New MJP2014 Occasional noise, dropped calls

[Steven W]

Hi all just got the 2014 a few days ago. Twice now I've heard odd noise and then the call drops.

First Time, I went to make a call and had no dial tone, looked at MJP and noticed it had only one blue light on. I unplugged, plugged back in and reset router. Came up, connected and during call I heard what I'd describe as waves crashing against shore, call dropped, lights went out, just unplugged/replugged MJP, lights came back up and worked fine rest of day.

Today, in call, started stuttering, went to screeching noise, dropped call, but went back to dial tone, called back has been fine since.

Any ideas?

FYI, MJP does not show up in router's DHCP Client List!!?

Edit: looked in the security logs and I can see where the router assigns it an IP address which is one higher than the PC (makes sense) and I can Ping the stupid thing...but still doesn't show in Client list, how the heck did they do that? UPnP?

[greenman]

Hi all just got the 2014 a few days ago. Twice now I've heard odd noise and then the call drops.

First Time, I went to make a call and had no dial tone, looked at MJP and noticed it had only one blue light on. I unplugged, plugged back in and reset router. Came up, connected and during call I heard what I'd describe as waves crashing against shore, call dropped, lights went out, just unplugged/replugged MJP, lights came back up and worked fine rest of day.

Today, in call, started stuttering, went to screeching noise, dropped call, but went back to dial tone, called back has been fine since.

Any ideas?

FYI, MJP does not show up in router's DHCP Client List!!?

Edit: looked in the security logs and I can see where the router assigns it an IP address which is one higher than the PC (makes sense) and I can Ping the stupid thing...but still doesn't show in Client list, how the heck did they do that? UPnP?

In your router setup, statically assign your magicJack plus an IP outside the DHCP range via the MAC address of your magicJack plus.

As to the weird noises, it doesn't surprise me. My wife has sometimes heard what is obviously cross-talk from someone else's conversation. We've both had the mJ+ suddenly drop a call.

Good luck!

[Steven W]

Unfortunately, I have no clue what the MAC address is. As I stated above, it doesn't show in the DHCP client list in the router and the security log just show a generic entries:

12/10/2013 10:56:16 sending ACK to 192.168.2.3
12/10/2013 10:56:16 sending OFFER to 192.168.2.3

I know that's the MJP only because I have two devices hooked up and the PC is shown in the DHCP client list as using 192.168.2.2.

I've also tried the tool:

http://upgrades.magicjack.com/tools/Dis ... GetMAC.exe

it doesn't work either.

[greenman]

Unfortunately, I have no clue what the MAC address is. As I stated above, it doesn't show in the DHCP client list in the router and the security log just show a generic entries:

12/10/2013 10:56:16 sending ACK to 192.168.2.3
12/10/2013 10:56:16 sending OFFER to 192.168.2.3

I know that's the MJP only because I have two devices hooked up and the PC is shown in the DHCP client list as using 192.168.2.2.

What is the brand and version of your router or modem/router combo?

[Steven W]

The modem is a Motorola SB5101 and the router is Belkin F5D7234-4 V5.

Firmware is up to date on the router. Haven't messed with the modem as it's the cable company's.

[Steven W]

greenman, thanks for the prompt reply too. It makes me feel a bit better knowing someone else experienced the dropped calls. I had an old MJ that had some flaws -- the phone never rang (had to set it up to ring speakers) and could not dial with the physical phone unless I used the Tigerjet SDK to reverse the polarity, Caller ID never worked on phone, but the service was, generally speaking, excellent.

I just upgraded to this thing and using the same phone, it rings, caller ID works, and everyone says I sound much clearer.

I have learned that I'm not going to put up with a faulty device that long ever again.

[stevereno]

Locating the MAC address of a networked computer from Windows:

Click Start -> Run, type cmd and click Ok
Type ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, replacing xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the IP address of the computer who's MAC address you want to retrieve
After the ping response has finished, type arp -a
Under Internet Address, locate the IP address you just pinged. In the same line, the corresponding MAC address is listed under Physical Address

[greenman]

greenman, thanks for the prompt reply too. It makes me feel a bit better knowing someone else experienced the dropped calls. I had an old MJ that had some flaws -- the phone never rang (had to set it up to ring speakers) and could not dial with the physical phone unless I used the Tigerjet SDK to reverse the polarity, Caller ID never worked on phone, but the service was, generally speaking, excellent.

I just upgraded to this thing and using the same phone, it rings, caller ID works, and everyone says I sound much clearer.

I have learned that I'm not going to put up with a faulty device that long ever again.

Steven W, it sounds like you have some experience with magicJack, so I'm going to just give some general thoughts.

The Belkin router you're using is pretty old. The only static IP the manual talks about is that of the router itself -- it doesn't seem to be able to dedicate IP's outside the DHCP range to a specific device by MAC address. Bummer. You might be able to extend its capabilities with DD-WRT or Tomato-USB.

Some of the Belkin routers are known to flummox the magicJack device.

I'm glad the new mJ+ works with your phone and everything else.

[Steven W]

Got it! Thank you too, greenman.