MagicJack disappears

[CindyD]

I have had magicjack for 4 days now and I can not keep it up and displayed on my screen and the phone goes dead. I did the chat thing with Daryl and he first told me I needed to uninstall my Burner software. I told him that I paid a lot for the software and that I use it often. He then had me to download the magicjack recovery tool
http://www.magicjack.com/site/downloads ... _setup.exe
and the upgrade
http://upgrades.magicjack.com/upgrade/upgrade.exe
Neither of these fixed the problem. in order for me to use it I must unplug and plug it back into the USB port and have it download the phone Icon, which takes a few minutes. It will then only stay there and active for about 20mins.
Has anyone else had this problem and have a solution?
I just noticed that I have 2 magicjack drives, One that shows as a CDRom drive and one that shows like a hard drive and it says magicjack (vista only). I use XP not Vista. Should I delete the Vista only drive?
Cindy

[HolmanGT]

Cindy,

No - don't delete the drive. It says Vista Only because you installed the upgrade. Don't worry everyone that patched their system gets the same thing you do. It really should say XP or Vista. If you ask the Tech support (I use that term very loosely) people they will tell you that is the way it should be.

I haven't had a chance to read the previous portions of your post but I will, maybe I can add a little to what has already been suggested.

OK - read the rest of your post.

1. Have you tried a different USB port? Do you have USB Ports on the front and back of your computer. Usually the rear ports are the ones you want to use.
2. For the purposes of testing disable all your power management. Disable Sleep and hibernate.
3. Make sure the is nothing set to power down your USB ports. You should be able to determine this from your device manager.
4. Try the MJ device without the six inch extension cable. Be careful you don't bump the MJ device while not using the extension cable, you can snap that puppy right off.

Give those few item a try and lets see how far that will get us/you.

[CindyD]

I'm afraid that I only have the 2 USB ports at the front of the computer. I took my computer out of all of the power management modes last night, but that did not help. It may be my Roxio causing the problem, but I don't see how if I have not used it since I added magicjack. I am the person testing this for friends and family and I'm afraid I can not recommend it. It is not much help if I have to plug and unplug the thing every time I want to use it. Magicjack will disappear even when I am on the computer surfing the net.
I don't think it is my USB ports because I have used them for many different things including external drives. I was sure hoping this would work because it would have help several co-workers. Our work hours were cut and it would have been great to reduce one of those monthly bills.

[HolmanGT]

CindyD,

Have you tried it without the 6" extension cord they give you. There was another post and similar problems and it turned out to be the extension cable.

Here is the deal, it it works for a short period of time and assuming the MagicJack in not the intermittent culprit we should be able thru elimination find the problem. The secret to being a successful Windows OS Geek is Persistence.

Do you have anything like a backup that auto runs? Windows Vista has this and so does Windows Live OneCare. you can turn off the windows and OneCare backup. Give that a shot, most of these backup things are by default scheduled to check every drive and if it thinks it needs to back up your MJ drives... well could be a problem.

Do you have another machine you could test on. That is the best way to isolate it to either the MJ or your computer. Maybe set it up on one of the friend's machine that you want to help and leave it run for 24 hours no problem -> your machine -> same problem bad MagicJack (most likely).

[CindyD]

I only have the one PC that is a Compaq with windows XP, 512mb rams 80g HD. I must use the extension or I will not be able to use it with my USB ports. The way they are sit in the PC it will not take the size of the Magicjack.

[HolmanGT]

OK there are a few things you can do to isolate the problem.

1. do you have any other USB extender cable.

2. Try it on a friends computer with and without the extender cable.

Until you can localize the problem you will just be spinning your wheels.

[Gerry_52]

I would take a better look at the back of the computer...I have serviced dozens of Compaq computers, I also own one and have never seen one without 2 or 4 USB jacks on the back of the computer. I could be wrong, but have never seen it. This does not sound like a magicjack problem, it sounds like a computer setup problem.

[CindyD]

Gerry, you are correct. I pulled the computer out to take a picture and I found them. They had things plugged into them and that is way I could not see that they were USB. I unplugged one and loaded the magicjack. I had to still use the extender, we will see if this helps

[Gerry_52]

Great!...thought I was losing it....let us know. Generally the supplied power to the rear usb ports is more stable than the front ports.

[jeysonx]

I'm also having this problem with the extension. So I was wondering if the extension that comes with it is faulty or if I bought another one would the same thing happen.

[Gerry_52]

If you can plug your MJ directly into a rear USB port if even temporarily, that will answer your question. Other than that there really isn't any way of knowing...at best we can only guess.

[HolmanGT]

jeysonx,

There is a post on here within the last few days. Do a search, I don't remember what section it was in.

Short of it the guy/gal was working with their Tech Support and the Tech told him to try it without the extension and that fixed his problem.

Now I find that to be a bit of a stretch trouble shooting wise, I am inclined to believe the Tech knew about some bad cables that got past the shipping doc or some cables that had marginal connections and are giving up the ghost on some poor unfortunate MJ end users.

By the way any USB extension will work, even a six footer. If you don't have one "Big Lots" sell one that comes with several different end connectors for about $3.95. Hope you have a Big Lots close by because all the office supply houses and Best Buy want about $19 dollars for a USB extension cable. If you buy it from Best Buy and it doesn't fix your problem you can always return it.

[CindyD]

It stayed up for about 4 hours this time, instead of 30mins, and then disappeared. If it was the extension would it stay up for 4 hours.
Everytime I click to restart the magicjack it tells me to plug it in, although it is already there and the light is on.

[HolmanGT]

My guess would be no. It would surprise me if it worked at all with a bad cable. However cables can be intermittent but normally you would have to fool with it or bump it. So now you are saying it stayed up for four hours instead of the 30 minutes and all you have done is move it to one of the rear ports?

Also when it went down you were not touching it to look at it or tugging on the phone wire that connects to the MJ.

Is there any equipment in hour home coming on and off, like heating systems, are you using a cell phone in the general area of the MJ were you terminating a call on MJ? Anything going on electronically speaking that might be slamming the MJ?


If it is none of the above you really need to try it on another computer. That is going to be the only way to absolutely determine if you have a bad MJ or some problem in your computer.

[CindyD]

I use a linkys box with comcast cable and the Linkys box has Vonage hooked to it. Do you think that the voange could be the problem? Vonage has not caused any problems with my cable connection and the vonage works great.

[HolmanGT]

Have you tried it with the Vonage box disconnected, I sure would.