No Caller ID Display - Logging Caller ID decoder

Scope

This article covers the Hx6 and iQ6 Talkshow Systems. It describes why your system may not be receiving caller ID and how to monitor the system's internal CID decoder using Telnet.

What is Caller ID?

In POTS telephony, caller ID is a signal sent from the central office to your telephone. It occurs between the first and the second ring of an incoming call. The first standardized system to implement this was the Belcore switch system, which uses FSK data like a modem.

The Telos Hx6 and iQ6 systems use a standard, off-the-shelf decoder chip that decodes caller ID in hardware and sends it to the rest of the system.

These days, most POTS lines are generated locally by some kind of digital device and dial tone no longer originates at the Central Office. Many manufactures of these devices still use FSK signaling between rings to convey caller ID, but might not adhere to the standards set by Belcore.

In cases where the Hx6 or iQ6 systems won't show caller ID, this could be due to one of the following things:

  • Caller ID isn't being sent
  • Caller ID signaling isn't in the right format
  • the FSK burst is too loud for the decoder

If caller ID isn't being sent at all, consider the number of calls affected. Does it affect some but not all? Then contact your provider. For compatibility issues, consult the vendor of your Analog Telephone Adapter (the device providing the phone line)

The system is expecting standard, old school Belcore FSK signaling with a caller name and number only between the first and second ring.

Logging the Caller ID Decoder

  1. Using a TTY / Terminal emulator program like PuTTY, connect to the Hx6 or iQ6 using Telnet on port 24.
TIP: You'll benefit from configuring the telnet session's options to log to a file on your machine.
  1. Log in using the following syntax: "login Telos" (Case sensitive)
>>login Telos
login Telos
Logged in with user rights.
>>
  1. Access the Log menu using the "log" command:
>>log
log

0 - All error log        1 - LWCPDevice
2 - HTMLcomm             3 - INT1
4 - POTScard             5 - Trace
6 - StudioLine           7 - Studio
8 - SharedLineMan        9 - PhoneLine
10 - PHFmessage_send     11 - Nx12Client
12 - MyServer            13 - MyHw
14 - Menu                15 - MainApp
16 - LineManager         17 - LineHandler (inc PLL)
18 - LWCPClientThread    19 - Hybrid
20 - DDFrontPanel        21 - FPWindow
22 - VXManager           23 - CallDirectorVX
24 - CallDirectorAP2x12  25 - Connect64
26 - CallDirector        27 - CallDirDevice
28 - CDDFpHelper         29 - AudioMan
30 - Application         31 - APCore
32 - APClientThread      35 - Parallel Manager
>>
  1. Activate the POTS card and LWCP client thread loggers by choosing them from the list using this command: "log 18 4"
>>log 18 4
log 18 4
Log 18 (LWCPClientThread) was enabled!
Log 4 (POTScard) was enabled!
>>

Once you see the confirmation messages above, the logger is running.

  1. Re-create the issue or let the log run until the issue occurs.
  2. Once the event has been logged, disable logging by rebooting the system or repeating above:
>>log
  0 - All error log          1 - LWCPDevice
  2 - HTMLcomm               3 - INT1
* 4 - POTScard               5 - Trace
  6 - StudioLine             7 - Studio
  8 - SharedLineMan          9 - PhoneLine
  10 - PHFmessage_send       11 - Nx12Client
  12 - MyServer              13 - MyHw
  14 - Menu                  15 - MainApp
  16 - LineManager           17 - LineHandler (inc PLL)
* 18 - LWCPClientThread      19 - Hybrid
  20 - DDFrontPanel          21 - FPWindow
  22 - VXManager             23 - CallDirectorVX
  24 - CallDirectorAP2x12    25 - Connect64
  26 - CallDirector          27 - CallDirDevice
  28 - CDDFpHelper           29 - AudioMan
  30 - Application           31 - APCore
  32 - APClientThread        35 - Parallel Manager
>>log 4 18
log 4 18
Log 4 (POTScard) was disabled!
Log 18 (LWCPClientThread) was disabled!
>>
TIP: While you don't have to view the log menu to disable loggers, notice how the menu stars (*) the active log writers. This is extremely useful when you want to disable logging.
WARNING Speaking of disabling logging: If you don't disable logging before disconnecting telnet, the Hx6 / iQ6's log writers will continue running after the telnet session is closed. This uses up resources in the system CPU and can affect performance. If you forgot to disable logging before closing the session, reboot the system

Send to Telos for analysis

Once you've collected your data and have disabled logging, you can send your result to Telos Support as an attachment along with your problem description. This will help speed the process.

Let us know how we can help

If you have further questions on this topic or have ideas about how we can improve this document, please contact us.

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