WARNING: Insidious Thing Causing Missed Calls, and Questions

[Bartholomew Diogenes]

When the computer is on and you receive a call, the phone will ring and the mJ device will also ring. If you turn off the phone ringer, the dongle will still ring. If the computer is off, nothing will ring; your caller in that case will get your voicemail, but if they do not leave a message or let the call extend into the silence when a message might be left, there will be no listing on your roster that any call was made, right? If they leave a voicemail that will be recorded and the call will be listed in your registry of "contacts" on the mJ image on your computer.
_ _ _ _The problem: if you must keep your computer on but don't want to hear ringing (as when you sleep) and you take the receiver off the hook, callers to you will get a busy signal, NOT VOICEMAIL, and there will be no record that anyone called., right? I had thought callers would get voicemail because that is what callers get when you don't take a call in time from call-waiting, and I am beside myself about the calls I've missed, without any record and about people not being able to leave voicemail when I believed they could. As I said above,if you just turn off the phone ringer, the dongle will still ring. The solution would seem to be disconnecting the dongle while the computer is on and one can't take calls. In that case, won't your caller get voicemail, and will there be a record of the call if they leave no voicemail? Any other info about voicemail and the call registry would be appreciated, including about calls which drop off the registry when they get to be the oldest ones.

[nailgunner]

As I said above,if you just turn off the phone ringer, the dongle will still ring.

The dongle will ring? Did they send you a special dongle? If I have the ringer on my phone turned off, and I get a call there is no other ringing. The soft-phone opens up on the computer but that's it. Maybe my dongle is the special one with a no-ring attachment built in, but if your computer is ringing, I would just turn off my speakers.

And I haven't seen any limit on the number of calls that stay on the registry list.

[Bartholomew Diogenes]

nailgunner, thank you. The ring does seem to come from the mJ device, but I wasn't sure about that. First, the phone rings, then the computer, then the phone...almost as if there is a reverberation; it's a terrible cacophony. To be specific about my registry, outgoing calls (mixed in with incoming first) will only be kept for half the length of the phone image sidebar, the bottom half is reserved exclusively for incoming. If there is more than that to the registry, I haven't progressed that far in knowledge. Some say there's a place on the mJ website where one can look up more calls. I'm not sure I can remember my password. I got mJ in a hurry from a store because other service fell through, and then I immediately had technical problems with mJ due to interference from the end of my prior isp service, so I never truly got up to speed on mJ. Anyone else on what nailgunner didn't answer?

[nailgunner]

The ring does seem to come from the mJ device, but I wasn't sure about that. First, the phone rings, then the computer, then the phone...almost as if there is a reverberation; it's a terrible cacophony. To be specific about my registry, outgoing calls (mixed in with incoming first) will only be kept for half the length of the phone image sidebar, the bottom half is reserved exclusively for incoming. If there is more than that to the registry, I haven't progressed that far in knowledge. Some say there's a place on the mJ website where one can look up more calls. I'm not sure I can remember my password.

Not sure what you have going on with your set-up. The only noise I get, and have ever gotten, is from the phone. And my call list, which I empty every so often, is over 2 months old and has probably 100 entries and incoming and outgoing throughout the list, organized strictly by the time they were made/received.

They keep the call, and contact, lists on the "mymagicjack" website accessed through your soft-phone menu. But it only reflects what shows on the soft-phone itself. Delete a contact or call from your soft-phone listings and in a matter of minutes it's reflected on the website listings.

[nailgunner]

The ring does seem to come from the mJ device, but I wasn't sure about that. First, the phone rings, then the computer, then the phone...almost as if there is a reverberation; it's a terrible cacophony.

While playing around with it and doing some searching I think that you probably just need to set your MJ menu option to telephone and all will be fixed. But for gods sake, if you can't get it to work right, just turn your damn speakers off.

Edit: There is also a further ringing option inside the menu when the headset option is checked.

[Bartholomew Diogenes]

Thank you, nailgunner, I will implement what you said. I've been sick in the last 24 hours, and trying to finish an overdue book. I thought of turning off the mJ ringer and am wondering if that stops the phone from ringing, which would be great. If I must do this many days, a one-step process is preferred, and I must make darn sure I don't ever forget, including to turn it back on when I get up. With the phone I have the visual cue of the receiver off the hook. I truly hope we help others who might someday search this.

[nailgunner]

I truly hope we help others who might someday search this.

If you had searched first, you would have found that the answers you were looking for were already posted in here in a couple of places (minus the initial "dongle" ringing issue), which is why a search is always helpful before panicky postings are made. Here is one:

http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/magi ... html#57212

Of all the many times I have played with my MJ and removed and re-installed the thing it has never defaulted to the speaker setting. As mentioned in the linked post, it's possible you only have the speaker ringing option and may have to "install some kind of Virtual Audio device", who knows. That step will only turn off the speaker ringing. But if it doesn't work for you setting it up or changing the settings, don't make a mountain out of a mole-hill, you can accomplish the exact same thing by turning off your speakers.

And as far as I can tell from my playing around with it, the only way to stop the phone from ringing is to turn it off at the phone.

[Bartholomew Diogenes]

Not time for a full reply. Now someone has left me a voicemail, which I haven't gotten today, this morning. The soft-phone shows time to have left message, but there's nothing when you by phone and asterisk check or in e-mail; no record of said call, not even mistakenly as an "old" message. We had a two-hour blackout yesterday, if that means anything. My renewal deadline is Oct. 18. At this rate I'll be back on a cheapie landline. Just when I thought mJ was looking good. Btw, I had muted sound on my computer, if that influences anything.

[nailgunner]

Not time for a full reply. Now someone has left me a voicemail, which I haven't gotten today, this morning. The soft-phone shows time to have left message, but there's nothing when you by phone and asterisk check or in e-mail; no record of said call, not even mistakenly as an "old" message. We had a two-hour blackout yesterday, if that means anything. My renewal deadline is Oct. 18. At this rate I'll be back on a cheapie landline. Just when I thought mJ was looking good. Btw, I had muted sound on my computer, if that influences anything.

If your computer is on, sound muted or not, and a call is missed or you choose not to answer, it will show on your call list with a red X, whether they leave a message or not. If they leave a voice-mail it should be on the voice-mail system you call into and you should get an email with the voice-mail.

If your computer is off, NOTHING regarding the call will show on your soft-phone. I always call in or check my email after a power outage to see if someone left a message. If someone called and didn't leave a message, there is no way to know that the call was made. IF you have internet access on your phone, you could log into the mymagicjack page and forward your MJ calls to your cell during the outage. As far as I know, that is the only way to know about call activity when your computer is off.

[Bartholomew Diogenes]

nailgunner, what I reasonably believe happened is that by muting the sound on my computer last night I did so for all operation within my computer so when my caller spoke no sound occurred for the voicemail system to pick up and no message occurred for the e-mail system to register; the soft-phone picked up the call and its length because that must depend only on mJ's computer, not mine. The solution, I think, is to disconnect the dongle when I don't wish calls; this will also give me the visual cue I crave and obviate fooling with the phone ringer; if I reconnect it before I turn on mJ, I shouldn't experience any extra delay over a normal initiation. Since I do have experience with my computer being off, I can advise all that in such status when someone leaves a voicemail or lets the call extend into the silence when a message may be left that call is registered on the soft-phone as if the computer were on. If you personally want indication of all calls, a trick you can do is erase the canned greeting and create a very abrupt one such as "Leave message" and most callers will extend into that silence. Not sure what will happen with dongle disconnected, but I can ask someone to call me tomorrow morning upon getting my request. The word, "insidious" means hidden; if it's an exaggeration, that was to draw people's attention. It must be hidden as you're the only one who's replied. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have to call people and say, I'm sorry my number was constantly busy...assuming I can recall who all of them are?

[nailgunner]

nailgunner, what I reasonably believe happened is that by muting the sound on my computer last night I did so for all operation within my computer so when my caller spoke no sound occurred for the voicemail system to pick up and no message occurred for the e-mail system to register; the soft-phone picked up the call and its length because that must depend only on mJ's computer, not mine.

No offense, but I don't think that's correct. The computer doesn't even have to be on for them to leave you a message. So I just did a test call with my sound turned off internally, not at the speakers, and was able to leave myself a message.

The length of time of the call on the soft-phone reflects the time only YOUR computer is engaged with MJ. Once the call gets into your recorded message, the call length recorded on the soft-phone stops at the earlier of the caller hanging up or when the caller starts to leave a message. I remembered my missed calls showing about the same length on the soft-phone regardless if a message was left or not. So I made another test call after the message one above and hung up near the end of the recording and the length of the 2 missed calls were only a second different despite one lasting about 30 seconds longer. If they call when your computer is off, nothing shows on the soft-phone at all. There is one of two possible things that happened, in my opinion, if there was no voice-mail left on your system. Either the caller didn't leave a message or the message may not be being picked up correctly by the MJ system. If the latter is the case you may need to contact customer service to reset your voice-mail system for you. Users have had to do that on occasion, I'm just not sure if it has been for calls not being recorded correctly or not.

The word, "insidious" means hidden

I'm well aware of the definition of the word. It means a lot more than "hidden". It refers to something done on purpose in a sneaky or stealthy way to cause harm, which your issue doesn't even come close to describing.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/insidious

Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have to call people and say, I'm sorry my number was constantly busy...assuming I can recall who all of them are?

In the end you need to ask yourself if that is a problem with MJ, or a problem with you? There should not be a situation in any phone system set-up where you HAVE to take the phone off the hook to keep it from ringing. As I mentioned to you in an earlier post, a 30 second search in here would have saved you all the embarrassing missed calls because you took the phone off the hook.