magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

maxjivi05 wrote:my Caller ID works but it don't show who's calling on the other line while we are on the phone but it shows up on the softphone... I tried this fix and it didn't do anything to help... does anyone know why it don't do that or away to fix it?

Are you saying that your phone shows the number but not the persons name?

If that is the case just program the person into you phone and it will show. The caller ID only contains the callers number not the name. The name comes from your telephones phone book.

No I am saying when I'm on the phone with someone and someone beeps in it just beeps... It don't show a name or number it just continues to beep till they hangup. It would be nice to know who is calling to see if you want to answer it or not... is there away to fix this?

maxjivi05 wrote:No I am saying when I'm on the phone with someone and someone beeps in it just beeps... It don't show a name or number it just continues to beep till they hangup. It would be nice to know who is calling to see if you want to answer it or not... is there away to fix this?

That is call waiting ID. Does your phone have that feature?

Yes I have the DECT 6.0 and my old phone I had before these had the same feature and same problem with MJ

maxjivi05 wrote:Yes I have the DECT 6.0 and my old phone I had before these had the same feature and same problem with MJ

Did they show Call Waiting ID when connect to a regular phone line?

I tried my band new Panasonic DECT 6 with MJ and it doesn't show call waiting ID either. But there was no claim it did Call Waiting ID on the Box.

I looked up several units in between posts and it seems to be a feature that some caller ID units and some Phones have, but not all. Maybe we just got unlucky when we picked ours up.

Maybe... Yes my phone's did call waiting caller id before on normal landlines just not on MJ..

Hey thanks for this "quick fix" it did work!!!

This mod restored the Caller ID to my new MajiJack. Thanks! I made one small mod to the mod however. To preserve the true spirit of the onhook offhook telco signalling which uses the presence of DC current flow in the balanced phoneline loop to signal offhook, I used a small non-polar electrolytic capacitor of value 100uf @50v to go in series with a 120k quarter watt resistor. It all fit inside of one of those small 1 in, 3 out line triplexers in the little tan plastic module. It plugs onto the back of the MJ and WORKS GREAT!

I wonder though. Before the mod, with my tests, the caller ID was totally FAIL to about any ID reader or ID reader/phone combo that I tried, using a 6 inch piece of modular phone line so there would be no possibility of distributed capacitance or inductance due to the phone line between the MJ and handset. It makes me wonder where the ringing or distortion is really coming from that is interfering with the caller ID burst that goes out between the 1st and 2nd ring. It is a burst of 1200 baud modem squawk.

There might be some other kind of thing going on like the ICs in MJ maybe needing some more bypassing like they left out a little filter cap somwhere? Or maybe there is so much gain that it is going into a parasitic oscillation and putting out some high frequency audio or low frequency RF on its output.

hmmm, I dont care, this works great. on to other projects! thanks again.

Sparki wrote:This mod restored the Caller ID to my new MajiJack. Thanks! I made one small mod to the mod however. To preserve the true spirit of the onhook offhook telco signalling which uses the presence of DC current flow in the balanced phoneline loop to signal offhook, I used a small non-polar electrolytic capacitor of value 100uf @50v to go in series with a 120k quarter watt resistor.

So what are you gaining by adding the cap?

Sparki,

"100uf @50v to go in series with a 120k quarter watt resistor"

1 I thought it had worked out to be a 100K Ohm resistor?

2 If you feel it is necessary to add DC isolation with the capacitor, 50 volts seem a little low to me. I thought typical Telco line voltage was pretty damn close to 50 volts, i.e. 45 to 50. So the value you picked doesn't seem to give much leg room.

3 As far as what the resistor does - it is not uncommon in similar system that super impose a signal on top of another to require a termination resistance to develop the signal (caller ID in this case).

There is another system that I have use in industry that does the same thing by imposing a data stream on top of a 4-20 ma control loop, called "Heart Protocol". Generally because of the low impedance you have to put a resistive termination across the loop to read the data stream. I believe the same thing is happening here with the caller ID. These new phones and the MJ device provide such a high impedance that their is nothing to develop the ID signal across - in comes the 100 K Ohm resistor. The phones that work without the resistor most likely present a little lower resistance to the MJ unit allowing the Caller ID signal to be sensed correctly by the phone.

PS - @ Boondocs, the capacitor effectively gives him an open circuit to DC which more closely resembles the on-hook circuit an incoming Telco line normally expects to see. But in todays phones you have the ring detector circuit across the incoming Telco lines so IMHO the capacitor is not buy him anything, except a bigger challenge getting it all in his coupler package.

Problem: CID would not work. I have the 3rd generation dongle purchased November, 2008, with the latest firmware update now installed. I’m running an AT&T DECT 6.0 phone base with 3 remote handsets. Base is wired to the MJ with about 35 feet of conventional flat stranded copper-core 4-wire phone line. Knew the problem was very likely related to the length, which at 35 feet, is apparently longish for MJ. The MJ dongle is plugged into a desktop motherboard-mounted USB 2.0 port using the short USB cable provided by MJ. The computer is hard-wired to the router. For testing purposes, MJ is currently the only thing running off of a USB port except my printer. Haven't gotten to Radio Shack yet to try the 100K resistor fix, but I read on a board somewhere that the addition of an old corded phone in parallel to the phone system I was using seemed to work for someone, so I tried it. Wow. It worked. Go figure. I dragged out an old Bell South wired phone, plugged a 2-into-1 coupler directly into MJ then connected the 35-ft. line to the AT&T phone into one socket of the coupler, and the old Bell South phone into the other. Presto! I now have CID on the AT&T phone (the old Bell South phone doesn't have CID capability of course). I wanted to be sure I wasn't coming to the old "Frog" conclusion (scientist: ". . . cut off both frog's legs, then yelled at frog to jump. Frog would not jump. Conclusion: cutting off frog's legs makes frog go deaf. . ."), so, I unplugged the Bell South phone, and the CID on the AT&T phone quit working. Reconnected the Bell South, and the AT&T CID started working again. So far it’s been consistent. It may be that the old Bell South phone has the appropriate resistance built in. But at this point, who cares? It works!

Now, chapter 2: I would really like it to work with my DISH on-screen CID, so I hooked up another 2-into-1 coupler at the AT&T phone base and ran a 15 foot 4-wire phone cable to the DISH receiver (AT&T phone base and DISH receiver then both connected to the end of the 35-foot MJ line). CID gone again. Disconnected the AT&T phone, and the DISH CID worked fine. Disconnected the DISH receiver, reconnected the phone, CID OK. (Note: the Bell South phone remained connected throughout the tests.) So – the problem is not entirely solved, which means a trip to Radio Shack after all.

The CID problem notwithstanding, I have to admit that I’m really pleased with MJ. I do sometimes get some faint echoes but not really a problem. Can’t really say too much good about the chat help. It’s fine for “standard” problems I guess, but I spent a good deal of time on the CID issue with their only solution being for me to get a new phone (and the ubiquitous powered USB hub solution, which I tried to no avail). The on-screen popup dialer issue is no big deal since I can just tuck it down into the corner of the screen, effectively making it go away (although if I’m gaming – rarely – it causes the game to minimize which can get annoying). Anyhow, there seems to be a freeware fix to eliminate it that I simply haven’t been sufficiently compelled to use yet. Nevertheless, in spite of all that, I went ahead and upped the ante and went for the 5-year deal for $60. I figure, if worse comes to absolute worst and I have to trash the whole thing, I’m only out $105 bucks ($40 initial, $5 shipping, and $60 5-year add-on). Hardly a life-changing expenditure. Especially since I was running around $90 a month for my old AT&T long distance service. I’ve already saved that much by dumping the AT&T service. I figure that if this thing’s a success (and it’s looking like it’s going to be), then some big company is going to buy out the inventor/owner for a grillion dollars and we can say good bye to the $20/year bargain. So, even if I never satisfactorily resolve the CID issue (and everything else remains status quo), $1 a month sure beats the pants off of $90 a month! Thanks to everyone out there who have given me so much to work with on this issue. Now . . . off to Radio Shack . . .

OK. The conclusion of chapter 2: Before I fired up the Suburban and headed out in the snow to Radio Shack for a resister-run, I decided to rummage through my electronics box and see what I could find. Found an old no-name junk phone and took a screw driver to it. Located a 240K resistor on the phone board (red-yellow-yellow), figured it was close enough, and de-soldered it from the board. Took apart an old line filter from my old DSL days (I now have cable internet), cut out the guts, and installed the 240K resistor across the red and green lines. Took out the old Bell South phone, plugged the modified line-filter box inline from the MJ to my 35+ foot phone line to my base, connected up my DISH receiver and, lo-and-behold, everything works! CID lives! Even pushed my luck and added my stand-alone fax machine, and, still - everything works! My hat's off to whoever came up with this fix (snafu2?) and Bronx cheers to Magic Jack for not incorporating this simple fix in their manufacture. I mean, come on, these resistors cost a fraction of a penny in bulk. Clearly the problem is pretty wide-spread. Why are WE having to go through the effort to figure out and solve this problem? Anyhow, all whining aside, the resister solution worked perfectly. Again, many thanks to all of you out there who are doing all the work to figure these things out so the rest of us can benefit. My problem’s solved. I’ll be back if something else comes up.

GTF wrote:and Bronx cheers to Magic Jack for not incorporating this simple fix in their manufacture. I mean, come on, these resistors cost a fraction of a penny in bulk.

IMO MJ (or TigerJet) doesn't test this stuff with a lot of phones (or operating environments). That's the reason the upgrades affect so many people so negatively. It's too bad MJ doesn't make better use of their customer-base to improve the product.

Mark

az2008 wrote:

GTF wrote:and Bronx cheers to Magic Jack for not incorporating this simple fix in their manufacture. I mean, come on, these resistors cost a fraction of a penny in bulk.

IMO MJ (or TigerJet) doesn't test this stuff with a lot of phones (or operating environments). That's the reason the upgrades affect so many people so negatively. It's too bad MJ doesn't make better use of their customer-base to improve the product.

Mark

Hell Mark,

This forum, if they would monitor it a little closer would provide them with all the insight you just mentioned. It is one thing to not test as you should but then on top of that ignore a fee source like this site is ... well that is just plain "not very smart" (I did have something else there but decided to make it a little more friendly toward MJ).

Just got MJ a few days back. Had intermittent CID, so I got the 100k resistor installed and voila!! One question though...The CID doesn't go away from the display of the phone? It stays on the display unless another call comes in, or I pick up the handset and open the line. I thought I saw this question on here before but cannot find it again...any advice?

domey wrote:Just got MJ a few days back. Had intermittent CID, so I got the 100k resistor installed and voila!! One question though...The CID doesn't go away from the display of the phone? It stays on the display unless another call comes in, or I pick up the handset and open the line. I thought I saw this question on here before but cannot find it again...any advice?

domey,

I would think that is a problem if you want to call it a problem that is associated with the Telephone it is not the MJ doing that.

What make and model of phone are you using?

All I can say is wow...Thanks... it worked perfectly.

ikeandcj wrote:When I do the resistor fix I can make calls but I can't receive calls.
When I call my MJ from my cell, the soft phone pops up and then it disconnects??

Hi, I know this was posted a long time ago but its my first time here. I'm a professional phone service technician of 9+ years and I can tell you exactly what is going on.

Ok so what is what we call a "ringing short". Name is self explanatory. The technical details are as follows. When a phone is not ringing, being used or not, it sits with about -48v and 30ma . But when it rings the phone goes to a simulated alternating current of roughly 120v, the alternating is what made the old bells ring with the bell solenoid forced in quick opposite directions. Now everything is electronic bells but how they are activated remains the same. Ok now Snafu i appreciate your ingenuity but this "fix" is really a bad idea. Whether your phone service comes from the phone company or off a magic jack, they have to power your phones the same way. I havent broke out my meter yet on the MJ's output and listened to the CID data burst after the first ring yet to know whats preventing it from working yet, though i probly will soon because mine just goes to 1 base phone with a multi handset. What i do know is that a perfect phone line to me has over a 3.5meg tip to ring short (thats the resistance between the red and green wires, or solid/stripe depending on your wiring), and over a 3.5meg tip to ground and ring to ground (thats each individual wires resistance to earth). And any short below 1 mega ohm is capable of producing static. And if you introduce a 100k short to your phone network then your lucky if never hear the static then I would say thats because the MJ is probly a little underpowered and the electrons are not jumping that 100k gap. But when the phone rings, that first ring has enough power to jump that gap, in some cases. That jump completes the circuit thereby technically answering the call itself and soon as that happens the ringing stops because it sees the short, assuming it was answered, but since you actually have not yet gotten to the phone and its still on hook the call terminates itself thinking it was hung up as soon as it was answered.

I hope I was able to dumb this down enough for everyone. The problem with knowing how to do this stuff is the people you normally talk about it with also do the same job and its really not a easy thing to put into simple terms. If anyone has questions please email me directly at [email protected]. I'm not much of a forum checker unless its something im investigating for myself so I probably will not be checking replies, I just hope this helps some of you. The one downside of this kind of service is you have to be your on support, and if you do not have the training, a small problem could be difficult for you. I'll look into the CID issue, but my gut feeling without checking it yet, is a lack of power, milliamps specifically, from the MJ to push the data pulse to your phones. I'm having the same issue so if i get around to finding a non damaging solution I'll post again.

One last thing, there is an old saying "If it works, don't fix it". So if this fix works for you great! I wouldn't recommend it but it does not cause permanent damage and is easily undone. Just keep in mind if you experience a "ringing short" don't blame the MJ, blame that resistor first, and if thats not it. check your cordless phones first, then fax/sat. receivers and alarms second, and finally hard wired phones last for the cause. Because most shorts are caused by customer equipment and all it takes is 1 to be the problem to knock all of your phone devices out. Again, email me if anyone experiences any other issues they can not find answers to. I'll be happy to help.

So if i do this little resistor thing the name of the person will come up on caller id? I already get the number but not a name.

Just saying, another working confirmation. Thanks to all who help make this thing work like it should.

C.I.D. ON MAGICJACK ASS WITH THE 100K RESISTOR DOES NOT WORK!

LikeMagic wrote:Here's the picture of my 100K resistor mod in a standard phone jack coupler (MagicJack <---> Coupler <---> Telephone):



Note: if you perform this mod, don't forget to use electrical tape to cover the resistor's exposed wires to prevent short

Hey, from what I can see in the photo, that resistor is banded 'brown, black, black', which is a 10 ohm resistor. What it should be is brown, black, yellow for 100K.

A 5 color band resistor (precision) uses first 3 bands for value and 4th for multiplier and 5th for tolerance percentage. So, what would that make a 100k? Brown, Black, Black, Orange, Brown (if its 1 percent tolerance)

Sparki wrote:A 5 color band resistor (precision) uses first 3 bands for value and 4th for multiplier and 5th for tolerance percentage. So, what would that make a 100k? Brown, Black, Black, Orange, Brown (if its 1 percent tolerance)

I guess I just showed my advanced age. I didn't even know we had 5 color band resistors..... Everything in my inventory is 3 band with, of course, a precision band. Thanks for educating this old fart!!!

Sparki wrote:A 5 color band resistor (precision) uses first 3 bands for value and 4th for multiplier and 5th for tolerance percentage. So, what would that make a 100k? Brown, Black, Black, Orange, Brown (if its 1 percent tolerance)

Am I correct that, while this will solve the CID problem, it won't help the 'no ring' problem?

Yes, this will not help the phone to ring. The 100k resistor absorbs some of the overmodulation that sometimes occurs on an unterminated (the phone is on-hook) telephone line, which allows the Caller ID's FSK tones to be interpreted by your telephone.

There are several threads here that talk about ringing problems. But, briefly here, most ringing problems are caused by a weak ring current from the MJ not being seen by the very demanding telephone instrument. How many REN is your telephone? Or, what is the sum of RENs on all of the phones connected to the MJ? Are you using your MJ with a laptop or tower PC? Naked USB jack or powered hub? Does your softphone indicate an incoming call?

I recommend you join the ring problem discussions to get to the root of your trouble.

mberlant wrote:Yes, this will not help the phone to ring. The 100k resistor absorbs some of the overmodulation that sometimes occurs on an unterminated (the phone is on-hook) telephone line, which allows the Caller ID's FSK tones to be interpreted by your telephone.

There are several threads here that talk about ringing problems. But, briefly here, most ringing problems are caused by a weak ring current from the MJ not being seen by the very demanding telephone instrument. How many REN is your telephone? Or, what is the sum of RENs on all of the phones connected to the MJ? Are you using your MJ with a laptop or tower PC? Naked USB jack or powered hub? Does your softphone indicate an incoming call?

I recommend you join the ring problem discussions to get to the root of your trouble.

I am connected to just one wireless phone system with a REN of 0.08. I'm using a USB port on a tower computer and I also tried a plug in card with 4 USB ports. Haven't tried a powered USB hub yet. Yes the softphone shows the call and my wireless DECT 6.0 phone's screen lights up and shows the CID but no ring. It does ring an older wireless phone I have and an old wired handset.
I've looked at all the threads I could find on 'no ring' and they just keep saying try a different phone. I've also emailed MJ and gotten two replies to tell me to try a powered hub. There goes another $23 plus shipping. I'm not going to get nickeled and dimed with this thing before I spend what it would have cost for an ooma.

That sounds like the ringer on that phone is turned off. CID is sent between the first and second ring. If you take it off hook when you see the CID display, does it answer the call?

murphy wrote:That sounds like the ringer on that phone is turned off. CID is sent between the first and second ring. If you take it off hook when you see the CID display, does it answer the call?

Yep, I can answer the call and talk normally. Everything works but no ring. Strange.

tjnamtiw wrote:

murphy wrote:That sounds like the ringer on that phone is turned off. CID is sent between the first and second ring. If you take it off hook when you see the CID display, does it answer the call?

Yep, I can answer the call and talk normally. Everything works but no ring. Strange.

Oh and the ringer isn't turned off because I can immediately plug it into a landline and it will ring when called.

I am using my MJ as a second line and it is used on L2. In that case the resistor needs to go between Yellow and Black. As I am using some house wiring, i simply installed the resistor between the screw terminals in side of the wall jack. My CID now works OK using two AT&T 993 two line phones.
I have wondered if some people may be having problems if they put the resistor across the wrong wires.

Just registered on this forum to say that the 100k Ohm fixed my caller id problem with my brand new Panasonic 2-line phone.

The cables were a bitch to solder and I didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the whole thing when I plugged it in. But to my amazement it really did work

SandmanCL wrote:Just registered on this forum to say that the 100k Ohm fixed my caller id problem with my brand new Panasonic 2-line phone.

The cables were a bitch to solder and I didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the whole thing when I plugged it in. But to my amazement it really did work

Thanks for the feedback "Sandman". I am not the originator of the fix and unfortunately I don't remember the authors name but it has save a lot of folks bacon on this forum.

By the way Wall-Mart sells a small coupler to wall connection box 2x2x1 and it uses screw terminals so if you don't have access to a soldering iron this gadget makes the resistor mod a piece of cake.

Also the resistor wattage 1/4, 1/2 ... or larger does not make any difference the 1/4 watt is more than big enough to handle anything the phone line will through at it. I actually used an 1/8 watt resistor and it is just fine.

Ok I have been building a new server to replace a slower one which has been running for 6 years now. AMD+XP/Apache/PhP5/MySQL/VNC/new PHP appz/and Magic Jack

Actually its all done and works great so I have had time, or i now have to take time to try to fiddle with the output from the MJ to get it just right before putting it all into the server hutch with the filtered air supply etc etc never to be seen again until its time to re lube all the fans (with syntec) again in about 1 year and clean the filters etc...

anywayz, 2 goals in messing with the MJ now were to experiment with whats going on with the CID and the 100k resistor and to possibly find out why some phones ring when a call is coming in through MJ and others dont.

Some success on the CID 100k resistor enigma but nothing yet on why the Bell 5.8 gig wireless phone base unit wont signal ring to the handsets (cid goes out to the handsets ok)

Anyway back to the resistor. I have a system here that absolutely will NOT push CID to any of my phones without that resistor mod in place. Until now. I have found via experimentation that all of my CID units start displaying Caller ID again even though the 100k resistor across the line has been removed if I have placed a small in value inductor in series with one side of the telco line where it comes out of the MJ.

Something on the order of 68uh small. Micro Henrys. Basically a standard RF choke. This choke would have no affect at that line impedance on any frequencies below about 50,000 cps probably so that tells me where the interference is. Either some noise from the MJ processor is getting on the line or perhaps the choke tunes out some minor amount of capacitance in the MJ and straightens the CID data up but I think its more likely the noise factor. When a 200k resistor across the 600 ohm phoneline fixes the problem you know its something very small that is affecting things.

For all the experimenters out there, try this and let us know. Everyone else should stick with the resistor if you like that one better

This direction of experimentation is tied to the ringing problem as I wanted to get everything off of the line that could be loading it and see if that had an effect on the Bell wireless phone non-ringing problem. It hasnt so far but if the choke works for people then it might be a way to maintain the sanctity of the line while fixing the CID problem.

I am going to test the CID / choke mod with the MJ to feed a 50' backbone phone line that runs down the middle of the house and see how the Caller ID decodes on the far end. Then I wanna cram all this stuff into the hutch and move on to the next project, but I have to say this has been a TON OF TELCO FUN.

more laterz

nah, scratch that above post. stick with the resistor mod. as soon as I put a handset on the line (an electronic phone) with a line powered ringer the CID died again so I swaped the resistor mod back in and tried again and CID came back. so thats it. no further improvement trying any other kind of compensation network. so use the resistor. and as far as the ringing problem goes, try a different phone or be prepared to go into the phone and start messing. which I am going to do next

100k fixed me right up for the caller ID. Thanks!

HolmanGT wrote:
Thanks for the feedback "Sandman". I am not the originator of the fix and unfortunately I don't remember the authors name but it has save a lot of folks bacon on this forum.

By the way Wall-Mart sells a small coupler to wall connection box 2x2x1 and it uses screw terminals so if you don't have access to a soldering iron this gadget makes the resistor mod a piece of cake.

HolmanGT,

Thanks again for providing the fix without soldering .... that was super easy! ... I thought I read where this might help with the annoying "tone/beep" we are experiencing.

I will report back.

newtoncd wrote:

HolmanGT wrote:
Thanks for the feedback "Sandman". I am not the originator of the fix and unfortunately I don't remember the authors name but it has save a lot of folks bacon on this forum.

By the way Wall-Mart sells a small coupler to wall connection box 2x2x1 and it uses screw terminals so if you don't have access to a soldering iron this gadget makes the resistor mod a piece of cake.

HolmanGT,

Thanks again for providing the fix without soldering .... that was super easy! ... I thought I read where this might help with the annoying "tone/beep" we are experiencing.

I will report back.

Sorry Sandman,

I have been trying to get it out of my daughter's MJ for something in excess of eight months. The only thing I have not tried it cosmetic surgery on her vocal cords.

PS - One out of two is still better than a poke in the eye.

HolmanGT wrote: I have been trying to get it out of my daughter's MJ for something in excess of eight months. The only thing I have not tried it cosmetic surgery on her vocal cords.

I can already confirm, it didn't fix it ... oh well, cheap attempt to fix it.

Curt, your signature says that you have a self-powered USB hub driving your MJ dongle. I recommend you try a wall-powered USB hub in its place. You may be suffering from weak power supply.

Sorry, it should have said AC powered ... I fixed it.

I was kind of hoping that the signature was telling the truth. That would have shortened the diagnosis time.

Wow, this one is really strange. In the process of trying to get my incoming CID to work, I noticed something really weird. First off, let me give you a run down of what I am working with here....

I am running a MagicJack through a powered USB hub on an AMD Athlon 64x Dual Core 3600+ with 3GB of RAM, running Windows 7 as the test OS. Have MagicJack working perfectly on this machine, just not able to get incoming CID.

I tried the 100k resistor fix, but it did not work. I called my MagicJack from my cell phone, and after the second ring, I noticed a short fax tone coming over on my computer speakers (Bose Companion 5). It would only come right after the second ring, third ring was just fine... fourth ring just fine...

So out of curiosity, I unplugged my Bose sound system from the USB and tried calling the MagicJack again from my cell. The first time I called, no incoming CID, and no fax tones. Second time I called, I would have CID show up on my phone (AT&T Model #TL74108) and no fax tones.

Now the strange part.... I picked up the phone, and I am now listening to Beethoven playing on the line coming from my iTunes on the computer (was already playing when I disconnected the speakers).

So.... as of right now, it is either no computer speakers and listen to my music through the phone, or computer speakers and no CID. Anyone have any ideas on this one???

Windows 7 is still beta software, and is expected to have some bugs. You need to report this behavior to Microsoft in accordance with your beta agreement, so that they can fix the bug before releasing the product. As you have certainly read here in the forum before you made your post, you are not the first one to experience this exact phenomenon.

mberlant wrote:Windows 7 is still beta software, and is expected to have some bugs. You need to report this behavior to Microsoft in accordance with your beta agreement, so that they can fix the bug before releasing the product. As you have certainly read here in the forum before you made your post, you are not the first one to experience this exact phenomenon.

mberlant,

I don't know to whom you are directing this at but not everyone running windows 7 Beta is a Bets Tester. M$ has made it available for the general public to play with i.e. Beta reports are not required.

I happen to also have Windows 7 Beta as a here play with it, here is the license key, and oh buy the way feel perfectly welcome to install it on up to three machine is you choose.

mberlant wrote:Windows 7 is still beta software, and is expected to have some bugs. You need to report this behavior to Microsoft in accordance with your beta agreement, so that they can fix the bug before releasing the product. As you have certainly read here in the forum before you made your post, you are not the first one to experience this exact phenomenon.

This exact problem has been duplicated in a Windows Vista enviroment, so it certainly isn't due to it being a "beta issue". When the default sound device is removed from the system, Vista and Win 7 will automatically direct sound to the next device, which in this case, is the MagicJack.

Allow me to rephrase my question.... what does my sound device have anything to do with incoming CID? And if I recall, I have yet to find a post anywhere in this forum regarding this issue, so I am politely asking for some assistance, not sarcastic opinions. Thanks!

Exactly as I explained in a few other threads before yours, in North America Caller ID is delivered to the target telephone in the form of a burst of Bell 202 signal delivered on the audio path just before the second ring. The MJ softphone only knows how to instruct the OS to send this information to the audio device associated with it (the MJ dongle). If the OS has a bug or a memory hole, it is possible that it sometimes (often?) "forgets" how to pause the talk path audio in order to allow the Caller ID information to flow to that same device, thus forcing that audio (Caller ID info) to flow out of the computer via a different audio device.

Now, the symptom that aims my sights at the OS and not the softphone is your comment that by removing your Bose speakers (thus preventing the OS from sending the signal down that path) you restored the Caller ID going to your MJ dongle. You further confirmed this diagnosis by commenting that the OS now saw no choice but to deliver your music to the MJ dongle, having been deprived of another audio target.

So, you are correct. If this is a problem in Windows Vista that has carried over to Windows 7, it must be corrected first in Vista before being corrected in Windows 7. Unfortunately, I did not see that information in your original post, so I had no idea you observed the same problem in another OS.

HolmanGT wrote:Check out my post on this site it will show you how to do it with out any soldering.


http://unofficialmagicjack2.proboards10 ... &thread=37

WOW!! $.99 at Radio Shack, $4.97 at Wal Mart. Problem solved. I now have caller id. MJ spent an hour telling me the problem was mine, not theirs. Even sent me a replacement. I sure hope they monitor this site and fix the problem at the source.

garyh99 wrote:

HolmanGT wrote:Check out my post on this site it will show you how to do it with out any soldering.


http://unofficialmagicjack2.proboards10 ... &thread=37

WOW!! $.99 at Radio Shack, $4.97 at Wal Mart. Problem solved. I now have caller id. MJ spent an hour telling me the problem was mine, not theirs. Even sent me a replacement. I sure hope they monitor this site and fix the problem at the source.

Gary, word to the wise, always come here first. The Tech Support at MJ means well but... they are just as likely to break your computer in addition to leaving you with the same problem you had with the MJ unit when you contacted them.

"Monitor this site" I am totally convinced they do. I have notice some changes in their behavior that I am convinced are a result of posts on this site e.g... When they implemented the 30 minute call length cap. Well as you might expect the Poo-Poo hit the fan around hear. MJ responded (silently) by upping the cap to one hour, which didn't pacify many. Then they upped it to one and a half hours, and it may be completely removed now. I don't really know a lot of my calls exceed one hour but not very often do I push the 1.5 hour mark so it could still be there I just have pushed a call to that length in the last month or so.

Glad your Caller ID is now working. The only problem I have with my solder-less fix is the price Philips, and others, charge for a damn piece of plastic. You probably noticed that everything on the telephone parts rack was the best part of five dollars - Outrageous. But then $5 dollars to keep life simple... well I sure hope Philips Mfg. doesn't monitor this site or they will probably raise the price on their Telephone accessories.

PS - As to who is responsible for the "Caller ID" quirk I don't know. Is the problem with MJ or the make and model of the phone? I have never heard of anyone plugging into the Telco wall jack and having a Caller ID problem, doesn't mean it hasn't happened though and generally you are not going to see it posted on a site like this. Your telephone doesn't work - "Who are you going to call" the Telco of course. But adding a resistive termination on cable feeds of all types is a fairly common solution in many communications applications.

I went thru all the fixes I tried the resistors this worked but had other problems like not hanging up I also bought a powered hub ,but after all the hours on with MJ tech support 2x they make like this never happened before They told me to get a new phone like a panasonic. I told them it can be done I will let them know when I figure it out "its going to be a long night"... I figured a way to do this I used a old caller ID box in line with the uniden cordless phones and everything works perfect This takes the extra power from the ringer and thus no resisitors are needed.It goes from the MJ to the caller ID to the uniden and the ID works perfectly on the phones.Im sure you can use an old corded phone in the line as well.
GOOD LUCK ALL!!!