Topic: IMX 1224/2460 - need help with IVX500 Voicemail system

[abcon]

We are a small exterminating company with this Inter-tel phone system installed in the 90's. We had tornadoes come thru the area last week causing all kinds of power outages. Phone system is finally working again, got all 6 lines working, fixed date and time, can now put people on hold and can transfer calls...but cannot figure out how to get the voicemail system up again. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am not technical at all, and of course the company who installed the system is long gone. All I have access to in the IMX1224/2460 Owners' guide and the IVX500 Voice Mail User guide and Subscriber Quick Reference, looked at tech manuals on-line too - but see no references to re-booting the voicemail system.  We have no pc screen access to the system, I noticed a diskette (dated 1995) in the box with all the switches...any help would be appreciated!!!!  THank you! Monette Runquist, Ab-Con Exterminating

[MacGyver]

Good morning and welcome to the board.

Your following statement has me a little concerned:

Phone system is finally working again, got all 6 lines working, fixed date and time, can now put people on hold and can transfer calls...but cannot figure out how to get the voicemail system up again.

Based on this I am making the assumption that during the storm a power outage caused you to lose your programming.  This would likely occur if the back up battery on the board was dead.

Did you have to reprogram your lines to get them to ring-in, etc?  If so then we're looking at having to set up the hunt groups, overflow programming, etc. which is really a tech level procedure.

...but see no references to re-booting the voicemail system.  We have no pc screen access to the system, I noticed a diskette (dated 1995) in the box with all the switches...any help would be appreciated!!!! 

The voicemail system should reboot just like a regular computer.  It would help to have a monitor attached to it though so you could see if it's actually booting. 

If you did lose programming, and if that disk you found is a back-up of the programming that made everything work, then we might be able to get you through a restore process.  Can you put the disk in an computer that has a floppy drive and tell us what files are on it?

I apologize, but have to leave the office shortly for meetings.  I'll check back in as I can, but we have some other awesome techs on this board that can probably help you if I'm not here.

[abcon]

Thanks for the quick response...and NO I did not do any re-programming of the lines - just pulled plugs in/out - that got the phones ringing. Hit reset on the the computer that did nothing.  Shut the computer down and waited - that got the Hold and Transfer to work. Used the SPCL key on the actual phone to get it out of night mode and date/time.

I have no access to floppy drive here in the office - will take the diskette home and hunt for a computer that will take the floppy so I can see the programs.

The handwritten label says:  Database Save, FileName = Abcon.DB  3/17/95

[MacGyver]

The handwritten label says:  Database Save, FileName = Abcon.DB  3/17/95

That sounds like you may have hit pay-dirt.  That said, if the programming wasn't lost, but your voicemail is still down, you really need to get a monitor on that computer and let's see what is displaying.

Go ahead and take the disk home anyway and email yourself the file in case you need it. 

[abcon]

Found an old external floppy drive with USB - the only file on the disk is Abcon.DB - I don't have a clue what to open it with. Working on trying to get a monitor and keyboard attached to a 20 year old computer...should be fun!

[MacGyver]

Found an old external floppy drive with USB - the only file on the disk is Abcon.DB - I don't have a clue what to open it with. Working on trying to get a monitor and keyboard attached to a 20 year old computer...should be fun!

The backup files for those systems didn't use a filename.ext format.  What I mean is there was no "period" or "dot" at the end of the filename.  They were limited to 8 characters however, so it's very possible that "Abcon.DB" could be a backup.  I personally have never tried putting a dot in the name.  If you were to open it in notepad, and if it is indeed it is a system backup file, most of the lines will look very similar to this:

Code: [Select]

S2140901CA0B02800128070000000000000001000059
S2140901DA0000000000000000000000000000000007
S2140901EA00000000000000000100000000000000F6
S2140901FA00000000000000000000000000000000E7
S21409020A00000000000000000000000000000000D6
S21409021A00000000000000000000000000000000C6
S21409022A00000000000000000000000000000000B6
S21409023A00000000000000000000000001000000A5
S21409024A0000000000000000000000000000001185
S21409025A13010B2A3B323515000000000000000086
S21409026A0000000000000000000000000001000075
S21409027A00000000000000000000000000003244F0

Of course if you're going to open it to look at it in notepad, please make a copy first and play with the copy.  We wouldn't want to corrupt the original.

Ken is my tech that has worked on those old IVX voicemails the most and is out of town right now, but I'll hit him up when he gets back in.

Good luck.

[abcon]

I copied it into xcel and it looks exactly like that...now I am still on the hunt for a monitor or cable connectors with the right pin configuration for this ancient computer...Thank you so much!

[MacGyver]

Glad to help, Monette.

I'm hoping once you find a monitor we'll see that we're stuck at a BIOS screen or something along those lines and it'll be an easy fix.  Ken is out of town again today, but I just sent him a message to give me a call as soon as he can crawl out from under a building.

[MacGyver]

I thought I'd add one more thing since you're trying to find monitors and things to troubleshoot the system.

Did all the names come back up correctly on the desk phones?

Since all your extensions came back up I really don't think you have lost your programming.  Therefore we're primarily looking at the IVX500.  If it's hung at a boot up screen we just need to get you past that.  If it booted correctly, then we'll need to do a little troubleshooting.  If so, it would be nice if you had an old single line, plain telephone.  Not one that goes on your phone system.  Just a plain phone you would use at home. 

If we're looking at hardware, it's probably going to be a single line card, or the external ring generator.  In that case my money will be on the ring generator.  We don't normally go this deep in the open forum, but since that's an old Premier style system I understand your plight.  While those systems last darn near forever, it is incredibly difficult to find anyone who knows how to work on them.

[abcon]

Yes, all the extensions come up with the number and name...still looking for a monitor/cables

[MacGyver]

You haven't lost your programming then. 

If you can't find a monitor, then let me know and I'll see about getting some information to you on how you can test the ports.  There are probably a couple of surface mounted phone jacks known as biscuit jacks behind the IVX500.  If so your testing just got a little easier.  We can identify the extensions and have you ring back into them to test the ring generator.  If that doesn't make sense, then I'll probably need to take this out of the open forum and send you the instructions by private message. 

I will warn you though that if we start getting into bad equipment, you may want to contact a phone tech even though it will be one who doesn't know this old system.  Once troubleshooting is done, he or she will understand and have the skills to change out the affected parts.  If that becomes necessary, based on your email address it looks like there are a few techs here on the board close to you; any one of which would be more than capable.

[abcon]

You lost me with biscuit jacks...all incoming lines are ringing, each phone has ext# and name on it, correct date/time...just no voicemail.  I have scoured lots of hardware piles and asked around - no one has the correct pin configuration for attaching a monitor - maybe its proprietary to the Inter-tel system? If there is someone in my area I would be more than happy to pay for a service call!

[MacGyver]

I have been asking around, and unfortunately it seems like most of the techs in your area are an hour to an hour and a half away.  With Texas being so large and rural, we often see that as a regular service call, so I forget other areas are different. 

There is still one tech up there I'm waiting to hear back from, but we can go ahead and try moving forward if you'd like. 

Did you ever find a monitor?  It should just be a regular VGA output on the voicemail system.  You could reboot the system by powering it down, I just hate doing it that way, and without a monitor you really have no other choice.

The biscuit jacks I mentioned are just surface mount phone jacks, and of course it could be any phone jack, but surface would be typical for a VM system.  Coming out of the back of your VM system, there will be one or two phone cords that plug into phone jacks.  When you find those, we can have you take a normal household telephone, plug into the jack and test a few things.

[abcon]

Spent all weekend rooting thru everyone's box of unused cables and connectors - no luck hooking up the monitor.

There is only one telephone jack in the back of the computer for the VM system. I removed the line cord that was on it and I installed my home phone on the jack. There is no dial tone on that regular phone so I don't know what to do with it.

[MacGyver]

There is only one telephone jack in the back of the computer for the VM system. I removed the line cord that was on it and I installed my home phone on the jack. There is no dial tone on that regular phone so I don't know what to do with it.

If there is no sound at all coming out of the phone receiver then we're on the right track.  Just for confirmation, you have the home phone plugged into the phone jack on the wall, not plugged into the jack on the card in the voicemail system, correct?

Can you see the cards in the phone system or is the cover still on the cabinet? 

You will have at least one card in the system that looks like this:



It will stand out because of the little blue boxes you see in the picture. 

I'm going to look one more time to make sure no techs in your area have checked in.  If they haven't I'll probably move this to a private conversation between us as we're getting into some tech level procedures.  We just don't want someone finding the thread in the open forum at a later date and doing something that could mess up their system if they're not closely supervised.