I have two of these voicemail systems at seperate locations, and when we returned from the holiday break both systems were giving out messages in a few mailboxes that said "Message from an outside party has been erased". It seems to me that it might be an issue related to the date change to 2006. Both of these systems have been functioning well since being updated for 2000. Has anyone else seen this and how the heck do I fix it.

The voice mail system has deleted any (new or saved) messages that has been in a user's mailbox beyond the class of service time limit.
If you log on to the VMS and look up the class of sevice menu, (generaly all mailbox's use COS 100)
You'll find "New/Saved Messages ____/____ ".
You can extend the number of days a message can be in a mailbox by changing this field.
Note: If your VMS has a small hard drive (8-10 Hours), you might not want to making any changes.

"End" hit it on the head.

Time had expired.

Sorry guys that is not the issue here, the messages are maybe a few hours old or at best 2 days old and the system is set to keep new messages 30 days and saved messages 20 days. Also the system is 30 hours and is 73% free. This is driving me crazy as the system has been working flawlessly for about 5 years.
Actually on one mailbox there were three of the "Message from an outside party has been erased" messages on one mailbox after the individual cleaned out her mailbox and went to lunch. When she got back about an hour later these three showed up.
Frustrating at best!

I'd try defrag on the system and possibly going down to the mbx root level and take a look at the files in that mbx. It may be an issue with file structure and a bad block.

Here are a few other options:
1. Before logging on to the VMS, press the F1 key.
This will display all traffic info and on line status. (This will tell you if the VMS has lost power)
2. Look up the ADM. mailbox (C screen) see when this mailbox has been access last. (The date and the time will be displayed)
3. If two Voice Mail Systems have the same problem at two diffrent locations.......HMMMMMM!
You have someone breaking into you system!
CHANGE THE ADMIN MAILBOX NUMBER AND PASSCODES.

I have the same trouble with my one of my VX2s. I have extended the new/save to 999, but that has not helped. The machine in question is running version 4.01 on DOS Ver 5.0 It may be DOS level problem, checking if DOS Version 5.0 can handle dates past 2005. However, I do have several others that are not having this problem, they other machines are mostly 5.0 too. It may also be limited to the version 4.xx machines.

Had this trouble with corupt mailboxes brfore.

Try deleting and recreating mailbox.

Good Luck!!

Cos, The machine that you have that is versoin 4.01 will not work with the 2000 dates, that I had experienced as well. I have updated both of mine to the latest greatest as of Jan. 2000.
I also have worked with the techs and they will only work with dos 5.0 nothing newer. Learned thjis the hard way.
JJ, I did reinitialise one of the mailboxes thinking the same as you that it may be corruption. The day after I did that it happened two times in the evening and three times around lunchtime. I did shut the system down and ran some tests. When the system loads it automatically runs scandisk. Since I have done that I have not heard of any issues, and am holding my breath.
Once again, Thanks for all of the feedback everyone.......It is appreciated.
Dave

Hi y'all. I'm having the same problem with (3)of our voicemail systems. All three systems are 4.5 software level. All are running a full-time auto attendant. And all are experiencing the exact same problem - messages are deleting some time in the early morning hours. Messages are there all day but sometime after midnight, the messages disappear and the system plays "a message from an outside source has been deleted" I have contacted tech support. Their only suggestion was upgrade the software level or replace. They have no clue what is causing this either.

Currently we have performed a proper shut down of the voicemail (which has had no effect) We upgraded from 4.5 to 4.5.1. This seems to have made some difference. However, I still lost messages but no more system greeting saying the message had been deleted. The messages in our test mailbox were still there the next day but the 2nd day they had been deleted without the system greeting. I rerecorded some more messages in this mailbox and they are still there again today.

We are attempting to shut down the cleanup the voicemail system performs. We are not sure how this will affect but at this point we don't have much to lose. Our next effort will be to change the date back to 1978. This of course is only a temporary solution (if it works) until we can replace their voicemail systems. I do believe that if we change the date back, that we will lose all voicemails, even the ones from 2005. All messages from 2005 are still there currently - why it is only affecting messages starting this year is a mystery.

I will let you know how turning off the clean up works for us. If anyone comes up with anything else - a sure fire fix - please let me know !

Thanks and good luck to all that have this problem. It is irritating !

I had a number of users that swore their messages were not there, but I assumed because the "a message from an outside source has been deleted" wasn't there, that we were ok. Now there is another wrench thrown in the works. I am going to go to another of my systems tonight and run defrag and scandisk then reboot and see what is what. I still say it is a software issue and am concerned that no one is going to support these issues and we will have to replace them w/new. Certainly did not want to go through that at this time!

If you change the time and date on the system, it will effect all messages. If you beleive that a "midnite reset" is creating the problem, you can do a quick test.
Leave a message in a mailbox, (let the system turn the MWI on) then press the F3 key and hit enter twice. this will force a system clean up.
(this is the same as a midnite reset) watch the bottom of the screen for the mailbox information. see if the mailbox in question deletes any messages. You may have to repeat this test several times.
I am not aware of any DOS issues (4,5 or 6) that effected the system operation.
However there were several problems with software versions. (From messages not deleting to DTMF problems)
I would not recommend coping file from the "zip directory" unless you have lots of experience.
If the wheels are falling off, Then reload the system disks the came with the VMS.
Note:
Power caused the biggest problems for the VMS!
If you don't have a good UPS/Conditioner for your VMS, Then go out and get a good one.
I highly recommend ONEAC.

Executone/Intertel will tell you that you must upgrade and make Y2K compatable, before thae can support.

I only have one voicemail that is not Y2K, that I was trying to test your problem. If I set the system to the date of 2006 it actually is set to 1906. It experienced seveal weird troubles, within 2 days. If I set the dat to 1988, the problems seem to disappear. It has only been 2 days. So, we will have to wait and see.

Good Luck!!

Further investigation - the only machine that I am having trouble with is running VX2 software version 4.01. All my VX2 machines running 5.xx or later are working correctly. VX3s are unaffected.
If you are looking to set a DOS platform to the mimmic dates for 2006, you will need to use 1978, 1989 or 1995.

Last evening I was on one of the sites that I have this system on and did some admin and cleanup work as well as some investigating. While I was there I put 4 or 5 test messages in both mailboxes(sites). When I checked them this am they were all erased by an outside source. This is pointing more and more at a software glitch. Stay tuned as I doggedly try to find out what is going on.

By the way both sites are running 4.5.0 or 4.5.1

UPDATE !!!!! After upgrading the software to level 4.5.1 and turning off the cleanup process (default is set to perform a cleanup at 3:00am - after days of research, we have determined that messages seem to be disappearing after 3:00am. So we believe the culprit is definitely the cleanup cycle), the system no longer seems to be deleting messages. We will contiue to monitor. But as of this morning, the messages are still in my test mailbox. Yaaaaayyyy !!!

Brenda, How did you turn that function off. I assumed that if I put all zeros in there it would reboot at midnight. One of the tech guys that I talked to said put stars or dashes in there, but I am not sure it will allow that.

According to the manual for VX2, it says to put in all zeros to disable the cleanup function. Then press F5 to save.

Use it in good health & good luck !

Thanks for your fast response. I will get there immeadiately and do that. I do have a manual for my VX2 but did not see that in there.
Dave

FYI:
The problem appears to be software issue that has started after January 1, 2006. During the system cleanup, any new/saved messages are erased.
(However any messages before December 31 are test ok)
The systems in question were both running 4.5 software. (Y2K software patch)
I also disabled the system cleanup function (as stated above). However it took several attempts for the system to recognize this change.
If you remove the cleanup function, there may be several intermittent problems.
I don’t think Executone/Intertel will support the VX2 VMS any more.
To the best of my knowledge you can’t upgrade VX2 to a VX3 (dungle conversion).

The VX2 was built on SCSI platform while the VX3 uses IDE. The VX2 can only use an 8 bit video card, and uses specific memory management (QEMM) along with a virtual disk. The VX3 uses standard DOS memory management and can be placed in any PC ATX box. There was no upgrade path from a VX2 to a VX3

UPDATE !!! Unfortunately, this is not a good update. I checked our test mailbox on the voicemail system we first upgraded and the messages are gone. No system message informing me that the messages were deleted. They just are no longer there (after 2 days)

So our fix is only a temporary fix. I am recording two more messages in the system today and will monitor. I will recheck on Monday to see if the messages are gone. (but I believe it is a mute point because no one would have deleted those messages) If so, back to the drawing board. We did check DOS version and all voicemails in question have DOS software 5.0.

I just heard back from the Tech support people that used to support this software. They are aware of the issue and know that it is devastating and are not going to fix or repair it. They are not going to spend any time on R&D on that old of a system. Their suggestion was to replace it with a newer system. I was hoping that was not going to be their response, but it is what it is. I am looking at the card style VM that gos in the IDS. They said you need an open slot to the right as the HD sticks out. I would assume for ventilation as well. If any one has the card style VM for sale I would appreciate a quote. Thanks all for your expert help with this issue.
Dave

If this is related to the 2006 date you might try setting the date to 1995 which shares the calander with 2006 and see if it works.

Kerry

I changed my one VX2 with the 4.01 software to 1995 on Monday, have not lost any messages since the que was cleaned out.

I did all yhe tests on my system running 4.0.1

If you set the date back and turn off system cleanup, it seems to fix prolem. I have had messsages in mailbox for 5 days now.

Do as others have said set the date back!!

Good Luck!!

Thanks for the update. We assumed that would be the case. My question for those who have changed the date back to 1995, did you in fact lose all the messages that were saved before 2006?

I am 95% sure that we will lose those messages, but any confirmation would be great.

Thanks so much

I was going to do the date thing and see how it went and when I got in this morning one of the aforementioned VX2 was crashed. The hard drive crapped out, had some bad clusters. We all know what that means.
At any rate, I bought a card style VM EVX 8 port 100 hours. What I need now is the 20 or so page install manual that is supposed to come with it. Can anyone help me out with this one?
Any and all help would be appreciated.

No Manuals come with cards anymore.

It programs just like the VXII.

Good Luck!!

I understand that JJ, but need the install instructions so I can get integration setup properly. I was told that there is something on the line of a bulletin that outlines the integration settings.

With an ACPU of 2.0 or better (and the correct switchs turned on - VMS/VMI), you should not have to do anything other then install the card.
There is a caution about placing certain cards next to the EVX on the left side. If the cards are touching, you found one that should not be to the left of the EVX. I try to have an empty slot to the left for good air circulation too.

I've had about 12 VX2's crash since the first of the year. We're just replacing them with VX3's. It's just not worth the time.

I have a three questions for clarification:

1. Is the date change at the DOS level or within the vx2 app?

2. I'm going to change the date to 1995. Will I have to change it again in 2007 or just leave it as-is?

3. Should I warn the users that there is a change they are going to lose voice mail messages before I change the date or will they not lose them?

Thanks!

Rick Forsyhte

The date change is done by dialing in as an adminstrator.
I believe you will have to find another date in 2007 that coinsides with the 2007 calander year.
The third question has been asked a few times in here and no one has had the balls to try as you may lose messages.

The date change is done by dialing in as an adminstrator.
I believe you will have to find another date in 2007 that coinsides with the 2007 calander year.
The third question has been asked a few times in here and no one has had the balls to try as you may lose messages.