Lync 2013 Client Update – March 2015

Posted by on

Here’s an update that seems largely for the benefit of the meeting junkies out there. This update (KB2956174) takes the Lync 2013 Client to 15.0.4701.1000.

I’m also pleased to report that it drops another of the pre-req’s we’ve been used to seeing, now down to 2 – and if you’re running with the February update there’s no change needed there.

What’s Fixed?

  • KB 3040496 Lync 2013 does not show who changes content in a shared whiteboard in an online meeting
  • KB 3040495 Cannot scroll down text that is more than two pages in whiteboard in Lync 2013
  • KB 3040494 “We couldn’t connect to the presentation” error occurs when an anonymous user shares a desktop in a meeting in Lync 2013
  • KB 3040493 Lync Online users cannot search contacts in Lync 2013 in an environment that has a proxy server deployed
  • KB 3040491 Meeting does not start if you click a meeting URL in a meeting invitation email message when Lync 2013 is signing in
  • KB 3040489 Text labels for toll and toll-free numbers disappear in a meeting invitation when you create the meeting in Lync 2013
  • KB 3040488 Outlook 2010 freezes, and then crashes when it runs together with Lync 2013
  • KB 3040487 “We found a problem with you Lync Meeting. Please leave Lync client running for 15 mins” error occurs in Lync 2013

Continue reading ‘Lync 2013 Client Update – March 2015’ »

Sonus Partial Import Work-Around

Posted by on

New to the Sonus SBC 1000 and SBC 2000 is the ability to perform a Partial Import of another gateway’s configuration. As it says on-screen “Existing Logical Interfaces, Ethernet Ports, VLANs, MST Instances, ACLs, Static Routes, ASM Networking, Link Monitor, NAT, IPsec Tunnels, Node-Level Settings and Certificate configurations won’t be modified. All other configurations will be over written.”

PartialImport

Continue reading ‘Sonus Partial Import Work-Around’ »

Lync Server 2013 Update – February 2015

Posted by on

This rather juicy update takes Lync Server 2013 from 5.0.8308.866 to 5.0.8308.871 – or 5.0.8308.872 depending upon where you look.

What’s Fixed?

LOTS!!

  • KB 3037071 Location monitoring report does not show regions and site names in a Lync Server 2013 environment
  • KB 3034784 Lync Server 2013-based client crashes or disconnects from a meeting when an anonymous user ends audio lines of a call
  • KB 3034783 LS Storage Service event 32054 after you enable Lync 2013 Mobility in an Exchange 2010 environment
  • KB 3034782 Non-clickable hyperlinks setting does not work in a conversation with external users in a Lync Server 2013-based client
  • KB 3034779 Lync Monitoring report does not show names under “Sites and Subnet” column
  • KB 3034778 Rtcsrv.exe crashes when invalid address book normalization rules are defined in Lync Server 2013
  • KB 3034780 Lync Server 2013 Control Panel crashes when you access the Route tab under the Voice Routing tab
  • KB 3034776 Memory leak occurs in w3wp.exe, MediationServerSvc.exe, and sqlservr.exe in a Lync Server 2013 environment
  • KB 3034781 Central Management Store file replication is slow or incomplete in a Lync Server 2013 environment
  • KB 3034777 Lync Server 2013-based RGS agent receives a toast for a second waiting call after agent accepts the first waiting call

Continue reading ‘Lync Server 2013 Update – February 2015’ »

ZCC Lync Call Router config file

Posted by on

If you’re adding a Zeacom Contact Centre to your Lync deployment one component you don’t want to overlook is the “ZCC Lync Call Router”. You run this .msi on your FEs and SBAs and it rigs a safety net under your call centre: if it senses your Zeacom server is offline it will re-route calls bound for Zeacom’s endpoints to a backup RGS.

When you first install the MSI it puts a basic copy of “zcclynccallrouter.xml” in C:\Program Files\Telephony\ZCC Lync Call Router\.

Zeacom *should* auto-populate the file with the failover entries but I’ve seen instances where it doesn’t. The install guide has the correct syntax for the bits you need but only includes a screen-grab of the required config so you can’t scrape it.

Here’s a version you can copy and paste. Hopefully you’ll never need to. I don’t know why, but the app creates two entries for each endpoint. (I would have thought one for its SIP URI would be sufficient).

Continue reading ‘ZCC Lync Call Router config file’ »

Lync 2013 Client Update – February 2015

Posted by on

Our first client update for 2015 isn’t a major one, but *I* benefit from one of the two fixes in it, so naturally I’m excited! This update (kb2920744) takes the Lync 2013 Client to 15.0.4693.1000/1001.

What’s Fixed?

  • KB3032399 Update improves users’ ability to select partial instant messages from conversation history windows in Lync 2013
  • KB3032396 Incorrect conversation window opens when you double-click a contact in Lync 2013

Continue reading ‘Lync 2013 Client Update – February 2015’ »

Using Sonus SBC1k/2k AD Lookup to Block Outbound CallerID

Posted by on

The AD lookup feature in the Sonus SBC is an incredibly powerful and often under-utilised feature. I’ve written of it before, and my peer Luca Vitali has posted another example of its usefulness this week. That led to a Twitter conversation and what might yet turn into a bit of a competition to see who can come up with the “best” use of the feature. ;-) For my contribution I’ve figured for some time that it should be possible to use the AD lookup outbound, as Luca has done, to change the call handling and in this case suppress CallerID for certain users. Continue reading ‘Using Sonus SBC1k/2k AD Lookup to Block Outbound CallerID’ »

Quickly Generating Test E-mails

Posted by on

I needed to mock-up a full Outlook inbox for a document I’m writing, and of course I figured there’d have to be a way to do this using PowerShell.

Turns out it’s really simple. Here’s the quick and dirty script I lashed up that will dump as many messages as you like into a given mailbox, with a randomly-selected sender, subject and mail domain.

I ran this script on my Windows 8.1 PC, targeting another mail user on the local system.

Run it from the PowerShell command line and simply tell it how many messages you want to send.

Note that in this script I’ve hard-coded the recipient and the mail server, but you can of course build on this script to pass it from the command line. If Exchange rejects you, it might be a permissions issue (anonymous / mail relay).

Continue reading ‘Quickly Generating Test E-mails’ »

New-LyncMeetingWarmup

Posted by on

Complaints regarding a slow meeting join process in Lync aren’t at all uncommon, and in many cases are actually as a result of IIS’s automatic recycling process, itself intended to improve reliability of the IIS websites.

Drago Totev has published a fantastic process by which you can ensure your Lync IIS application pools are always sitting there idling away, ready for a user to join.

In his post, Drago walks you through how to create a scheduled task on your FE’s that waits for the Event that’s logged each time IIS recycles the Application Pools. When that trigger is seen, the scheduler fires a script that sends a dummy meeting join request through to IIS which then “warms them up” ready for a real user to join.

I recently followed his setup to add the Schedule to four Front-Ends, and decided by #2 that it would be great if you could just run a PowerShell script to do it all for you automatically. And now you can.

Continue reading ‘New-LyncMeetingWarmup’ »

Lync Server 2013 Update #2 – December 2014

Posted by on

This (our second December update) takes Lync Server 2013 from 5.0.8308.857 to 5.0.8308.866.

What’s Fixed?

This update appears to only address the recent meeting join issue for users of Google Chrome (as per the earlier December release), with a token mystery fix for good luck:

Continue reading ‘Lync Server 2013 Update #2 – December 2014’ »

2015 mugshot: the Ericofon

Posted by on

My ‘mugshot’ for 2015 is the wonderfully kitsch “Ericofon”. In some markets it’s known as the “Cobra” telephone.

Greig-Headshot-Square

The Ericofon was introduced into Australia around 1963 as an alternative to the standard 800-series table phone. Their insides were fully imported from Sweden and the cases moulded locally, the phones then assembled in Ericsson’s Broadmeadows factory in Melbourne.

“Jim’s Book” as it’s known in collector circles here says the Ericofon only reached 4% of the market and “never enjoyed great popularity with subscribers”.

My copy of “Maintenance and Circuits”, published by the Australian Post Office (aka the PMG) is dated 1969 and includes the full circuitry and parts list in case I ever need to do some running repairs.

I’m lucky to possess examples of 3 of the 5 colours it was marketed in here: Ivory, Silver Grey, Surf Green, Mushroom and Carnival Red.

We only ever saw the rotary dial version in Australia. The green pushbutton version in the photo below is an eBay import. If you look closely at the photo, the bottom row of buttons doesn’t have the now traditional * and # straddling the zero, only an R (presumably for Redial?) on the right. It’s a decadic/pulse version.

IMG_7894-EricofonsAplenty

All of the Australian Ericofons had a fixed line cord, but Glen’s digitally removed those from the photo for clarity. The green one has an RJ-style socket for its line cord.

Most of mine suffer a perished rubber gasket at the bottom, and many you’ll see for sale online have chips around the base from where they’ve been dropped, or the plastic base is broken around one or more of the 4 screws around the dial that hold the assembly together.

They’re not generally a “plug and play” item due to the way their 6-conductor line cord was wired for “anti-tinkling” when used with other phones in the home, so an unmodified phone might be able to make calls but won’t ring. That’s easily fixed.

If maintained they still work well, adding a lovely retro feel to any home. A friend of mine nearby still has one in his kitchen.

References / Credits

See Also

– G.