Receiving faxes

Q:
One of our clients has a active fax server installed. they have a problem when receiving faxes. if the fax has more then one page, the first page prints after two or three minutes and all the other pages every five minutes. Can you please provide some assistance please.

A:
This sounds like a problem with the signal quality of the phone line when there are a lot of transmission errors, so the sending fax machine needs to retransmit many bad data blocks. If you receive faxes with large images, such long transmission times could also be normal. The typical transmission time for a text page should normally not be longer than 40 – 60 seconds.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Error Code 54

Q:
I have a strange problem- sometimes the faxes will be sent but most of the time it won’t. I’ve checked the phone line- works great, but still- most of the time the faxes won’t be delivered. Can you please look at the attachment and tell me what else can I check and why it happens?

A:
Error code 54 looks like a known issue with some modem types (especially US-Robotics and 3Com modems). Running the modem in class 1 mode often solves this.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Citrix Server

Q:
I have a question concerning ActiveFax 4.16. We have several activefax-servers running and on our clients, we can only connect to 1 server at the same time. What’s the problem ; we are going to implement a citrix server, which will be used for several companies. We are using the printerdriver to send faxes out of our ERP-software, but depending on the company, it has to be a different server. At this moment, the pc has only 1 connection to a ActiveFax-server. When we will be working with citrix, there will be users of different companies accessing this server. So we would like them to choose which fax-server they really want to use. (locally installed on the citrix-server). A good solution would be : have different printerdrivers for activefax, so we can give them a different name (eg ActiveFaxCompany1 / ActiveFaxCompany2 / …)
This has to be installed on the citrix-server.

A:
Yes, I would also recommend to create a separate ActiveFax printer for each company in that case. You can set the IP address for the fax server used for each printer through the Comment or Location field of the printer properties with the parameter -Server:ip-address. I have also attached a screen shot for that.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

smpt error

Q:
I configure active fax server for fax forwarding in the menu extras / user administrator / modify / notification. but when i receive a fax and server is trying send it to my email address, i get smtp error(1051). i dont know what is wrong with my configuration would you help me please.

A:
I recommend to check the settings for the mail server and the authentication in the menu Communication / E-Mail in that case. When using a firewall or antivirus program, you also need to make sure that the port 25 (SMTP protocol) is not blocked.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Fax Footer

Q:
What is a fax footer I tried to look it up on your website but it didn’t help me at all so if some one from Lexmark could reply to thin 3-mail it would be very gratefull. After all I did buy your product and continue to do so in the future unless I don”t get an answer(just kidding ya) Lexmark to me has always made the best quality printers for an affordable price. Keep up the good work there, and answer the question already. Hope to hear from you very soon.

A:
A fax footer is a small line printed at the bottom of a fax. ActiveFax just uses a fax header (printed at the top of the fax).

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Analog Modem

Q:
We are having trouble with our ActiveFax. It worked perfectly on ISDN but the problems occurred in receiving(incomplete faxes, line of text over the other line and so on….). So we changed the modem to 56k no ISDN. Same troubles. We even put the new cables for that line, but same trouble. Any idea why????? Now is set to send over ISDN and receive over analog 56k, no error in receive but faxes are almost unreadable, line over line, missing half, third page…….. I don’t know what else to do. I tried even changing every option of modem settings from baud rate to….. Tried second modem same thing. Now I suspect that is the application but someone else must had this troubles? Thank you for your help.

A:
For the analog modem, I recommend to use the modem settings as follows:

* Menu Communication / Modem / Modify
o Modem Type: Generic Class 1 Modem
o Modem Class: 1
* Menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Port Settings
o Baud Rate (bps): 57.600
o Data Bits: 8
o Parity: None
o Stop Bits: 1
o Flow Control: Hardware
* Menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Extended
o MR-Compression (Modified Read): enabled
o Error Correction Mode (ECM): enabled
o Transfer Rates faster than 9.600 bps: enabled

I also recommend to make sure that the option for error correction mode is enabled for the analog and the ISDN modem. What you should also make sure is that your phone lines are ok. Such problems often occur when using IP based lines, because of the low bandwidth and response times of such lines. For testing you can also try to dial the number of the modem with a normal phone to check if you hear a clear fax signal.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

IP telephony

Q:
I’m sending you a copy of fax received over ActiveFax server. We have spent several day testing phone lines and all of equipment. We use IP telephony and suddenly faxes started to coming like this. Only on receive, sending is ok! We tried several modems, all kind of activefax settings nothing works. Please any help would be appreciated. Our ISP and telephony provider has checked everything and from their side everything is ok.

A:
When using IP based phone lines, this looks like a problem with the bandwidth or response time of the line. What you should make sure is that the baud rate in the menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Port
Settings is configured at least to 57,600 bps. Limiting the speed in the menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Extended to 9,600 bps could also help in that case.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Which Modem to use for ActiveFax

Q:
I need to setup ActiveFax for a client and wanted to know if you could recommend a low cost fax modem which works well with ActiveFax. The client has a limited hardware budget and would like to keep their costs down.
They have 20-30 users running on Windows 2003 and 2008 terminal servers. Using Woodpro. I did look at your page of recommended fax modems but I thought it would be worthwhile to inquire with someone directly in case the list had not been updated with new information. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A:
In general, I recommend not using low-cost modems (less than $ 50) for faxing, since such modems are normally very unreliable in fax mode and you often get aborted fax transmissions. I think the best choice in
your case is using a Multitech Multimodem-ZBA modem (see http://www.multitech.com/en_US/PRODUCTS/Families/MultiModemZBA/).

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Blank or incomplete Faxes

Q:
I don’t get any error in the Transmission Protocol for those faxes that are blank or incomplete. Is there any way to see if this problem is related to the modem or if it’s a problem with the phone line?

A:
I recommend to check the “Compression” field in the menu Extras / Transmission Protocol. When this field shows “ECM” error correction mode was used for the transmission. If error correction mode was used and you still get incomplete faxes, this rather looks like a modem related problem. What you can also try to do for testing is to dial the number of the modem with a normal phone to check if you hear a clear fax signal.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com

Unsuccessful transmissions

Q:
We’ve recently installed Active Fax and trying to understand some of
the error messages we’re seeing for unsuccessful transmissions.
Unfortunately, help files not working in Windows 2008 server environment.

A:
This looks like a problem with the signal quality of the phone line or with
the signal processor of the modem.
* Menu Communication / Modem / Modify
o Modem Type: Generic Class 1 Modem
o Modem Class: 1
* Menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Port Settings
o Baud Rate (bps): 57.600
o Data Bits: 8
o Parity: None
o Stop Bits: 1
o Flow Control: Hardware
* Menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Extended
o MR-Compression (Modified Read): enabled
o Error Correction Mode (ECM): enabled
o Transfer Rates faster than 9.600 bps: enabled

You also need to take care that the options ‘Enable incoming calls
(Receive)’ and ‘Answer incoming calls after x rings’ are enabled in
the menu Communication / Modem / Modify. If the calls are still not
answered, you should also enable the option ‘Answer calls for all MSN’
in the menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Port Settings. This
option should however only be enabled, when there are no other devices connected to the same ISDN line.

If it does not work with these settings, I would recommend to make
sure that the phone line is ok or trying a modem of a different brand.
Limiting the baud rate to 9,600 bps in the menu Communication / Modem / Modify / Extended could also help.

When using these settings, error correction mode is used, which helps
to detect corrupted fax transmissions.

—
Yvonne Thommen, Customer Service
ActiveFax Communication Group
a division of Horizon Solutions Inc

Horizon Solutions Inc
Toronto, Canada
mailto:support@activefax-distribution.com