magicJack and MagicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Hacks

RC90 · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 14 Jul 2010 Posts: 1

I am a Newb here, first post and I am glad I found you guys... Wife's about to HighJack the marital benefits on me LOL

There is no way I can read all the pages but I did try reading the first 10 and none of the problems with CID are similar to mine.

I bought my MJ about a year and a half ago, installed perfectly. A friend showed me what to do to use it as a regular land line so I bought an AT&T 6 phone setup.

Caller ID on the phone used to work (no name but number only) and I was happy with it. I had it plugged into an old Compaq Evo N800C lappy with Windows XP Pro w/SP3.

On July 6th (about a week ago), the HDD on my lappy died so I brought the Office Laptop (IBM T42 Win XP Pro w/SP3) meanwhile I fix the Compaq. All of a sudden the CID stopped working but my son told me it was because the Date/Time was wrong on the Office Laptop, he fixed it and everything went back to normal.

A day later, the CID does not work, it only shows "Incoming Call" and that is it... the softphone on the laptop does show the Phone Number of the caller.

I have tried unplugging and plugging the MJ on another USB port, I have tried, upgrading multiple times, I have even tried changing the phone cord.

I have yet to try the 100K resistor because I suck at handy man stuff and because I still believe my problem doesn't have anything to do with the resistor seeing as to it was working fine up to last week but it has been working for more than a year now.

Do any of you MJ gurus care to take a stab at this? I will try the Resistor bypass thing but I still will like to know if there is a logical explanation to my problem.

Thanks

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Nobody beats the Whiz! · Dan Should Pay Me Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 559

Different computers have different USB specifications.

Longer phone cords will affect the CID, too.

Try the resistor trick. I've used it for a while now, and it's great.
_________________
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Shaken, not stirred.

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minionsweb · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 30 Jul 2010 Posts: 3

Great fix, 100k ohm resistor did the trick.
BTW, you do not need to make anything ultra fancy or klugy to do this.

I rewired the whole phone system here in anticipation of adding MJs, and removed the land line connection coming into the wiring junction.

If you know where the connections are (typically in basement ceiling or closet wall) just connect the resister between the red and green screw terminals or punch it down on the wiring block.

Should take 90 seconds and a flat edge screw driver for either solution.

I actually have 2 #66 blocks here and added one on each (one acts as a node for the second line (also MJ for our fax)
screw terminal image:

block image:

FYI, the MJs are easily 10' away from the blocks, and the phones wired as are as far as 70' from that point.

minionsweb · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 30 Jul 2010 Posts: 3

Oh BTW, 5 pack of resistors at ratshack is 99 cents

jim ron! · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 25 Sep 2010 Posts: 4

got a MJ last month.. 100k fix works Smile

I'm using a V-Tech Model#: T2326-01 and for the fix i got a phone line coupler..
cost one dollar at the dollar store.. but I paid about $1.50 at the convenience store across the street Very Happy

acabral · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Sep 2008 Posts: 2

So I attempted the fix suggested in this post for the 100k ohm resistor but I'm getting back weird results. Out of numerous inbound call attempts once in a while the caller ID will work but most of the time the phone will just ring once and then hang up the call on inbound but always work on outbound. What I did was obtain a short phone cable and cut it in half. Then I twisted together the green wire from both ends and twisted it onto one side of the resistor. I then performed the same steps for the red wire. I then ran a regular phone line from the magic jack device to the two port modular jack device which plugs into the wall jack. Finally I plugged the cable that I created into the other available jack and this is the behavior that I continue to experience explained above. It seems that I am almost there but somethings just not right..Any ideas or suggestions? Thnx

acabral · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Sep 2008 Posts: 2

For my setup it appears that a second resistor was needed. After twisting on the second resistor to the first resistor all incoming calls and caller ID started working as expected..Thnx

ThatGuy · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 22 Feb 2011 Posts: 1

100K Resistor spliced into the line fixed my caller ID problems for my single phone setup (USB -> MJ -> phone).

Crappy cell phone pic and crappy soldering job (I was skeptical that it would work so I didn't spend much time). It's all heat-shrinked up now to avoid shorts and the CID has shown up for all incoming calls since I put this cable on it.

Thanks for the idea, OP! Very Happy

ppuskari · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 4

Just interfaced a MJ to a Nortel BCM200 PBX switch - Callerid was functional at 14.9K, without an EMI filter in line. Callerid was functional at 17.6K without an EMI filter in line, but marginal with it inline. Both resistances caused disconnect supervision to fail.

I am now using 21.5K with an EMI filter in line, and now both CallerID and Disconnect Supervision(MJ hangs up when extension hangs up) work properly now.

Anything below 14.9K cause the system to not even register an incoming call on the CO port.

This probably also explains why my ADIT 600 Channel bank with FXO wasn't passing callerid with the MJ either. Will have to go back now and try that.

Interestingly enough the MJ seemed to work perfectly with a cheapo ASTERISK TigerJet FXO card... Maybe since they were both made by the same company the same electrical design mistakes were made??

Thanks for the idea. Things work perfectly now, and even the audio is appreciably better.

PghPittViper · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 27 Jul 2011 Posts: 1

Hi,

My softphone will display cid, but handset wont. I tried the resistor mod. Still doesn't work.

What are other things I can try to get cid to work? All help appreciated.

bitstopjoe

jwcastle · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 28 Aug 2010 Posts: 7

It seems that MagicJack's caller ID works better on some phones than others. I've tried several different brands/models and most of the Unidens, Vtechs, Motorolas will not work with Magicjack's caller ID. Panasonic, on the other hand, works fine in any situation. Desktop computers tend to work better than laptops in some cases. Netbooks seem to give the most problems when it comes to caller ID.
Using a 100k ohm resistor does fix the problem. If you're not handy with a soldering iron or have the necessary tools to make the fix yourself, I can make one for you.
See my site: http://www.magicjackcalleridfix.com

If you are making it yourself, the resistor you need is 100K ohms (any wattage will work). The resistor color code is: Brown, Black, Yellow. (4th color will be gold or silver or no color at all, and it doesn't really matter). The type of resistor you need is the cylinder type which looks like the picture below. Do not get the Surface-mount type. They'll still work, but they are much too difficult to work with.
Typical 100k Ohm resistor:

jpistolas · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 25 Aug 2008 Posts: 2

I've been using magicjack for a few months now. Had the same CID problem many have and the 100k resister did the trick. Until this weekend. Now neither of the two phones will display CID. I was able to get the phone that's closest to the mj dongle to work (corded uniden phone) but the cordless uniden phone will not work even with the 100k resister dongle connected directly to it. Has something changed I'm not aware of? A recent update or something?

My original setup was pc-mj dongle-100k resister dongle-phone splitter to desk phone and wall jack. Again, that setup worked until this weekend. Any ideas?

aspentech · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 8:00 pm Post subject:

I have a Nortel MICS key system, some call it a PBX. My voicemail auto attendant answers calls fine and routes them to the appropriate ext or mailbox, but when the caller hangs up, it does not disconnect.

I have tried to change the line settings, but the system still holds on to the call and leaves a message in the general mailbox as a default but the message is just fast-busy tones.

No disconnect supervision happens. Any ideas?