Office 2016 client path prevents SfB MOH playing

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It’s been a big week for Music On Hold. I’ve found a bug in the Office 2016 client that kills MOH if you mute, and another one again – this time related to the path your Office installed itself into.

The symptoms were simple enough: internally, or for external parties when the Sonus SBC’s own MOH feature was disabled, putting callers on hold resulted in them hearing silence.

I thought this was going to be a simple client policy fix, but nup:

get-csclientpolicy | ft identity,*music* -auto

Get-CsClientPolicy-MOH

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SfB 2016 client bug: Mute kills MOH

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I encountered a quirky little bug while chasing a Music On Hold (MOH) problem this week.

It seems that in all current flavours of the Office 2016-based client I can lay my hands on (MSI & C2R), activating Mute will suppress the transmission of MOH from the client. This probably isn’t going to be something most users will encounter, but will be exacerbated if you’re running a util that automatically engages Mute – like removing your wireless headset might do.

Its easily reproducible: with the call on hold, toggling Mute on and off will do the opposite to the music. While you’re muted the far end will hear silence & is at risk of hanging up thinking they’ve been disconnected.

MutedCallOnHold-edit

This issue won’t however be apparent to external callers if you’re using a Sonus SBC and its in-built MOH feature: that continues to play to the PSTN caller regardless.

Affected releases

I’ve confirmed it occurs on these releases of client:

  • C2R Version 1708, 8431.2094 (Monthly Channel)
  • C2R Version 1710, 8713.1000 (Office Insider)
  • MSI Version 16.0.4549.1000

Revision History

14th October 2017: This is the initial post.

 

– G.

Lync 2013 / SfB 2015 Client Security Update – October 2017

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This week’s Security Update seems to have touched a few items and of course the Office 2013-based Lync/SfB client is no exception. Our September update took us to 15.0.4963.1000 and today we jump to 15.0.4971.1000.

Kb 4011179: This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Office file. To learn more about these vulnerabilities, see Microsoft Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVE-2017-11786.

What’s Fixed

This security update contains the following improvements and fixes:

  • Kb 4042815 Improves the conference experience for active speaker video stream in VDIv2 in Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013)
  • Kb 4042811 “The video preview won’t show” error occurs when you start a video call in Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013) in VDIv2
  • Kb 4042814 Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013) sign-in fails when the client moves from internal to external Internet connection
  • Kb 4042810 Duplicate working numbers for contacts are displayed on the call drop-down menu in Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013)
  • Kb 4042812 Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013) doesn’t display who changed the whiteboard content in a meeting
  • Kb 4042817 Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013) crashes when the computer resumes from sleep or hibernate mode
  • Kb 4042809 A user’s department isn’t displayed on their contact card in Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013)
  • Kb 4042813 Can’t automatically log on to Skype for Business 2015 (Lync 2013) that has the December 6, 2016, update installed
  • Kb 4042816 Adds a new Show/Hide My Video button for VDIv2 users to minimize the self-view video in Skype for Business 2015

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Sonus SBC 1k/2k generates bad multi-SAN certs

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Sonus is investigating a problem where the SBC 1k/2k & SWe Lite generate bad multi-SAN CSRs. The issue results in the additional SANs being added to the certificate as a single SAN, comma-separated:

Sonus-BadCSR-highlight

Sonus-BadCert

Clearly this is a parsing error in the CSR-generating code, but unfortunately a fix isn’t immediately apparent. Separating the SANs with a space or a comma followed by a space – or even a carriage return – still results in bad certs.

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Lync 2013 / SfB 2015 Client Security Update – September 2017

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It’s been a month since our last update to the Office 2013-based Lync/SfB client took us to 15.0.4953.1000. Today, a security update takes us to 15.0.4963.1000.

Kb 4011107: This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Office file. To learn more about these vulnerabilities, see Microsoft Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVE-2017-8676, Microsoft Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVE-2017-8695, and Microsoft Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVE-2017-8696.

What’s Fixed

Two other items are addressed in this update:

  • Kb 4039811 Doesn’t display a dialog box to join a meeting through a web browser if Skype for Business 2015 sign-in fails
  • Translate some terms in multiple languages to make sure that the meaning is accurate.

What’s New / Changed

Nothing documented.

Continue reading ‘Lync 2013 / SfB 2015 Client Security Update – September 2017’ »

SfB Server 2016 Edge CLS not listening

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It’s possible my new Edge is jinxed. First I couldn’t RDP to it, and now I’ve installed SfB, CLS Logging isn’t working.

It might have something to do with the fact that Windows Updates put .NET 4.7 on it before I’d even had a chance to run Pat’s script to block it.

The quick way to check for it in Server 2016 is to look for the KB:

PS C:\Users\Administrator> get-hotfix Kb3186568

Anyway, despite having excised that, CLS logging wasn’t working. The service would start and appear to run fine, with no errors in the event log, but it wasn’t listening on the usual ports, and of course that was resulting in errors when I tried to start logging from the Front-End:

PS C:\Users\greig> Show-CsClsLogging -Computers sfb2015edge2.blah.local
WARNING: Failed on 1 agents

Agent - sfb2015edge2.blah.local, Reason - Error code - 20000, Message - Unknown error - Error calling agent 
sfb2015edge2.blah.local; Could not connect to net.tcp://sfb2015edge2.blah.local:50002/. The connection attempt 
lasted for a time span of 00:00:20.9811488. TCP error code 10060: A connection attempt failed because the connected 
party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has 
failed to respond 192.168.19.89:50002. . Please refer CLS logs for details.      PoolFqdn: sfb2015edge2.blah.local


MachineFqdn                  ResponseMessage                AlwaysOn ScenarioName     Remaining ProductVersion
                                                                                       Mins

-----------                  ---------------                -------- ------------     --------- --------------

sfb2015edge2.blah.local  Error code - 20000, Message -                                0         6.0.9319.0
                              Unknown error - Error calling
                              agent
                              sfb2015edge2.blah.local;
                              Could not connect to net.tcp:/
                              /sfb2015edge2.blah.local:5
                              0002/. The connection attempt
                              lasted for a time span of
                              00:00:20.9811488. TCP error
                              code 10060: A connection
                              attempt failed because the
                              connected party did not
                              properly respond after a
                              period of time, or
                              established connection failed
                              because connected host has
                              failed to respond
                              192.168.19.89:50002. . Please
                              refer CLS logs for details.
PS C:\Users\greig>

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Unable to RDP to new Server 2016 machine

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I created a new SfB “Site” in the greiginsydney Lab during the week for some DR testing. For this I built two new servers, both running Server 2016. One was to be a Front-End, with the other an Edge.

The Front-End joined the domain OK and was easily managed from my desktop, but the Edge just wouldn’t play. Try as I might I wasn’t able to RDP to it. Networking was fine – they could see each other, with pings succeeding in both directions. I disabled the Windows Firewall on both: still no dice. I even toggled the Remote Management settings on the Edge, and rebooted for good measure. Nup.

I tried the modern-day equivalent of a Telnet connection:

PS W:\> Test-NetConnection sfb2015edge2.blah.local -Port 3389 -InformationLevel Quiet
WARNING: TCP connect to (192.168.19.89 : 3389) failed
False
PS W:\>

Not even tinkering with the NetConnectionProfile would coerce it to accept my RDP connection.

I was on the verge of blowing it away and restarting when I tried a variation on that theme. I blew the NICs away with this:

netcfg –d

… then rebooted, where-upon the NICs returned and I was able to reinstate the same networking settings from before – except this time all was a source of joy.

I don’t know if this is going to be a reproducible problem, but if you encounter the same with a new VM, consider the above before you “scorch” it and start again.

 

 

– G.

Calls to SfB RGS drop instantly – FE logs event 31140

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If you’ve ever created a Lync or Skype for Business Response Group Workflow using PowerShell you really appreciate how quick and easy it is to do from the Response Group browser interface, the “Response Group Configuration Tool”.

Unfortunately sometimes the PowerShell path is unavoidable: if you have more than 4 options in an IVR menu, need to burrow more than 2 levels deep or want to add no-response actions or “please hold while we transfer you” messages, those can only be done through PowerShell.

And so it was that I found myself struggling with *several* brand new Hunt Groups and IVRs that all hung up on me straight after I called them, or dropped to music, skipping the greeting altogether. The only common pattern here was that the faulty ones all used a WAV file as a greeting, whilst those with a Text-To-Speech (TTS) greeting were fine.

Here’s an example of creating one of my broken ones. It’s a faithful reproduction of all of the P$ tips you’ll find online, so I was struggling to understand the problem:

$serviceID = "service:ApplicationServer:mySfBFE.blah.local"
$GreetingAudioFile = Import-CsRgsAudioFile -Identity $ServiceId -FileName "TestRgsGreeting.wav" -Content (Get-Content "C:\TestRgsGreeting.wav" -Encoding byte -ReadCount 0)
$PromptWM = New-CsRgsPrompt -AudioFilePrompt $GreetingAudioFile 
$Queue = get-csrgsQueue $serviceID -Name "TestSfB-Queue"
$DefaultActionWM = New-CsRgsCallAction -Prompt $PromptWM -Action TransferToQueue -QueueID $Queue.Identity
     
$Workflow = New-CsRgsWorkflow -Parent $ServiceId -Active $true -Anonymous $false -Language "en-AU" -EnabledForFederation $false `
-Name "Broken SfB Workflow" `
-Description "Broken SfB Workflow" `
-PrimaryUri "sip:BrokenSfBWorkflow@blah.net" `
-DefaultAction $DefaultActionWM
Set-CsRgsWorkflow -instance $workflow

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Review: Yealink SIP DECT W56H

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We were recently challenged by a customer to provide an economical cordless handset solution for their Skype for Business deployment. This same solution was required at each of their many small sites, so the economies of scale of a larger certified WiFi solution couldn’t be realised. There was no requirement for roaming as each of the sites is essentially autonomous, and this started us looking to stand-alone DECT solutions.

For the endpoint devices we chose the Yealink SIP DECT “W56P” base-station and DECT handset package. This pairing currently has a retail price of just over AUD200, so it ticked that box for the customer as well.

IMG_1557 IMG_1590

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