REFERENCE NUMBER: LTK554074059803X Please use this ticket number in any correspondence with us.
SUBJECT:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting us.

We are aware of the issue of calls being dropped. We are currently working on a solution for this problem. Kindly bear with us and we will have the problem rectified as soon as possible.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

magicJack Support

That in inself proves that they are aware of the dropped calls problem. Whether or not they can fix it is another question.

brichh · Post by **brichh** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 3:23 pm

Hi guys, just as an FYI looking through here.

I'm an IT professional (not with MagicJack) and wanted to comment on a few things and help some understand the basics of networking and maybe this could shed some light.

MagicJack while plugged into your network will normally get an IP address on your internal network - typically from your router or modem. Your router will have actually two addresses - an internal one (typically something like 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 something like that) and an external one that your internet provider(ISP) will give you. Normally it doesn't matter much to you what your external IP address is.

Someone made a comment about not having a firewall enabled on your router so port forwarding doesn't apply to them. That's flat out wrong. the two are unrelated. the best example I can think of is to think of an apartment. The complex has an address and each tenant has an apartment number. The mailman would deliver the mail to the complex and depending on the apartment number he knows which box to put it in. If there wasn't an apartment number, he couldn't possible know which mailbox to put it in. Your router works the same way basically and it's called NAT (network address translation). This is what port forwarding does. It saves the mailman from having to ask the apartment complex which apartment number someone is in. In this way, it speeds up the processing which could help prevent losses due (dropped calls). Firewalls basically say to the mailman to not deliver mail to mailbox A or B or whatever, it doesn't tell it who is which like NAT. So the other thing is that one you set up port forwarding (this port to this IP like mentioned) your magicJack device would then have to always have the same IP. Depending on the router, it may require MagicJack to ask for a new IP address every so often so that could explain why it works for a little bit. You would have to make sure that the unit has a static address for the port forwarding to work correct. Also, if you are using a lot of bandwidth and there isn't enough for your phone, you could also experience that as well.

Of course though, these are things on your side of things. everything from your ISP to magic jack to your other party's phone carrier can create issues to.

Hope it helps any...

Hadz · Post by **Hadz** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 1:08 pm

arevaa wrote:same thing here. Yesterday some more dropped calls. No idea what to do next and technical support not sure can give us an answer. May need connect to the USB port on my desktop. argg.

You can plug it in directly to the usb port of your computer. . .

arevaa · Post by **arevaa** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 10:37 am

Forgot to put an update since earlier this year. MJ+ is now working for me quite well. No dropped calls anymore, however I did leave the original settings I made (static ip+DMZ etc from my earlier post). I am very satisfied with it. I even took it abroad on a trip and made calls without issues. I am planning to buy 2 more to send them back home.

mh1983 · Post by **mh1983** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 11:44 am

Continuing to have excellent service, too, since the firmware downgrade. I even changed modems/routers (kept MJ+ at the same firmware), and MJ+ still works flawlessly.

Pilot · Post by **Pilot** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:55 pm

i never had any problems with my mj+ ever since i got it early last summer to replace my std. mj.

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