Solved: Potential Bug in CCA 2.2.4

David Trad · ‎07-05-2010

Hi Support Team,

I have for the first time been attempting to build a UC-560 from scratch using CCA 2.2.4, with no CLI intervention what so ever, so far not as smooth sailing as I hoped for.

Phone Types: SPA509 & SPA504

Phone Load: As per the 8.0.2 Software Pack

CCA Version: 2.2.4

Issue Scenario:

Configuring Button Assignment on phones Without phone plugged in:
When using CCA and entering the Telephony>Voice> Extension configuration page and proceed to program the extra line keys (Buttons), I hit a major issues, first attempt at assigning them to watch and pointing them to a particular extension yields no results, even though it shows up on the screen that it is sending the information to the UC-560, it also comes up with a pop screen advising that the sending of the information was sucessfull.

However when I monitor this on the Command Line, I see no notification that the system has received configuration, so I do a "sh run | s ephone " on the CLI and notice that no configuration has actually been applied.

So I attempt it again, this time on another user, still same issue, even though CCA gives the all clear, I check the UC-560 still no config applied to the ephone, at all.
Configuring Button Assignment on phones With phone plugged in:
If I attempt to configure the buttons when the actual phone is plugged in, I get partial success, some of the line keys (buttons) receive the programming, however it seems to miss some of the buttons, and then if I log back into it again and reprogram those ones, they work but then a couple of other ones stop working. If this is not little green gremlins causing this issue I don't know what is, and frankly it is very frustrating.
Configuration Multiple phones buttons and then applying:
I also discovered that you can not do this, if you configure more then one phone and then apply it, none of them get programmed up at all, i discovered the hard way after sitting there for 1 hour programming them in, that this would not work, so again dropped it back to one at a time and then apply before moving on to the next one, but still suffering the partial programming.
CCA not configuring the DN's in sequential order:
I also noticed that CCA does not configure the users in sequential order, some where configured in DN Range 20-28, then others in 40-53 and then Others in 100-14, what is with this?? Why wouldn't it program these in sequential order, why does it have to be all over the place? I can handle the fact that CCA puts in an enormous amount of translation rule when running DID on a ISDN circuit, that's fair enough and can deal with it, but the randomness of the DN's does not make sense.

At first I thought this strange so I tried it on the UC-540 that is scheduled in for a build, and it even happened to that one, so it was able to be reproduced on more then one machine and with different scenarios.

I know it is not me, I seen this problem with CCC as well, but surely I can not be the only one to experience this issue right??

I am going to try it again, but this time with all phones plugged in, I will do it onsite when we deploy the equipment. However if it still fails I will fall back to CLI and program it up that way.

I look forward to some feed back.

Cheers,

David.

Cheers, David Trad. **When you rate a persons post, you are indicating a thank you or that it helped, but at the same time you are also helping to maintain the community spirit - You don't have to rate posts and you wont be looked down upon :) *

Steven DiStefano · ‎07-07-2010

Found the root cause and we have committed a fix for one big culprit it on 2.2(5) few mins ago.

Basically, MeetMe, Adhoc, Call Park and Paging Group features will overwrite
Intercom's ephone-dn without this fix.

View solution in original post

Steven DiStefano · ‎07-06-2010

Hi David,

Thanks for posting your findings and I am providing some feedback...

1) Programming more than one phone at a time WRT buttons has been seen to be error prone with Shares and Intercoms and Paging Monitor, or anything where a change may need to be submitted for other data to reference and use it. I found applying changes to one line at a time works though. I will see if we can check this again. I did ask the CCA team to consider disallowing multiple line changes in the CCA GUI considering this can happen in some cases. Since CCA operates on the live data (as you know it doesnt have a local cached DB or any sort), it needs to operate the same as if you enter the CLI one by one.... I am interested to collect more data from you on this to learn and see if it can be adjusted.

2) When you are in the TSW, you can specify extensions to be used and successfully assign them to usernames (not arbitrary), so would like to understand more about that one. That one doesnt seem right to me.

David Trad · ‎07-06-2010

Hi Steve,

Always good to hear from you Mate

1)  Programming more than one phone at a time WRT buttons has been seen 
to be error prone with Shares and Intercoms and Paging Monitor, or 
anything where a change may need to be submitted for other data to 
reference and use it.  I found applying changes to one line at a time 
works though.   I will see if we can check this again.  I did ask the 
CCA team to consider disallowing multiple line changes in the CCA GUI 
considering this can happen in some cases.   Since CCA operates on the 
live data (as you know it doesnt have a local cached DB or any sort), it
 needs to operate the same as if you enter the CLI one by one....  I am 
interested to collect more data from you on this to learn and see if it 
can be adjusted.

Ok lets tackle this one first

I did learn that you have to do one extension at a time, believe me I had more then one homer Simpson moment where I didn't get the mistake the first time

However after an extremely frustrating day yesterday, I powered down the machine and figured I would give it a rest until today. I gave it another crack only to be hit with the same problems, even though I was doing one extension at a time, it was still doing the same old things, removing other programmed buttons but updating it with the new instructions??? Why on earth would it do that when I never told it to remove the ones that were already there and working?? I even powered it down again and threatened it, powered it back up and the whole damn config was changed yet again?????????? This has got me more confused then ever, normally I have a whole system programmed in 1 day max when I work the config up in a txt file, CCA so far has drained out of me three days... three days of my life I wont get back

The only way to resolve this problem was to log into the CUE GUI and edit the phones that way, OH MAN was it a mess, the trusty old GUI made CCA like like a bugged out bit of software, the tried and true method once again prevails,,, CCA a dismal failure (Sorry to say it).

Before you say it, it was not user error, I have done this over and over again, each system having different results but similar in many ways.

I also had to manually create the blast groups in the GUI as well as CCA again this morning said it had created it when it didn't, then I had to also create the associations to users.

The odd thing about all this is that no matter what I do, it says everything worked and the changes were sucessfull, clearly they are not and it is doing some real funky stuff in the background.

I can assure you this is not a whinge, I am genuinly concerned about CCA and the really annoying/odd/unusual/weired stuff it does to the configuration.

And I have no Idea why it programmed extensions all over the place, it just does not make sense as to why it does what it does.

Ahhhhh I need a bex and a lay down

Cheers,

David.

Cheers, David Trad. **When you rate a persons post, you are indicating a thank you or that it helped, but at the same time you are also helping to maintain the community spirit - You don't have to rate posts and you wont be looked down upon :) *

David Trad · ‎07-06-2010

Steve,

As of now i no longer work for the company that is deploying this system, sadly i had to resign today, so the above is all i can offer for now, i am hoping it could still be looked into for other peoples sakes at least.

Now to sit down with the wife and have a long hard chat about what to do with my future and i guess all of ours as a whole.

I hope to not be absent from the forums as this is one the very few things i look forward on a daily basis, but other more pressing matter might consume my time.

Thank you for looking at this issue.

Cheers,

David

Cheers, David Trad. **When you rate a persons post, you are indicating a thank you or that it helped, but at the same time you are also helping to maintain the community spirit - You don't have to rate posts and you wont be looked down upon :) *

Steven DiStefano · ‎07-07-2010

David,

I am sad to hear this news as you are one of our most active and helpful Partners out here. Always willing to lend a hand and always very understanding and patient with us and thats appreciated. Most everyone is actually out here, and I am enjoying helping when I can too. Its very different from 10 years ago when this kinda thing didnt exist like it does today, and you are very good at this (collaboration).

But you did say you made the choice, so that made me feel better. I know your 'down under' and curious if you have relationship with Cisco offices there (Dave Harper, Leah Davis). Would be good to let them know you are available. I dont know of anything but you never know, right? If I am mistaken about your location, PM me in the USA.

Stay focused, stay visible so we all know your OK, O.K.?

Steve DiStefano

Cisco

RockstarWiFi · ‎07-06-2010

CCA is very "touchy feely"...

They are right, you never want to change Multiple Anything with CCA as it does not usually work and if for some reason it does something else you where not aware may have broke:(

I used to get so upset when I would add a couple users succesfully through CCA, to get calls the next day saying monitor lines from the receptionist phones had dissappeard or something weird... So learned very quickly to update one thing at a time with CCA.

You have to remember there are many things at work with Voice in general, let alone an ISR like the UC500's.

There is another option which has been more predictable to use when making changes to phones, users, and extensions, which is the CME/CUE GUI Web Access feature. Usually its at http://10.1.10.1 or http://10.1.1.1 depending on your config. I find it odd knowbody mentions using this when its been around years longer than CCA??

So it will only allow you to change one thing at a time, but provides a much more reliable coniguration editor for the features it offers.

CCA has made setup of basic UC500's much simpler for engineers new to Cisco, our team uses the product all the time. Just seems like there are some things it does better than others, everyone on our team allways has to use a combination of tools including CLI to have succesful reliable installs.

Good luck at the new gig!

Regards,

Chris

Steven DiStefano · ‎07-07-2010

Chris,

I feel you man. and I know...

Since David's post, I have locked down on a UC540 with latest 8.0.2 and CCA 2.2.4 running through TSW with no phones, then plugging them in (Staging), then expert mode, then factory reset, then TSW and expert, then plug in, over and over. I have the attention of the CCA management team who are getting ready to 'shock and awe' us all with CCA 2.2.5 and we found a couple issues with Intercom getting removed when we expert mode the HW Conferencing. Also see some flackyness with Monitor buttons, but all easily repairable by reentering and i suspect fixed in 2.2.5. But thats not an excuse, and we will get this right.

I encourage anyone who wants to make a go of a CCA configured system to try my TEL #25 (The Office Demo with CCA).

I am running the heck out of that over and over (Intercom and Monitor detecion discussed above).

Its an old mantra, and I am sure we may be 'testing' all of you that started hearing us say this in September and more formally in December, but we firmly believe that we can have cookie cutter, repeatable and successful deployments if we steer clear of CLI and use CCA, so these issues really bit our rear bad when they happen and we take each instance seriously. Hey, for those who want to venture into CLI with your own expertise, have at it, but we think that just has to cost more to sustain.

We did the survey monkey about 40 of you participated in and then had meetings with about a dozen partners and we have consensus that the next two releases of CCA close the GAP completely. Features that you all said you needed for the majority of your installs. Working on all of that.

I have bet 20% of my compensation on it this year as a matter of fact. I feel that positive about it and about Cisco. Cisco Live was a real eye opener for me, even as an insider, to see the puzzle pieces all coming together. Stay with Cisco and be part of it with us.

Steve D

David Trad · ‎07-07-2010

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your kind words and thoughts.

However I wont be letting you of the hook that easily buddy Dave Harper knows me quite well, over the last oh 20 odd months i have either phone spammed him or e-mail spammed him

But as I said I wont be letting you of the hook, I have been analyzing the code differences from every time I made some configuration changes to the system, and discovered another ugly bug.

If I enable live record, it creates it without problems, I then create Park Slots and for some unknown reason it erases most of the Live record DN configuration with the exception of the label, the rest is the park slot configuration.

If I remove live record from within CCA and check the configuration it modified the Park Slot config to something unknown, something I have never seen before, so I remove the park slots altogether and the config is back to normal.

So next time round I do Park Slots first that goes well, then I do the Live Record and it over writes one of the Park Slots (DN 598?????).

I must have been missing something about the UC-560's I didn't know you could go up so high with the DN's when the machines I licensed for only 104 users.

Since I don't have the system in front of me anymore and it is getting installed today, I probably shouldn't worry about it anymore I have no access to it, but it is a problem that concerned me.

Time to eBay shop and see if I can pick a cheap UC I enjoy playing around with them to much to not find one LOL.

Cheers,

David.

Cheers, David Trad. **When you rate a persons post, you are indicating a thank you or that it helped, but at the same time you are also helping to maintain the community spirit - You don't have to rate posts and you wont be looked down upon :) *

Steven DiStefano · ‎07-07-2010

Found the root cause and we have committed a fix for one big culprit it on 2.2(5) few mins ago.

Basically, MeetMe, Adhoc, Call Park and Paging Group features will overwrite
Intercom's ephone-dn without this fix.

David Trad · ‎07-08-2010

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the update, I have assigned this thread as answered now, however I do hope that you take my first and original post into consideration, it is a mashup when you look at the command line after CCA has configured the system, I can see how potential problems would surface.

Cheers,

David.

Cheers, David Trad. **When you rate a persons post, you are indicating a thank you or that it helped, but at the same time you are also helping to maintain the community spirit - You don't have to rate posts and you wont be looked down upon :) *