<p>Recently we had issues with 7941/61 phones not taking firmware loads -- they were hung up at "Upgrading" after a factory reset. The culprit was later found - a routing issue directing a /29 network inside of the /24 DHCP reservation scope into the digital abyss, but the damage was already done -- a factory reset corrupted the firmware load and subsequent factory resets even in a lab environment brought no joy. There I was with 3 "bricks" and the new moniker of the "phone mason" starting to catch on. This would not do...</p>
<p>What is new news to me, and what I'd like to share after 3 nights of frustration is how these were finally recovered. I was familiar with the factory reset sequence of 123456789*0# after holding the # key during power-up, but was unaware that I could format the device in case of a bad firmware load with this sequence instead: 3491672850*#</p>
<p>The line appearance LEDs toggled red instead of amber once the code is entered, but during formatting, the device appears stone-cold dead -- no lights, LCD flicker, nada. Luckily a colleague of mine found out how to create a serial cable so we could see what was going on via the AUX port, otherwise I may have pulled the plug early. The terminal console showed the entire process, and after the formatting the phone took a new firmware load and was back up and operational. You can use the formatting sequence above without the console access, but just remember that the phone will be completely unresponsive for 5+ minutes while this happens. Patience. </p>
<p>The console access cable is definitely high on the geek-meter and IMHO it is cool to watch the entire boot process and even look at the underlying *ix filesystem once firmware is on it. Here are the pinouts to create your very own AUX console cable (we used a rollover as they are abundant): </p>
<p>*************************************************<br>Straight Serial ----------------- 6 pin RJ11</p>
<p>Pin6 Pin2<br>Pin4 Pin3<br>Pin3 Pin4<br>*************************************************<br> <br>*************************************************<br>CiscoRollOver Cable -------- 6 pin RJ11</p>
<p>Pin3 (Red) Pin2<br>Pin5 (Yellow) Pin3<br>Pin6 (Green) Pin4<br>*************************************************</p>
<p>Connect to serial port on computer with the following settings:</p>
<p>9600 baud<br>8 bits<br>N stop bits<br>1 parity<br>N flow control</p>
<p>Here are a couple usr/pwds to access the device software too if you're inquisitive:</p>
<p>default/default<br>log/log<br>debug/debug</p>
<p>Adventure at your own risk. If ANYONE knows how to get around the dynamically created root password, please let me know! This seems to be a tightly guarded TAC secret.</p>
<div>I hope this helps!<br><br clear="all"> <br>Joe Quigley </div>
<div>VoIP Technician</div>
<div>ITT Systems / 25th Signal Battalion</div>
<div>Kabul Afghanistan<br></div>