My 1st 4 days with the MJ

[wardhealer]

If you are perusing this forum trying to decide if you should get a magicjack,
I hope you find this post to be informative.


Got my MJ (free trial) on Wednesday. My initial experience was a nightmare.
I was unable to complete the registration and activation process.
The screen would always "hang" at the point where it reads "this could take a couple of minutes"
I would wait hours and nothing would happen.
As reported by many other folks, the technical support "chat" is a worthless joke, so I won't
bother relating the many wasted hours with the South Asia support people who have only a
limited command of the English language.

I finally succeeded, after many tries, by following this proceedure.
1. I deleted the folder "mjusbsp" located in the folder "application data"
2. With the MJ plugged in, I formated the MJ removable drive created in My Computer whenever the device is inserted.
3. I installed the file "upgrade.exe" located at: http://upgrades.magicjack.com/upgrade/upgrade.exe
4. The registration process began anew.

I had to repeat this process 3 times, but it finally worked and I was able to complete the registration and activation.
On the last (and ultimately successful) attempt, the screen did not hang and completed in less than a minute.
I was assigned a phone number and tested it out. I made several calls and the voice quality was good on both ends.
I set up the voice mail and tested it out. It appears to work fine.

One problem did emerge with incoming calls. The phone pad on the computer would indicate an incoming call,
but the phone would not ring. Applying some technical logic, the answer became clear.
The magic jack seems to work best when plugged directly into one of the computer motherboard's USB ports rather
than plugging it into an accessory USB hub. Problem is, this does not supply many phones with enough power to
activate the ringer. Older phones with actual metal bell ringers require more power than the USB connection can supply.
I switched to a cheap little $3.99 phone from Walmart with an electronic ringer tone and it worked fine. It rang for incoming calls. I also tried some wireless phones because they have their own power supply. An older 900 mhz model worked poorly and sometimes, not at all. A newer 5.8 Ghz model worked best of all. The one I am using has 2 handsets which allows me to have phones in 2 different rooms.

TODAY, my MJ works great. BUT, based on the many internet posts I have read, there are still periodic technical problems with their overall system. Many folks have reported frequent lapses in service and frequent instances of poor voice quality.
These problems are probably a combination of things. The poor connection could be on the other party's end or bugs in the MJ software on the computer or bugs in Magicjack's headend software system. I am told that they are still finding bugs and are constantly working on the system.

Today, I will be testing my MJ with a fax machine. I understand there are problems involved.
I have found some tips on the internet that are supposed to overcome these problems by changing settings
on the fax machine. I will report on that later.

If my MJ continues to work as well as it does today, I will be a very happy camper. Only time will tell.
If it does continue to work, even with occasional problems, it is certainly worth the price.

In my case, since I have a cell phone that I still use as my primary phone, I will be canceling my regular (and far more expensive) landline. If the MJ ends up being a bust, I can always get a digital line from the cable company.

[sirc625]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still on my 30 day trail as well and have had minimal problems.

[n3glv]

See my posting on Technical Discussion here.
I just spent another 30min or so on "tech support" and finall have an RMA number.
They think they are not going to refund shipping (I paid for RUSH even).
I think my bank is going to say differant.
btw, we have tested 4 accounts, 4 pc's in 2 countrys (usa and canada, eh?)
ALL the inbounds are hosed.
No forwards or vmail either.
Anyone on irc, can find me on freenode, #voipcoop our voip co-op channel
or www.voipcoop.org

[partyhack]

Since my original post (opening this thread) I have tested my MJ for Faxing with mixed results.
It works, but not all the time.

Using the standard phone company line, both incoming and outgoing faxes were successful 10 times out of 10.
With the MJ line, outgoing faxes failed 3 times out of 10 and incoming faxes failed 3 times out of 10 also.
In addition, it took up to 30 seconds more to complete the "handshake" on outgoings and after the "hanshake" completed and the machines connected, it took about 30 seconds more per page to complete the transmission.

As for Voice Mail, that has also been unreliable. Yesterday morning and for most of the afternoon, incoming callers could not reach voice mail. Some callers got nothing after many many rings, while others got a voice message that "the party you are calling is not answering, please try your call later". I checked the MJ optimize/fix page and clicked on the entry concerning voice mail. It said that upgrades are in progress and voice mail would be back up later. At around 5pm, Voice Mail started working again.

As for voice quality, on approximately 20% of calls, the other party reported a light "tapping" sound in the background. It was always very soft and never interfered with the call.

I have looked over hundreds of internet posts concerning Magicjack and have found reports of many instances where MJ service was out or degraded for short periods of time. The company's response is always that upgrades are being made...try again later. If this is true, then possibly the MJ system will become more reliable over time. My belief is that the "upgade" excuse is just that...an excuse. I think that their South Asia "chat" support people have only a limited knowledge of what is actually going on and have a short list of standard fixes for various problems. If those fixes do not solve the customer's problem, they are instructed to give out the "upgrade - try again later" excuse.

I would bet that the company is pumping almost all their cash flow into their 30 second TV infomercials that flood the late night cable channels and spending as little as possible on actually improving the system or on customer service and tech support.

Bottom line...If you need 100% reliable phone service, then Magicjack is not for you.
If you just want a second phone line for the kids or you have a cell phone for those times when MJ is not working well, then MJ is a great way to save a lot of money.

I hope this additional post is helpful in making a decision to sign up.

[Agent_86]

Since my original post (opening this thread) I have tested my MJ for Faxing with mixed results.
It works, but not all the time.

Using the standard phone company line, both incoming and outgoing faxes were successful 10 times out of 10.
With the MJ line, outgoing faxes failed 3 times out of 10 and incoming faxes failed 3 times out of 10 also.
In addition, it took up to 30 seconds more to complete the "handshake" on outgoings and after the "hanshake" completed and the machines connected, it took about 30 seconds more per page to complete the transmission.

As for Voice Mail, that has also been unreliable. Yesterday morning and for most of the afternoon, incoming callers could not reach voice mail. Some callers got nothing after many many rings, while others got a voice message that "the party you are calling is not answering, please try your call later". I checked the MJ optimize/fix page and clicked on the entry concerning voice mail. It said that upgrades are in progress and voice mail would be back up later. At around 5pm, Voice Mail started working again.

As for voice quality, on approximately 20% of calls, the other party reported a light "tapping" sound in the background. It was always very soft and never interfered with the call.

I have looked over hundreds of internet posts concerning Magicjack and have found reports of many instances where MJ service was out or degraded for short periods of time. The company's response is always that upgrades are being made...try again later. If this is true, then possibly the MJ system will become more reliable over time. My belief is that the "upgade" excuse is just that...an excuse. I think that their South Asia "chat" support people have only a limited knowledge of what is actually going on and have a short list of standard fixes for various problems. If those fixes do not solve the customer's problem, they are instructed to give out the "upgrade - try again later" excuse.

I would bet that the company is pumping almost all their cash flow into their 30 second TV infomercials that flood the late night cable channels and spending as little as possible on actually improving the system or on customer service and tech support.

Bottom line...If you need 100% reliable phone service, then Magicjack is not for you.
If you just want a second phone line for the kids or you have a cell phone for those times when MJ is not working well, then MJ is a great way to save a lot of money.

I hope this additional post is helpful in making a decision to sign up.

I always see these kinds of posts and I understand when things do not work right, but lets be honest here.

What are you comparing your failure with? others that have had some sort of failure? if you want things to work you need to talk to those who have had good success with it, so that you can compare the differences in what equipment you have, what programs you have running, what internet service you have with those who are having success and compare what you have with what they have and are doing.

Personal observation and reading thru posts of people who have negative reviews is pretty broad and you can find negative reviews about everything, try searching for ebay is a scam or perhaps paypal rip off or something like that and find all the zillions of people who have had negative experience with ebay and paypal. I would agree with them I guess if my experience was the same, but I would also be wondering why sooo many people use it and enjoy it and also have success with it.

Currently I've purchased 2)MJ's recently within this month and received them in 5 business days,I plugged it in and it did exactly as advertised it came on, installed software I registered and I made some test calls.

Now let me say this I am using comcast business internet, I have a server setup as a gateway which uses some bandwidth for hosting images, webpages several users, and also webmail and email services. I have 3 local computers behind the gateway and have setup an old P3 Dell inspiron with only 128MB ram. to use only as the MJ phone device.
I don't know if that helps but I know enough about computers to say that if you are running 4 different instant messengers, or something like that msn live etc. irc,icq,yahoo,aol etc. and nortons antivirus and some other spyware blocker thing and maybe even a few others and also running your email in the back round while logged into a vpn to your remote office computer. It won't matter how fast your computer is I would speculate that most people who have stuff like that running will have problems.
They have problem without voip services.

But it would be nice to see the complainers putting up some idea of what they have and are using and etc etc. so that others can compare what they have and what they want to do with those who are having success not trying to duplicate what the failed attempts produce.

I know people just want to plug in stuff and use it, but computers just don't do that. sometimes they do, while other times people can't even plugin a printer to get it working. Why ? well simple windows overwrites dll files that may be using and upgrades them even if the manufacturer provides the ones that they believe you should use on your computer, which is why sometime you plug something in and are told the install driver screen should appear and other times it crashes the whole computer and blue screen of death and etc.
Games mostly overwrite stuff in my opinion more then anything else in an attempt to optimize drivers and controls of the hardware.

Anyhow thats my two cents.
I wish everyone could have the same experience that I've been having and I'm even going to cancel my Vonage service soon and use MJ as my sole phone service.
I've been using Vonage for 3 years without any problems other then in the begining I had trouble figuring out how to get it working behind the server gateway etc.

Also I've ran my MJ line out to the box on the side of the house and it feeds the whole house, I actually had that already setup for my Vonage service so all I had to do was unplug the main phone line from my Vonage box and plugin to my MJ device to feed the whole house. So it was convenient for me.

Anyhow happy phoneing

I suggest trying to run MJ and test without a bunch of stuff that is using your internet connection just to see if there is anything that is offending the quality of the phone service then you can turn on applications one at a time to see which one if any are causing quality problems.

Well thats all I know.

[snowwy66]

i am also wondering if maybe people don't have the proper system specs too. processor, ram, ect. whatever the specs may require if any.

i mean. if you have little memory in your computer. and you have a lot of programs running inside your clock tray. is there enough memory left over to run the phone software???? i see lots of times where people have a gazzillion icons next to there clock. that can make for a very sluggish computer. is the processor fast enough to run all your applications that are running?? along with your phone??? OR, do you have the proper bandwidth. 256k vs. 756k???? is your internet running at full speed??? i HAD 1.5 dsl and i can't tell you how many times it was running at dialup speed. and LASTLY. how old is your computer? did it come with usb 1 or usb 2. because usb 2 is 40 time faster. and i think came out roughly little over 3 years ago or longer.

OR. like the above post mentions. windows gets tweaked everytime a program is installd and gets tweaked worse when a program is UNinstalled. it's not uncommon to see things not working like they should, and people don't know it till they try it. then they blame the software they are trying to use. when in all reality. it's high time to reformat the hard drive. i find myself wiping out my hard drive on average every 3-4 months. becuase something won't work when it used too. although i get better timeframe with vista then i had with xp or earlier versions. not everyone has the same programs installed on there computer. some programs don't work when other programs are installed for whatever reason. WINDOWS ISN'T PERFECT FOLKS. i spend a good 2 days a month wiping out various friends and family's hard drives. becuase things don't work. the first sign i see of things going sour is when i tell them to do a system restore point. and the windows system restore points don't work.

and let's not forget the all too common VIRUS, TROJAN, SPYWARE, or what not. just becuase you MAY have some anti-virus program on there don't mean it's not impossible to get one. in spite of what the world may think, virus software ISN'T perfect either.

so, before you go blaming the phone. you might want to think about wether your windows operating system is in perfect health. or your computer is up to specs. just becuase some things are still working properly don't mean everything is working, espeically if your computer is not up to snuff for todays technology.

[partyhack]

Actually, I thought my postings were pretty positive. Since the voice mail problems are documented and even admitted by MJ and the fax problems are shared by many many users, I think I was very fair in my assessment. I even gave a qualified endorsement of the product. My postings were not to complain about MJ, but to give an accurate description of my experience with it. The problems I experienced were quite minor compared to the difficulties reported by many users. I concluded that any problems with MJ were minor and unless someone was looking for a 100% problem free product, MJ was certainly worth the price.

As for my system. I run Windows XP Professional with 4GB DDR2 800 Ram on an AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 5600+ on a single non-networked computer.
The MJ was installed on a new WD 500GB SATA3 HDD with a clean install of Windows. The MJ install was done prior to
installing the firewall and anti-virus software. I do not use or install IM software. The only programs installed were Windows and Magicjack. I use Comcast Business Broadband and installed MJ with a direct connection from modem to computer (no router).

I am an IT professional with extensive computer experience dating back to 1989. If I experienced installation difficulties, it is fair to assume that the hundreds of posters who experienced problems were expressing legitimate concerns. Many users were lucky enough to experience a successful install on the first try, many were not. That is a fact. Most successful software products install correctly on the first try in almost all cases. MJ's TV infomercials claim that it is so simple that all you need do is plug it in and...poof!...it works 100% reliably. Are the many users who report problems liars or idiots? No, they are just average computer users.

I am quite pleased that you had no problems with your MJs, but don't be smug and assume that anyone who had a problem is just not smart enough to operate a computer.

Again, I reiterate my conclusions. If you are in need of a 100% reliable phone line, MJ may not be the answer. If your needs are not absolutely critical, MJ is well worth the money. Based on my experience and the reports posted by many other users, you may experience difficulties during the installation process. Since MJ is offering a free trial period, anyone who is not pleased with the product is free to return it. That is quite a fair deal.

[MagicPhoneMan]

I realized the phone has a lot to do with the quality. I bought a new cheap wired phone and there was dramatic increase with voice quality and volume. The phone I bought was a GE and I made sure it required batteries. Since the USB port puts out low power the batteries in the phone will help power the ringer and other stuff. There is a Caller ID built into the phone that works with MJ too

[mjscott]

I too had troubles at first. But when i kept reading about so many people that were enjoying it, i was determined to find a solution. And I'll be the first to admit, i'm no IT person. but with a lot of help from people here, it appears now to be working flawlessly.

I've not experienced an outage yet....but from what i've read i would expect one's coming. as the first post said, i don't rely on it as my only phone, but it certainly has taken a lots of minutes away from the cell phone. going over with my cell phone costs $ .35 a minute so it would only take about 60 minutes of talk time to pay for magic jack for a year.

[caangel]

the only problem I had was the reg server was down but when it came back up it went though fine I have had no problem with my MJ at all I even looks at websites when am on the phone with no problem at all I love my MJ