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Trixbox CE 2.6.2.2 Server Keeps Freezing

byaru1
Posts: 15
 Member Since:
2007-06-28
Submitted by byaru1 on Fri, 06/26/2009 - 8:19pm.

Folk,

I installed Trixbox CE 2.6.2.2 on an (old) IBM Thinkcentre box with a 2.7Ghz intel p3 processor and 2GB RAM. There is a TDM400P card with 2FXS/2FXO interface setup. Setup all seems OK, tdm400p card well detected, trunks all setup on the fly. Incoming and outgoing calls all excellent. System status shows me no issues. Logs all look absolutely normal. Basically, this was a perfect installation "without tears", but:

The box however freezes every after about 3 hours (or sometimes less) and always requires a reboot. The logs tell me absolutely nothing - both the asterisk logs and the syslog. This box had no freezing issues before I installed trixbox on it. During the time its "freezing", I cannot ssh or open the wegBUI (freepbx). all SIP sessions also drop. However, the box accepts and responds to (ICMP) pings.

I decided to remove trixbox and add switchvox free edition, and the box had no freezing issues, therefore, I confirmed that the freezing is caused by something in the trixbox CE, which unforunately, I cannot find in any log files anywhere! I removed swithvox and re-installed trixbox CE 2.6.2.2 and same issues.

Someone please give me a pointer to what could be going wrong somewhere, or where to look!

merci
eb

‹ 2.6.2.2 memory usage in GUI Call Screening is great! Just one thing... ›

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byaru1
Posts: 15
 Member Since:
2007-06-28
additional comments
Fri, 06/26/2009 - 8:26pm

small typo in my post above - wegBUI should read webGUI :)

Another thing - I tried trixbox 2.8 but it did not detect the tdm400p card nor added trunks automagically like 2.6.2.2 did, so I decided to stick with 2.6.2.2 because setup all worked "out of the box" (well, kind-of). The same box also had FC6 + asterisk running for a while without issues.

thanks
eb


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johnjces
Posts: 302
 Member Since:
2007-10-13
Too many variables and not an answer but my experience..
Sat, 06/27/2009 - 9:53am

There are a lot of variables in installing any OS on any PC or server. Not certain about SwitchVox, what kernel it is using or version of Asterisk so... things can be touchy. What I can tell you from my experience is that older IBM PCs and servers are very problematic with Linux. It is weird that it will run for awhile then freeze. Sounds like flakey hardware but it works on another distro.

At my work we use pretty much exclusively IBM PCs and servers and I try to re-purpose them if and when I can. I had several old PIII IBMs that simply would not run Ubunto. Last week I attempted to install Asterisk and CentOS on an old IBM e-Server x-series 300 with a PIII processor. Got everything installed and no NIC would loads. No PCI A400 card either would be found! So had to update the BIOS and afterward it froze while loading AGP drivers! Then had to boot with no agp and add that to my boot loader conf file. Did finally get it to work. But just a hassle.

Love IBM equipment but I have had many many problems and failures in installing Linux on them of any flavor! I can tell you that newer IBM servers install very well!

Simply put, you may never get your IBM to run right with TB, yet the curent version of Elastix might. (Doubt it though).

Good luck!

John


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byaru1
Posts: 15
 Member Since:
2007-06-28
John, thanks for you reply.
Sun, 06/28/2009 - 6:06am

John, thanks for you reply. I was considering Elastix - has anyone tried it here? How is setup and usability compared to Trixbox? (Ok, i know this should not be the right forum to ask about Elastix, sorry of anyone is offended!).


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johnjces
Posts: 302
 Member Since:
2007-10-13
Try it..
Sun, 06/28/2009 - 9:05pm

Ya know, I have played around with a lot of the ISO builds over the months and I 'try' to like the others but come back to TB.

Elastix has some cool features, hylafax that works pretty well even on SIP trunks, and a nice visual hardware (zaptel/dahdi) setup tool.

But it has its setup "fohpahs" so go read up on the forums and get ready to Google and search the elastix forum for some of the stuff that is problematic.

Simply... try it! You got nothing to lose and a lot of learning and some fun ahead.

John


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byaru1
Posts: 15
 Member Since:
2007-06-28
Thanks John - I am planning
Mon, 06/29/2009 - 12:20am

Thanks John - I am planning to do juts that, setup Elastix and see how it goes. I'm not expecting a smooth ride, as both Elastix and TBrun atop CentOS, just in case its CentOS that's conflicting with some of my hardware. As you say, nothing to lose in finding out. We are a relatively small company, so, If I get issues with Elastix, I may have no choice but go with Swithvox Free Edition :(

Oh, the TV version I tried is 2.6.2.2, so I plan to install 2.6.2.3 too and see if there may be a difference, if any.

Does anyone know why TB 2.8 did not properly detect and setup my TDM400P card, while TB 2.6 set it up perfectly? Is there something missing in TB 2.8?


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byaru1
Posts: 15
 Member Since:
2007-06-28
OK, as an update to this
Fri, 07/03/2009 - 7:58pm

OK, as an update to this issue, i actually went ahead and installed Elastix on the same "freezing" IBM box and the results were pretty much the same. The box still froze, so i deducted it's a Linux issue with the hardware on that box. I upgraded the RAM from 256 to 2GB, and had the same freezing issues both with trixbox and Elastix. I then decided to swap the hard disk (and digium card) into another box, with Elastix still installed, and the problem ceased.

My conclusion, as is the experience of several other users, is that older IBM hardware is certainly problematic with Linux in general.

On another note, I decided to try Elastix for a while just because my boss and I were amused by the "wow" factor of its interface. It looks like something that should be commercial, although, technically speaking, the other features are not any of our concern at all! And having used the interface for a while, I have to say that the trixbox UI is certainly more customizable and offers a lot more info than Elastix. I have to fiddle with config files quite occasionally, something I never did with trixbox.

So, would I migrate from Elastix back to Trixbox? If I get the time to reformat, etc.. Yes, I would. My boss still thinks though, that Elastix seems to offer much more, and that its other additional features are something we could "play with" in future :)

Thanks all for input to this thread.
eb.


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