Cracking Voice

[bloom]

Hi,

I started using Magic Jack recently and from the first call I hear CRACKING VOICE, Choppy audio incoming voice, but my voice is pretty clear to others,

Did everything I was told to do by Tech support team and even changed to corded GE phone still the same, But this happens only after 1- 2 min after the call started, works well with headset, problem only when using phone.

Any help in this regard is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[HolmanGT]

bloom,

Kind of a strange problem.

But tell us a little about your system:
1. OS
2. Router
3. Security software
4. any other USB devices or Audio specialty devices.
5. are you running any file sharing software etc.

[bloom]

hi,

1 OS : WIN XP with SP2
2. router: Netgear WGR614 v6 updated the firmware a week ago.
3. Security softawre: Mcafee antivirus
4. No other usb devices, just the magicjack
5.No file sharing software, i just use the laptop to check emails and browsing only , no devices attached to this.

Thanks !

[bloom]

hi

[HolmanGT]

bloom,

OK here we go, this is going to be a lot of guess work until we can narrow this problem down a bit.

1. The one now one want to talk about the MJ could be defective. Do you have another machine you could possible try it on?
2. Go into the Device manager and make sure nothing has a YELLOW exclamation or question mark.
3. Go into the Control panel > Sound and Audio Devices. Then select the Audio Tab and make sure that the default device for both playback and record are set to your audio card. You don't want either of these items pointing to Magic Jack or anything with "Jet" in the name. Then go into the Voice Tab and do the same thing.
4. Go into the menu on your MJ go to volume settings for the headset & Microphone and set both volume controls all the way to the left (minimum or off in this case).
5. Go into the menu on your MJ go to volume settings for the Telephone and set both volume controls about three eighths of on inch from the left end of the control. This will look way to low but trust me even if it doesn't correct the problem we are shooting at it will help prevent any echo problems.
6. I am sure you told me that you tried a different phone. So we have that piece covered.
7. Try you MJ in a different USB Port, also make sure you try some on the front and the back of your computer. This is usually where you will see the biggest difference in port quality (front to back that is).

Let me know how this goes and I will try to pay closer attention to your posts until we get this whipped or it whips us.

[banaa007]

[quote="bloom"]Hi,

I started using Magic Jack recently and from the first call I hear CRACKING VOICE, Choppy audio incoming voice, but my voice is pretty clear to others,



Same here, I called their tech edits,they told me delete the registery and after it installed again,same shit,called second time again was told with URL to fix it.Installed the TJ.net echo cancellation software but same.I was in love with Mj but since they switched from Level3 communication to their own gateways it is happening because of their servers.No matter what you do you will hear the noise.Their trunking with the voip lines and land lines (XO communication) are not configured properly.

And also before the upgrade it was working good since Dec2007 but when they finshed Beta 4.0 it happened.

[gooney]

Hi,

I started using Magic Jack recently and from the first call I hear CRACKING VOICE, Choppy audio incoming voice, but my voice is pretty clear to others,

Same here, I called their tech edits,they told me delete the registery and after it installed again,same shit,called second time again was told with URL to fix it.Installed the TJ.net echo cancellation software but same.I was in love with Mj but since they switched from Level3 communication to their own gateways it is happening because of their servers.No matter what you do you will hear the noise.Their trunking with the voip lines and land lines (XO communication) are not configured properly.

And also before the upgrade it was working good since Dec2007 but when they finshed Beta 4.0 it happened.

I dont hear no cracklin sound... I call my wife at her work from my office during our lunch break and have speakers on while we eat and chat for 15 minutes hahahaha

[bloom]

Hi HolmanGT,

Thanks for the suggestions to fix this,
I have tried all the options you have suggested, still the problem persists, as said earlier cracking and chopping voice starts 2 min after the conversation starts.

Have you got anything else that i could try.

Thanks

[HolmanGT]

bloom,

No - Sorry fresh out of ideas. But "Crackling Sound" is kind of subjective. The other day during a call I did hear a sound that sounded like someone crumpling paper that lasted several seconds at a time off and on throughout the entire conversation. It was not loud enough to interfere with the conversation save being annoying as hell.

Fortunately for me it has not returned (knock on wood), oh and both parties could hear it. I have pretty much written it off as an MJ problem and not anything on my end but if I had to live with it continuously I would be looking for an alternative to MJ. The thing that allows me to be a little more tolerant of these sort of things with MJ is that nothing bad ever seems to last more than a few days and they do something on their end and my MJ starts working really great until ... I don't know their programmers or somebody tires something different on their end. I guess what I am trying to say is most of this crap stuff eventually goes away on its own if you don't get crazy in the mean time and end up killing your computer trying to fix what ever strange thing it is doing at the time.

Don't get me wrong, 97% of the time my MJ works far better than my Cell and generally better or equal to my land-line. But that 3% can get pretty obnoxious at times.

[MagicPhoneMan]

It happened on my end a few times but 99% of the calls are clear and loud. The crackling problem definitely exists

[HolmanGT]

MagicPhoneMan,

I am still trying to figure out if we are all talking about the same thing. Could what you experience be described as the sound of paper being crumpled up?

Not a big issue but I would like to know if we are all talking about apples here.

In fact what I experience is not exactly what one might expect in the way of electrical noise or interference, the last time I had it happen I thought my daughter was wading up a bunch of paper and stuffing it ins a brown paper grocery shopping bag. That is about as close as I can come to describing the sound. For me it is not an electrical crackling noise, at least not one that I have ever heard before.

[MagicPhoneMan]

It sounds like static or rice krispies. Out of 100 calls it only happened maybe twice

[HolmanGT]

MagicPhoneMan,


Well I am going to assume we are talking about the same sound, now that you have made me hungry.

And my event frequency is about the same as yours.

So now that we have beat this horse to death we still have no control over it but my money is on the MJ side of the street. By their own admission are playing with lower bandwidth Codecs, and as I said they do not seem compelled to notify their customers when they are attempting to implement something new.

[medicis]

I guess you could use 'cracking' or 'crackling' but really happens for me is that the voice of the person I am talking with breaks up completely so you only hear various syllables. It happens consistently. I've had to hang up and call with my cell or regular land line phone just to be able to tell what they are saying.

Am using a mini mac
cable broadband
just installed MJ a day ago.
I use a GE desk phone

any help would be appreciated. Right now, MJ is unusable.

[Stewart]

While on a bad call, test to Boston at http://www.testyourvoip.com/ . If the score is poor, the problem is unrelated to MJ. Possible issues:
Bad modem or cable drop.
Other traffic on your LAN (if you have a router).
Other Internet activity on your computer.

If the score is good, see if sound is still bad when using computer headset instead of phone. If so, I'd suspect that another app on the computer is competing for the CPU. Or, it might be an MJ server-side problem; see if you have trouble on other routes, e.g. toll-free and interstate.

If sound improves with the headset, but is bad with different phones, it could be a driver issue or MJ hardware problem; try the MJ on another computer.

[strndedinalska]

Most of the time when I get a bad call, which isn't often, it's due to Internet traffic. I'm on cable and find that when all of my neighbors are online, I sometimes get a little interference. How I figured it out was my original number was halfway around the world where my family lives, which meant (I guess) my phone call traveled via the Internet to there before dropping into the phone lines. Once I took a number in Washington where Alaska Internet dumps, the interference stopped because my traffic didn't have as far to go or all of the interference before it got there. That's why I tell people to make sure and find a number as close to their Internet drop as possible.

[Timon]

[b]IN THIS CASE THAT YOU HEAR CRACKING ON YOUR PHONE. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS:

* CHECK ALL THE WIRES IF ALL ARE PROPERLY CONNECTED TO THE A.T.A (ANALOG TELEPHONE ADAPTER)
*RUN THE MAGICFIX
*RUN THE UPGRADE
*DOWNLOAD THE RECOVERY TOOL

IF THAT DOESNT WORK..THEN..

*IF YOU ARE USING A CORDLESS PHONE TRY USING A CORDED ONE.
*IF USING A WIRELESS ROUTER, TRY ATTACHING IT WITH A HARD WIRE[/b].

THIS ISSUE IS SOMETIMES DUE TO INTEFERENCE. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TRY THESE STEPS AND LET US SEE HOW IT GOES.

HAVE A PLEASANT DAY! :D

[gooney]

IN THIS CASE THAT YOU HEAR CRACKING ON YOUR PHONE. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS:

* CHECK ALL THE WIRES IF ALL ARE PROPERLY CONNECTED TO THE A.T.A (ANALOG TELEPHONE ADAPTER)
*RUN THE MAGICFIX
*RUN THE UPGRADE
*DOWNLOAD THE RECOVERY TOOL

IF THAT DOESNT WORK..THEN..

*IF YOU ARE USING A CORDLESS PHONE TRY USING A CORDED ONE.
*IF USING A WIRELESS ROUTER, TRY ATTACHING IT WITH A HARD WIRE.

THIS ISSUE IS SOMETIMES DUE TO INTEFERENCE. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TRY THESE STEPS AND LET US SEE HOW IT GOES.

HAVE A PLEASANT DAY!

Great job Timon but can you ez on the caps? I used to chat in yahoo chats years back and when i see cap words, i get a signal in my brain telling me that someone is yelling...Thanks!

[medicis]

While on a bad call, test to Boston at http://www.testyourvoip.com/ . If the score is poor, the problem is unrelated to MJ. Possible issues:
Bad modem or cable drop.
Other traffic on your LAN (if you have a router).
Other Internet activity on your computer.

If the score is good, see if sound is still bad when using computer headset instead of phone. If so, I'd suspect that another app on the computer is competing for the CPU. Or, it might be an MJ server-side problem; see if you have trouble on other routes, e.g. toll-free and interstate.

If sound improves with the headset, but is bad with different phones, it could be a driver issue or MJ hardware problem; try the MJ on another computer.

I just wanted to thank you guys for helping me. I was gone for few days. When I did check my VOIP score it was 3.1 .. not very good. So now I am checking everything as you specified.

Thanks again.

[new yorker]

I loaned my mJ to my boss for his business trip to the Middle East - as a test. I could hear him better than when he calls on his cell or Blackberry, but MY voice .... a bit of latency, static and echo. As the call progressed, he increasingly commented that I was dropping out.

He uses an xp ThinkPad t-60. Likely via a hotel wifi and, believe it or not he used an ordinary ATT trimline corded phone. My end was on our office landline phone system. Any clues as to how to correct the
1. Latency
2. Echo
3. Static
4. Dropping out (not dropped call) on parts of the conversation.

???????????

Thanks in advance for all responses.

[SuperSport1966]

bloom,

OK here we go, this is going to be a lot of guess work until we can narrow this problem down a bit.

1. The one now one want to talk about the MJ could be defective. Do you have another machine you could possible try it on?
2. Go into the Device manager and make sure nothing has a YELLOW exclamation or question mark.
3. Go into the Control panel > Sound and Audio Devices. Then select the Audio Tab and make sure that the default device for both playback and record are set to your audio card. You don't want either of these items pointing to Magic Jack or anything with "Jet" in the name. Then go into the Voice Tab and do the same thing.
4. Go into the menu on your MJ go to volume settings for the headset & Microphone and set both volume controls all the way to the left (minimum or off in this case).
5. Go into the menu on your MJ go to volume settings for the Telephone and set both volume controls about three eighths of on inch from the left end of the control. This will look way to low but trust me even if it doesn't correct the problem we are shooting at it will help prevent any echo problems.
6. I am sure you told me that you tried a different phone. So we have that piece covered.
7. Try you MJ in a different USB Port, also make sure you try some on the front and the back of your computer. This is usually where you will see the biggest difference in port quality (front to back that is).

Let me know how this goes and I will try to pay closer attention to your posts until we get this whipped or it whips us.

To add to this, Be sure you are plugged into the Back Ports, and also NOT using the Extension Cord. This alone fixed my crackling problem.

[HolmanGT]

SuperSport1966,

You are very much correct about the back ports and no extension cable. I don't know why I even mentioned the front jacks, I always use the back for best results.

[SuperSport1966]

SuperSport1966,

You are very much correct about the back ports and no extension cable. I don't know why I even mentioned the front jacks, I always use the back for best results.

You covered everything VERY well. I just found the back with no extension to work well for me, so thought I'd throw it in. Thank you for all the help you give on this forum.