[Bryon Davis]

Hi Christophe,

I did some testing with two PCs sending sendmsg requests simultaneously. The iSMS accepted the requests from both PCs simultaneously and then sent the SMS messages. This was true for HTTP and TCP.

All requests are put in a queue and processed individually. The sending queue is fairly large, I don’t have exact numbers of the maximum on hand, but I’ve had over 3,000 jobs in the queue in my testing.

There is no real difference to the iSMS whether TCP or HTTP is used. It depends on your preference when programming the send API applications. You may prefer the support certain languages have for HTTP or TCP.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Kenneth,

We are still looking into this problem.

For now I would suggest try using Unicode to send messages with special characters.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Olav,

The sending queue is fairly large, it can handle thousands of pending jobs. I don’t currently have an exact number, but I’ve seen over 3,000 in my testing.

As far as monitoring the sending queue, you have a few commands. When you send a message using the API sendmsg request, the iSMS responds with a Message ID number that you can then use to send a querymsg request to get the status of that sent message. In the newer firmware (v1.49i), there is also a queryjobs request to get the current number of pending jobs through the API. The queryjobs can limit the reponse to all jobs, high priority, normal priority, or low priority jobs.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

HI Christophe,

Which problem are you referring to? There were are few mentioned in this topic.

If you’re are referring to the original issue of buffering incoming non-polling messages when the API server is down, this is fixed in the v1.49i. You can find this at the links below. Changes and upgrade instructions are in the readme file.

SF100:

https://webfiles.multitech.com/../../engineering/unofficial-releases/iSMS%20(Formerly%20SMSFinder)/Firmware/SF100/1.49i/SF100-u-v1.49i-13Oct2011.zip

SF400 and SF800:

https://webfiles.multitech.com/../../engineering/unofficial-releases/iSMS%20(Formerly%20SMSFinder)/Firmware/SF400_SF800/1.49i/SF400-800-u-v1.49i-13Oct2011.zip

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

We are looking into possibly adding message confirmation.

While it would be nice to know for certain if all messages were delivered, the reality it the +CDS isn’t a guaranteed way to confirm messages. The +CDS reports must be supported by the network, and aren’t guaranteed from the provider. Also when sending between different providers, the +CDS will show that it was delivered even though it was only handed off to the other network and not actually delivered to the end device. So a +CDS saying it was delivered doesn’t mean it reached the end device, and not receiving a +CDS doesn’t mean it didn’t.

With that said, the +CDS responses could still be useful and we are considering adding the feature in the future.

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Brian,

In my testing I’ve notice that not all providers accept GSM encoding, which is used by the iSMS Extended ASCII. I mostly see this when sending outside my SIM’s provider.

Check the Outbox and see if the message shows up there. You can also check Statistics & Logs–>Log Traces–>Send API Status Log and SMS Live Log. These should show whether the sms was sent.

Also check in the inbox for a message stating the sms was rejected for invalid characters.

ASCII is more widely accepted when sending between providers, which uses PCCP437. Unicode is also another option.

If this doesn’t appear to be the case for your failure, I recommend creating a case in our support portal at support.multitech.com.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

The European and US models use different bands by default. That is why you don’t have any signal strength. I recommend contacting who you got it from and exchanging it for a US model.

[Bryon Davis]

Sorry there currently isn’t a way to do this.

[Bryon Davis]

Check the Statistics page in the Statistics & Logs. Make sure the SIM Status reads Enabled.

Make sure you are using the correct antenna:

Antenna Specifications

GSM/EGSM Antenna Requirements/Specifications

Frequency Range: 824 – 960 MHz / 1710 – 1990 MHz

Impedance: 50 Ohms

VSWR: <2.0:1

Typical Radiated Gain: 3 dBi on azimuth plane

Radiation: Omni

Polarization: Vertical

Wave: Half Wave Dipole

If possible, try the SIM in a cel phone and see if that gets a signal.

If you still have problems, I recommend creating a case in our tech support portal at support.multitech.com.

[Bryon Davis]

Your send rates will vary depending on speed of the wireless connection to the tower, how much traffic the tower is receiving, and how large the messages are. There isn’t any settings on the iSMS to optimize or improve speed. You could try contacting the carrier and see if they have any suggestions.

[Bryon Davis]

Sorry, there currently isn’t a way to query what the max msg id currently is. Right now the only way to track the max msg id is to monitor the responses from the sendmsg requests, the response contains the msg id.

There isn’t a way to access the internal database.

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Kelly,

The iSMS can only handle 50 recipients (names, numbers, or groups) per sendmsg. If this is exceeded a 605 Recipient Overflow is returned.

Whether the modem can recover from the 612 error depends on the cause of the error. The iSMS monitors and clears memory use, which should clear almost all of the causes. It may be possible to get an unusual failure that causes memory to fill up and not get freed. At that point, a reboot would clear the condition.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Shelveen,

If you have the latest v1.47 firmware, there is a load balance feature that allows you to tie multiple iSMS units together. You would set one SF800 as a master and the other two as slaves.

You can find the latest firmware at:

http://www.multitech.com/en_US/SUPPORT/Families/MultiModemiSMS/firmware.aspx

You will also find more information on the Load Balance feature on page 52 of the latest User Guide. This User Guide can be found at:

http://www.multitech.com/en_US/DOCUMENTS/Families/MultiModemiSMS/manuals.aspx

We haven’t tested with 19,000 numbers in the Address Book yet. I will do some testing and post my results.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

It appears the SIM isn’t installed or isn’t inserted properly. At the beginning of the messages it shows “SIM Status Disabled – No SIM “.

[Bryon Davis]

I have not heard of being blacklisted for sending messages before. Did they say why they were thinking of blacklisting you?

When testing firmware, we commonly send over a 1,000 messages per channel a day.

[Bryon Davis]

Typically a channel can send around 8-10 messages a minute. So if you have a SF100 (1 channel), 30 messages would usually take around 3-4 minutes. This may go down if there are incoming messages between sending. If you have more channels, it should send quicker.

[Bryon Davis]

Sorry, there currently isn’t a way to configure the iSMS to put a time stamp in the SMS message.

If you are sending SMS messages using the API, your API program could insert the time stamp into the message when sending the sendmsg request.

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Kelly,

The priority option wasn’t added until v1.44. The enc option of unicode (enc=2) was also added in 1.44, v1.31 only supports enc values of 0 and 1.

I would recommend upgrading to v1.47, besides the added features, it has many fixes and is a more stable version.

I currently don’t have the information on 602 and 607 errors. I’ll try to find that for you.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Kweli,

The settings look fine.

When your iSMS receives a text, it should immediately send the message to the 192.168.201.16 server.

First check if you’re receiving the messages by checking the web interface’s Inbox, this can be seen in the SMS Services–>Inbox menu.

If the messages are showing up in the Inbox, but aren’t reaching the web server, check for a network problem. I’d recommend using a packet sniffer such as wireshark to check if the post packets are being sent to the web server. You need to use a dumb ethernet hub or mirror the ethernet switch port to the capturing PC when capturing IP packets, otherwise ethernet switches won’t send all packets to the PC.

If you still have problems, I’d recommend creating a case at support.multitech.com.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Kelly,

If the iSMS is busy or temporarily runs out of space for another message it will return a 608.

Can you give an example of the commands you are sending to send with enc and priority?

Here is an example of a command that has both enc and priority. I tested this on v1.47 firmware.

http://192.168.2.143:81/user=admin&passwd=admin&cat=1&enc=1&priority=3&to=”7637654321″&text=”test&#8221;

You’ll need to change the port from 81 to your port, and the username and password.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Yes, you should be able to use the recvmsg command to retrieve the unread messages. The recvmsg command won’t retrieve all inbox messages, only the ones that haven’t be retrieved previously.

Currently the only way to read all inbox messages is through the web interface.

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Campbell,

When a telnet session to an iSMS modem is connected, it will end whatever process the iSMS software was running with that modem, and block the iSMS software from using that modem. So the iSMS software won’t interfere with your telnet session. Once the telnet session ends, the iSMS will start using that modem again.

There may be issues if you repeatedly start and end modem telnet sessions over a long period of time. A periodic reboot would clear these issues though.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Ed,

I would recommend using another port besides 80, since this is used by the iSMS web interface. I believe the default port is 81. Try setting the port to 81 and entering the following command on the browser address bar:

http://201.122.162.20:81/recvmsg?user=admin&passwd=Secret

Make sure you can access the iSMS and that port 81 isn’t blocked by any firewalls. Try pinging 201.122.162.20 to make sure you can reach the iSMS. Also verify your password.

Regards,

Bryon

[Bryon Davis]

For a work around, try using URL encoding for the special characters when sending the HTTP POST.

Below are the URL code values for the characters you mentioned:

ä = %E4

ë = %EB

ü = %F6

You can find a more complete list at the following link:

http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/ref_urlencode.asp

[Bryon Davis]

Currently some special characters, such as the German umlauts, are not handled correctly. We are looking into the reasons for this.

[Bryon Davis]

I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to do, but besides doing some trigger features, to run a command after a SMS you would need a program running on a PC or webserver that would use the iSMS API to receive incoming SMS, interpret the SMS and execute your command on that PC/webserver, and then send a SMS with the results using the API.

For more detailed information we would need to know more about the programming language being used and the setup.

There are some iSMS API programming examples that may be helpful on our FTP site at https://webfiles.multitech.com/engineering/sample-code/sms-finder/

[Bryon Davis]

For non-development problems, it’s best to create a case in our tech support portal at support.multitech.com.

[Bryon Davis]

It’s difficult to say how the Faxing will work with that setup. VOIP setups can be tricky with any analog fax devices. If the VOIP service and PBX have a Fax Relay feature, such as T.38, it will help improve the fax performance. Sometimes fax rates can be acceptable using G711 uncompressed voice with low latency and packet loss.

[Bryon Davis]

Sorry, currently there isn’t any way to change the name of the PDF files on received faxes.

[Bryon Davis]

Hi Krishna,

Can you post the XML file you are trying to send? Many times the Bad Request is because of a problem with the XML data.

Regards,

Bryon

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