Half Blank Fax Pages

[ABS tect]

Hey all, i'm postive this is a phone line issue but don't know how to help the customer troubleshoot this with their phone company as they apparently "did what they could". They have an SP 5210SF and it prints/copies/scans fine, but when the RECIEVE faxes half of the page is blank. We tried on a different machine and the same things so I know it is not the machine. I didn't know if there were any settings in fax features I could mess with to help or if this is just a phone line issue as seems to most always be the case with faxes. They do have a dedicated phone line for faxes FYI

Any ideas what to do or why this is happening? I know verrrry little about facsimiles...any info would be much appreciated thank you.

[slimslob]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

The problem could be at the sending machine end.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

The simplest diagnostic tool on any fax is the activity report:

How many seconds per page sent? How many seconds per page received? At 13.3KB/s you can expect 7 to 10 seconds per page. At 9.6KB/s you can expect 20 to 35 seconds per page. If your transmission or reception times EVER exceed 1 minute you have a serious phone line quality issue.

I have seen AVERAGE times in excess of 7 minutes PER PAGE, and a single page from overseas that was not complete after 87 minutes, and still trying upon my arrival.

For a customer that still RELIES on the fax, an analog phone line is a MUST. An analog device like a fax just does not communicate well over a digital VOIP line, at any speed. =^..^=

[ABS tect]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

The simplest diagnostic tool on any fax is the activity report:

How many seconds per page sent? How many seconds per page received? At 13.3KB/s you can expect 7 to 10 seconds per page. At 9.6KB/s you can expect 20 to 35 seconds per page. If your transmission or reception times EVER exceed 1 minute you have a serious phone line quality issue.

I have seen AVERAGE times in excess of 7 minutes PER PAGE, and a single page from overseas that was not complete after 87 minutes, and still trying upon my arrival.

For a customer that still RELIES on the fax, an analog phone line is a MUST. An analog device like a fax just does not communicate well over a digital VOIP line, at any speed. =^..^=

Gotcha...I'll check that out and do my best to report back

[Gift]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

If another fax shows the same symptome you probably have to check the line. In many countries there is no native analogue/isdn phone network available because everything moved to VoIP. Usually there's VoIP->Analogue adapters/converters running somewhere in the chain - either external "boxes" or integrated in the phone system. At this point the best thing to to is to get the involving party involved that is in charge for the phone installation. Very often they can perform some tweaks to improve the line quality.

Before that we can only try to tweak the fax SP settings to lower the line-demands MFP wise like suggested here in many threads

[ABS tect]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

If another fax shows the same symptome you probably have to check the line. In many countries there is no native analogue/isdn phone network available because everything moved to VoIP. Usually there's VoIP->Analogue adapters/converters running somewhere in the chain - either external "boxes" or integrated in the phone system. At this point the best thing to to is to get the involving party involved that is in charge for the phone installation. Very often they can perform some tweaks to improve the line quality.

Before that we can only try to tweak the fax SP settings to lower the line-demands MFP wise like suggested here in many threads

I do see an external box that it's being routed through...I'll see if they can replace that maybe that's the issue.

Thanks! Ill let yall know

[Gift]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

I do see an external box that it's being routed through...I'll see if they can replace that maybe that's the issue.

Thanks! Ill let yall know

Replace or - at first - reconfigure in some way to make shure stuff like T38, G711 uLAW codec + QoS/ToS is enabled

[ABS tect]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

anyone know how to turn off ECM on this? fax sp? bit switch??

[mikadonovan]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

On a SP5200S, it is fax SP communication switch 01, bit 0 to 0. Run a parameter printout to be sure for your model.

[ABS tect]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

Ok so let me give an update. I have tried pretty much all the suggestions (all though I just saw the one that Gift posted)

So far the phone company has replaced the converter box between the modem and the machine for VoIP. I also brought my old school phone with me and plugged it in directly to the fax line and was able to call out and receive calls just fine. Yet they are still having the same issue and the customer is not happy. The phone company swears their end is not to blame, and I don't believe its on my end since it was happening with the previous mfp that was there but I am open to the thought that it is on my end.

On the error report the result says "E" which states its the ECM. With a quick service code that says 00-21. And the mode says G3RD

I am about to hire a 3rd party IT company that knows more about facsimiles than I do to figure this out as this is costing me a new client even though it really isn't my issue. I suggested that they may want to look into getting a dedicated phone line dropped instead of doing VoIP but they seemed strongly opposed to that for reasons undefined.

Obviously since the fax comes through the MFP I've installed, the customer is inclined to put the responsibility on me. I'm about to bring a small MP 401 with me and just plug it up and see what happens with that machine to prove it's not the machine. But I still feel like there is some setting either on the phone companies end or on my end that needs to be adjusted to stop this from happening.

The half blank pages come from a variety of numbers, and then some faxes (like the ones I send from my office or the ones the phone company sends) come through just fine. I'm stumped and this is turning into a real PITA.

[slimslob]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

The half blank pages come from a variety of numbers, and then some faxes (like the ones I send from my office or the ones the phone company sends) come through just fine. I'm stumped and this is turning into a real PITA.

If it was the machine or the phone line at your end the problem would be with all incoming faxes. The problem is with the fax settings or phone lines at the sending locations.

[ABS tect]

Re: Half Blank Fax Pages

Just updating, no solution yet, but I know it is not on the copier end as I brought another small mfp to test and it did the same thing.

I spoke with the VOIP company and they said everything checks out on their end.

Apparently the VOIP and Internet provider, thought the same name, are two separate companies, so I encouraged the customer to check into the network speed since their fax and all other equipment runs off of that and it turns out they have very slow internet.

So they are attacking the issue from the internet side now. If that is the fix I will report back.

Thanks for all the help