magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

Posted: **Sat May 17, 2008 9:49 pm**

Amen brother AlaninKY

Posted: **Sun May 18, 2008 2:19 pm**

I have read all the topics and I also suffer from the people I call complain they can't hear me. So low, my answering machine thinks the call is a no message and hangs up. Yes, I have tried playing with all the settings, no good. I don't know enough about the mechanics of a telephone but would it be possible to put an amplifier between the MagicJack and the telephone? I have searched and the only amps I can find would amplify the audio coming in, not what goes out.

Posted: **Sun May 18, 2008 3:04 pm**

senpar wrote:I have read all the topics and I also suffer from the people I call complain they can't hear me. So low, my answering machine thinks the call is a no message and hangs up. Yes, I have tried playing with all the settings, no good. I don't know enough about the mechanics of a telephone but would it be possible to put an amplifier between the MagicJack and the telephone? I have searched and the only amps I can find would amplify the audio coming in, not what goes out.

senpar,

You may never find anything that amplifies the outgoing audio because the is the value that is locked by the Telco's and enforced by the FCC. The assumption that the "Amplifier People" have to go by is that the system is already driving the Telco line right at or very close the the allowed limit.

This has always been a no, no even back in the days when Ma-Bell controlled the universe, and they would get pretty tough on folks that inadvertently overdrove the Telco lines. Other than the fact they are still not happy about losing control over what you can hang on your phone line, still to this day if you hang to many "Ring Load" a number that used to be stamped on all third party phones (don't know if this is still done) but if you really wanted to bring the wrath of God down on yourself try overdriving a Telco line. I can almost guarantee that you will be hearing from them in less than 24 hours.

If you overdrive a Telco line it can cause crosstalk in the Telco trunk bundles and cause interference to your neighbors and the amount of cross talk (or individuals) that you interfere with is somewhat proportional to how hard you drive the lines. The Telcos these days get upset because they start getting calls from you neighbors and some times people that are beyond your neighborhood (kind of depends on how they have the wiring laid out). The FCC for all practical purposes treats it like they do for Internet denial of service (not a light accusation).

Anyway the short of it is that there are some pretty tight controls on the outgoing level you can put on a Telco line, any product sold has to meet FCC regulations on output levels. The manufactures of these amplifiers have to assume your audio level is at the legal limit which prevents them from selling anything that can exceed that value. The kick in the pants is there is just no market for amplifiers to fix broken phone audio systems. Even if you called one of the Telcos they would just tell you to have your device fixed or replace.

PS - if you really hunt you will find a few items called bidirectional Telephone audio amplifiers, but somewhere in the fine print you will fine that the outgoing signal can only be controlled from the max allowable out down to zero, but never above the "MAX Limit".

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 4:58 am**

I have the same problem too. And when I shut down and restart sometimes my laptop goes in to DOS and won't reboot unless I take off the mj then it reboots in DOS and then starts but this happens sometimes and then the breaking up and low tones. My friends just laugh at me some won't talk to me when I call on this phone cause I am breaking up and they can not hear me......here i thought great if I hit the road but get high speed internet I can still call home but it has been having more bugs then the ads talked about.

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 5:15 am**

dontazzz,

If you can hang in for a while longer don't push beyond your thirty days but MJ has a bad habit of working out problems and not letting anyone know they are even aware that they know about the problem.

IMHO most of us have had these periods that nothing seems to work and it is different every time you go to use it. And then one morning you get up and Eureka MJ found whatever the solution was and everything starts working great. the other thing that make it difficult to get help on some issues is it appear to be dependent on the area you are in and/or the server you go through.

So you say mine does this and the next guy will say Hmmm strange everything works fine here, which doesn't usually do much for your peace of mind and usually make you believe that your particular MJ is a piece of Dog Poo.

Never thought I would be preaching patients, but in actuality my observations indicate that just sitting back on most things MJ sooner of later will get it going and all yo have to do is wait them out if your personality will let you.

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 7:11 pm**

HolmanGT wrote:dontazzz,

If you can hang in for a while longer don't push beyond your thirty days but MJ has a bad habit of working out problems and not letting anyone know they are even aware that they know about the problem.

IMHO most of us have had these periods that nothing seems to work and it is different every time you go to use it. And then one morning you get up and Eureka MJ found whatever the solution was and everything starts working great. the other thing that make it difficult to get help on some issues is it appear to be dependent on the area you are in and/or the server you go through.

So you say mine does this and the next guy will say Hmmm strange everything works fine here, which doesn't usually do much for your peace of mind and usually make you believe that your particular MJ is a piece of Dog Poo.

Never thought I would be preaching patients, but in actuality my observations indicate that just sitting back on most things MJ sooner of later will get it going and all yo have to do is wait them out if your personality will let you.

AMEN

This should be posted at the top of the forum for all to read.
Mine works fine; for now; with some don't do this - done.

Posted: **Sat May 24, 2008 8:58 pm**

Tried everything here. Different phones, different ports, wired hubs. Searched the forums here and elsewhere. Same results. When I tried the TH Demo and set the microphone volume to high it was great! BUT...it killed the MJ app and when I restarted it everything went back to normal.

I have no idea how to fix this. My friends and family want me to use my cell when I call them. I will hang in here but use a headset for calls since that is what seems to work and I guess...if you really think about it...having to use a headset for $20.00 a YEAR is a small sacrifice. Maybe I will take up telemarketing if I grow to like "the look."

Waiting for "soon" and Stewarts promised "fix" Thanks to all of you for being here for us novices...

Posted: **Sun May 25, 2008 9:43 pm**

I really wanted this to work to save money. However my MJ outgoing telephone volume is just too low. I've read all the posts and see the software limit may fix my problem - someday. I spent about 4 hours on live chat but that is a very frustrating situation. I give up and am sending the unit back.

I can use skype but want to use a regular phone. Skype phones are too expensive. MJ looked like a great solution. Too bad a great product has a simple problem that the help line can't fix.

I'm tech savy and tried a lot of things before contacting live chat. They then had me re-try many of the same things and never did come up with a fix. The last two lines on my final chat are

Roy: Please hold on for a monent.
Chat session has ended.

I think this is the result when they can't help. They just give up. It happened twice.

Posted: **Sun May 25, 2008 9:55 pm**

jdonalds wrote:I really wanted this to work to save money. However my MJ outgoing telephone volume is just too low. I've read all the posts and see the software limit may fix my problem - someday. I spent about 4 hours on live chat but that is a very frustrating situation. I give up and am sending the unit back.

I can use skype but want to use a regular phone. Skype phones are too expensive. MJ looked like a great solution. Too bad a great product has a simple problem that the help line can't fix.

I'm tech savy and tried a lot of things before contacting live chat. They then had me re-try many of the same things and never did come up with a fix. The last two lines on my final chat are

Roy: Please hold on for a monent.
Chat session has ended.

I know that you stated that you wanted to use a regular phone; I couldn't; so I got a Uniden 538GHz Digital with a mick volume control. This and some tweaks and I am off and running.

I think this is the result when they can't help. They just give up. It happened twice.

Posted: **Mon May 26, 2008 12:24 pm**

HolmanGT wrote:That was one of the nicest bashing Jobs I have seen. You will have to reveal your secret to such eloquent composure under stress.

35 years of systems analysis, design, and programming

Seriously, your Item # two caught my eye. Are your referring to the fact that it drops pack to the built in 70% or does it go to zero, what exactly does it do?

returns to default settings

it sure would be nice if those that have this problem would list the machine, OS and sound system. We might be able to localize it some particular hardware configuration.

xp pro sp2, 3.6ghz p4, 4gb pc3200, 250gb sata

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 3:38 pm**

OK, so I found out a few things.

1) If you send an e-mail to [email protected] you will get a reply from some tech support people. The quality of the tech support seems to be better than the liveperson support that you can get from their web page.

2) I explained my low outgoing volume problem and all the things I had tried. They had me do a couple of tech support things that didn't help including replacing my magicjack yet again. When I pleaded yet again to have them pass the problem through to their developers, I was informed that there would be a new "automatic" update put out this week that is supposed to solve the problem.

So, I guess the moral of the story is persistence and patience pay dividends. Hopefully this software update will fix the problem of 'low outgoing volume' once and for all.

Cheers to all, especially the regulars here who contribute so much of their time and knowledge to assisting others.

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 7:19 pm**

Thank you.

Posted: **Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:49 pm**

Does anyone know if the software update mentioned a few posts above was ever released? And if so, did it seem to correct the low outbound call volume issues? I order and have used my MJ in the month of June and am having this issue so it makes me think that this has not been corrected on the MJ side as of yet.

Posted: **Sat Jun 14, 2008 11:24 am**

Warmcoke,

Not to my knowledge. I'm awaiting the same fix.

Stewart? Any updates?

Posted: **Sat Jun 14, 2008 2:09 pm**

warmcoke ( nothing personal but yuk!) & TMikk

Have you tried the current update to see if it fixes the problem?

It was posted yesterday.

Caveat - it doesn't like thin clients.

Posted: **Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:04 pm**

I think the weak audio may be caused by weak power on the USB port.

Posted: **Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:00 pm**

sferguson98 wrote:I think the weak audio may be caused by weak power on the USB port.

Very good idea "sferguson98". I don't think that has been mentioned in relation to this problem.

I had a guy send me his Low Volume unit and it worked perfectly here. ????

Posted: **Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:53 pm**

warmcoke wrote:Does anyone know if the software update mentioned a few posts above was ever released? And if so, did it seem to correct the low outbound call volume issues? I order and have used my MJ in the month of June and am having this issue so it makes me think that this has not been corrected on the MJ side as of yet.

Warmcoke,

I'm still waiting and my audio problem is as bad as ever (if not worse). So, if there was an update, it didn't work. It may be that my worst fears have been realized and that is that tech support hands you a line about a software update when they've run out of things to have you try

I sure hope that's not the case. I'll give them another week or two and then I'll e-mail them back and ask where the fix is. I'll post what they tell me.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:11 am**

jacking wrote:
warmcoke wrote:Does anyone know if the software update mentioned a few posts above was ever released? And if so, did it seem to correct the low outbound call volume issues? I order and have used my MJ in the month of June and am having this issue so it makes me think that this has not been corrected on the MJ side as of yet.
Warmcoke,

I'm still waiting and my audio problem is as bad as ever (if not worse). So, if there was an update, it didn't work. It may be that my worst fears have been realized and that is that tech support hands you a line about a software update when they've run out of things to have you try
I sure hope that's not the case. I'll give them another week or two and then I'll e-mail them back and ask where the fix is. I'll post what they tell me.

Guys, if you are not sure you have the update and it sounds like you are not. just go to the Magic Fix page and down load it by clicking on the "if you are still not working" button or the "If you are using Vista update", they are all the same file and should have a version number of 1.80.4411.3084 (size 8.39 MB). Just down load it to your desktop and double click it. MJ will update itself and you can be confident that you do in fact have the upgrade.

I am not sure what triggers and Auto-upgrade but it doesn't always happen on it's own, sometime you have to give it a helping hand.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:32 am**

Here is a direct link to download the latest Update from Magicjack if you have trouble finding it.
http://upgrades.magicjack.com/upgrade/upgrade.exe

Yes the new version is 8.39 MB in size

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:27 am**

Follow the link from solderman, it fixes the low output volume. I dealt with the same problem as you and this fixed it. I wish they would've solved the problem of having to raise the volume level every time you log the MJ back on.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:29 pm**

OK, so why when I follow the link (or go to the magicfix page) do I get a file that is 7.11 Mb in size and is versioned as 1.73.4153.2910 ? Do they check the country of origin of the IP address and give me a different download cause I'm a crazy Canuck?

BTW I am using XP so is it possible they didn't backport the fix?

<edit> Doh! Never mind, I just followed the link for downloading the upgrade for vista and still got the 1.73 release. Does anyone have the 1.80... release for XP and would they be kind enough to post it somewhere that I could download it? Obviously I can't get it from the magicjack site. Must have missed the brief window of opportunity when it was available. That'll teach me to travel out of town when tech support tells me that there is a release coming out

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:43 am**

jacking wrote:OK, so why when I follow the link (or go to the magicfix page) do I get a file that is 7.11 Mb in size and is versioned as 1.73.4153.2910 ? Do they check the country of origin of the IP address and give me a different download cause I'm a crazy Canuck? BTW I am using XP so is it possible they didn't backport the fix?

<edit> Doh! Never mind, I just followed the link for downloading the upgrade for vista and still got the 1.73 release. Does anyone have the 1.80... release for XP and would they be kind enough to post it somewhere that I could download it? Obviously I can't get it from the magicjack site. Must have missed the brief window of opportunity when it was available. That'll teach me to travel out of town when tech support tells me that there is a release coming out

It is not just you or Canada.

They have gone back to the 2910 (7.11mb) version. Wonder why? But I am sure they will have a new fix for the audio "SOON"

If you want the the 3084 (the one people say fixes the audio) version you can down load it from me (guaranteed clean).

http://dc14.4shared.com/download/517576 ... de3084.exe

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:04 am**

http://upgrade.talk4free.com/upgrade/20 ... pgrade.exe 1.80.4411.3084 (latest as of time of this post)

http://upgrade.talk4free.com/upgrade/20 ... pgrade.exe 1.73.4153.2910 (stable 'old' version)

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:27 am**

Stewart wrote:http://upgrade.talk4free.com/upgrade/20 ... pgrade.exe 1.80.4411.3084 (latest as of time of this post)

http://upgrade.talk4free.com/upgrade/20 ... pgrade.exe 1.73.4153.2910 (stable 'old' version)

Stewart,

Do you know why they pulled the new one?

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:00 pm**

Thanks Stewart and HolmanGT for the links for the upgrade. Oh, and I did have my tongue (at least partially

) in my cheek when I suggested that maybe us crazy Canucks were being treated differently.

I am presently "on the road again", but I have downloaded the file and will give it a try when I get home.

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:36 pm**

3084 is still available and hasent been removed

and this fixed my audio problem thx!

Posted: **Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:30 am**

I was having a similar issue. I just downloaded the update on the website and received 1.80.4411.3084. The file contains a digital signature dated June 12.

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2008 8:08 pm**

I downloaded the file that HolmanGT and Stewart pointed to and installed it. I won't say it is perfect, but it is _way_ better and at least now I don't have to shout anymore. Eureka! Now, if they would just make the volume setting stick over a restart I would be a much happier jacker.

nemfo and wrngway, you are right, I just checked the magicjack site and the 3084 release is back available for download. So anybody still having problems with outgoing volume should give the update a try if they haven't already.

Posted: **Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:44 am**

jacking wrote:I downloaded the file that HolmanGT and Stewart pointed to and installed it. I won't say it is perfect, but it is _way_ better and at least now I don't have to shout anymore. Eureka! Now, if they would just make the volume setting stick over a restart I would be a much happier jacker.

nemfo and wrngway, you are right, I just checked the magicjack site and the 3084 release is back available for download. So anybody still having problems with outgoing volume should give the update a try if they haven't already.

I was having the same issue with the volume settings not saving over a restart. I always have to set the microphone volume to the max for people to hear me.
I posted a fix that worked for me:
http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/sett ... t2366.html

magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

Hard to hear me?

Am also having the hard to hear problem

Re: Am also having the hard to hear problem

low can't hear me and breaking up

Giving up on phone and using headset...

MJ going back

Re: MJ going back

Audio Weak Theories

Re: Audio Weak Theories

upgrade is still available