Questions

Answers

To install Mirial Softphone, you need Administrator rights. Please check that your system conforms to the minimum requirements:

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Perform Windows Update.
Windows Update is the Microsoft's online site to download certified updates and patches for your operating system, software programs, and hardware. Windows Update scans your installation and lists all available updates. It then allows the user to choose whether to download and install them.

It is not compulsory to install all listed updates, but it is strongly recommended. Furthermore, these updates make your whole system more stable and secure. Use the following steps to find available updates.

Note: User might need to be logged on as Administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to perform some tasks.

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Mirial Softphone uses Microsoft DirectSound as a common interface to the audio device drivers, so that it is recommended to use both the latest version of DirectSound AND the latest version of the audio device drivers. Audio hardware drivers are the most common issue. They are often updated by the manufacturer to get the best performance or to solve possible issues that arise during the product lifetime.

Thus, if your installation suffers from audio problems, you should:
1) Update to the latest version of Microsoft DirectX. This will upgrade also your DirectSound subsystem (refer to question 03 to use Windows Update, or download it directly from the DirectX home page:  www.microsoft.com/directx).
2) Update the audio hardware drivers which can be usually downloaded from the audio board manufacturer web site (read below).

First determine the brand and model of audio hardware you have. To do this:
1. Click Start on your Desktop.
2. Click Run
3. In the box type: dxdiag
4. Click OK. This will bring up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Confirm all dialogs which may pop up.
5. When the diagnostic tool window appears, click the Sound tab (you may have more than one Sound tab, one for each installed audio device, in this case refer to the tab of the device you intend to use with Mirial Softphone).
6. In the "Device" section, next to "Name" is the model of the audio hardware device. You may want to write this down.
7. In the "Drivers" section, next to "Provider" is the manufacturer of the audio hardware device. In this section you can also find the drivers version and release date. You may want to write down this information.

The manufacturer is the company that manufactured your audio device. To find the latest driver go to the manufacturer's web site. They should have a support section or a driver section where you can find and download the drivers for your device. You should be sure to download a driver which matches both your device model and your operating system. Also check that it is newer than the current installed version.

Follow carefully the instructions on the manufacturer's web site or in the downloaded archive to install correctly the device drivers. You should restart your system after installing the new drivers.

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If you cannot hear the audio sent by Netmeeting to Mirial Softphone, ask the remote party to open Netmeeting's audio configuration panel (Tools - Options - Audio) and go through the "Tuning Wizard" process checking all input levels.

If this does not solve the problem, the remote party could have a very low microphone input level. He should select the option "Let me adjust silence detection myself", then drag the silence detection control bar to the minimum. Also, if possible, he should enable the option "Enable full-duplex audio so I can speak while receiving audio".

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Mirial Softphone versions 3.0.1 or lower may have audio problems due to a bug in some Netmeeting releases. Before reading further, please upgrade to Mirial Softphone version 3.0.2 or better.

If the Netmeeting user cannot hear audio sent by Mirial Softphone, open the Mirial Softphone configuration panel and select the "Audio" tab. Speak in your microphone and check that the mic level bar is moving accordingly. If you cannot see the level bar moving, it is possible that you have connected your mic input cable to the wrong connector or the wrong audio device. If you have more than one audio input device, try changing to another device from the list until you see the bar moving while you speak.
Close the Mirial Softphone configuration panel. In the main Mirial Softphone window, be sure that the mic mute mode is not enabled (refer to the User Manual).

If this does not solve the problem, ask the remote party to open Netmeeting's audio configuration panel (Tools - Options - Audio).
If possible, he should enable the option "Enable full-duplex audio so I can speak while receiving audio".

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If you are having video output problems, you should update the display drivers on your system.
First determine the brand and model of video hardware you have. To do this:

1. Click "Start" on yourDesktop.
2. Click "Run"
3. In the box type: dxdiag
4. Click "OK". This will bring up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Confirm all dialogs which may pop up.
5. When the diagnostic tool window appears, click the Display tab (you may have more than one Display tab, in this case refer to "Display 1").
6. In the "Device" section, next to "Name" is the model of the video hardware device. In this section you can also find the manufacturer of your display driver next to "Manufacturer". You may want to write down this information.
7. In the "Drivers" section you can find the drivers version and release date. You may want to write down this information.

Figure 1: Video Device Information

The manufacturer is the company that manufactured your video device. To find the latest driver go to the manufacturer's web site. They should have a support section or a driver section where you can find and download the drivers for your device. You should be sure to download a driver which matches both your device model and your operating system. Also check that it is newer than the current installed version. Follow carefully the instructions on the manufacturer's web site or in the downloaded archive to install correctly the device drivers.
You should restart your system after installing the new drivers.

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You should always connect the webcam directly to the USB port of your computer.
Connecting the webcam through USB hubs is not recommended and is one of the primary sources of webcam problems.

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You should update the webcam drivers on its system.
First determine what type of webcam you have. To do this:

1. Open Windows Explorer (press "Window" key and "e" key)
2. Open "Control Panel"
3. Open "Scanner and Cameras"
4. In the device list under "Scanner and Cameras" you can find your webcam.

To find the latest drivers go to the webcam manufacturer's web site. They should have a support section or a driver section where user can find the drivers for the device listed in "Scanner and Cameras".
Follow the instructions on the manufacturer's web site to download and install the latest webcam drivers.

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Some webcams may cause a high CPU load due to inefficient drivers, and this may cause frequent CPU saturation while in call (lost packets, corrupt or delayed audio/video, etcetera).

This can easily be spotted with the following.
1. Close all running applications.
2. Opening Windows Task Manager (right-click on the bottom desktop taskbar and select "Task Manager").
3. In Task Manager, Select the "Performance" tab.
4. In Task Manager activate the option "Show Kernel Times" from the "View" menu.
5. Look at the graph. You should see the red graph almost idle at 0%.
6. Just run Mirial Softphone and leave it idle (no calls must be in progress). You should see your webcam video captured in Mirial Softphone main screen.
7. Look again at the graph. Depending on the driver and on the CPU, the red graph could be using a big amount of CPU time. This shows the amount of CPU time eaten by the webcam driver. Good drivers remain well below 20% on a pentium 4 @ 2 GHz while capturing at 15 frames per second.

To reduce webcam overhead, you should open Mirial Softphone configuration panel, click on the "Video" tab, and select a lower frame rate in the "FPS" section. Minimum setting is 7 frames per second.
If this does not help, apart from trying to get a newer driver as described in question 10, there is not much to be done to solve this problem but replacing the webcam with a more efficient one.

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Not all users are aware that most webcam use a fixed focus lens that can (and should) be tuned to the right speaker distance. This is usually accomplished by rotating the grid around the lens until optimal focus is reached.
Refer to the webcam user manual for further information.

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If you experience network problems like failing to register with a H.323 Gatekeeper or failing to connect calls with remote parties, before reading further please check if your network has a Network Administrator who can provide important details on your network configuration. In this case, you may want to write them down.
Basic Network configurations are shown in Figure 2 below.
In the following questions any letters in square brackets will refer to the corresponding element of Figure 2.

Figure 2: Basic Network Configuration

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Mirial Softphone supports multiple network adapters, and defaults to the first one that could not be the one you are willing to use. Refer to Figure 2.

If you have more than one Network Adapter on your system, you must open Mirial Softphone configuration panel [A] and be sure to select the correct one in the "Network/Advanced" section [D]. In the drop down menu "Local IP Address" [E] you will find all IP addresses available on your system. Select the right one.

If you cannot find the IP address you are willing to use, go to Windows Control Panel and click on "Network Connections" and be sure that your adapter is listed and enabled.

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Mirial Softphone supports static 1:1 NAT (Network Address Translation). Refer to Figure 2.

If your system is behind a static NAT and your router is not aware of the protocol you are going to use for videoconferencing (H.323 and/or SIP), you must define the outbound NAT IP address in the "Network/Advanced" tab of the Mirial Softphone configuration panel [D], typing it into the "NAT IP Address" field [F].

If your system is NOT behind a NAT, the "NAT IP Address" field should be set to empty or to "0.0.0.0".

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Refer to Figure 2.

If you are behind a firewall, you should check that:
1. The firewall allows connections on the chosen protocol signaling ports. For SIP, the firewall must allow all traffic on ports 5060 (UDP and/or TCP). For H.323 a firewall is always a problem since the H.245 ports are dynamically allocated. In this case a H.323-aware firewall should be used.
2. RTP (UDP) traffic is not filtered out by the firewall.
3. If Data Collaboration via T.120 is required, TCP traffic on port 1503 must be allowed.
4. If there is a restricted port range for RTP (UDP) firewall traversal, you should configure it in the "Network/Advanced" tab of the Mirial Softphone configuration panel [D], typing it into the "RTP port low" and "RTP port high" fields [G].

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Refer to Figure 2.
Mirial Softphone supports any VPN provided. The VPN channel is mapped on a local virtual or non-virtual IP. The VPN must be active before launching Mirial Softphone.
If you are using the classical Windows VPN, you can easily find out the VPN IP opening the command line (CMD.exe) window and typing the command ipconfig.
The VPN IP will be listed as "PPP adapter" like in this example:



You just have to select your VPN IP Address (shown in bold text) in the Mirial Softphone configuration panel [E].

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In the Mirial Softphone configuration panel select the "H.323" tab.
Check that the H.323 Name and/or Phone number are configured accordingly to your gatekeeper settings and your H.323 credentials.

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The cause could be:

1. Media capabilities of the remote party are not compatible with those of Mirial Softphone. This could happen on very low bandwidth calls (less than 64 Kbps) when the remote party does not support G.723.1 audio.
2. If neither audio nor video is received, there could be an "Early H.245" problem. In the Mirial Softphone configuration panel click the "H.323" tab and be sure that the option "Disable Early H.245" is selected.

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If you are using a Registrar which also acts as a Proxy (most common setup) you should activate the usage of both the Registrar and the Proxy.
Be sure to configure all Proxy parameters to be the same as those in the Registrar configuration (open the Mirial Softphone configuration panel, click on the "SIP" tab)

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The Registrar and Proxy hosts, if possible, should always be configured using their hostname, not their IP address.
Some Registrar and/or Proxies use only one type of transport (either TCP or UDP). Be sure to select the proper transport in the Mirial Softphone configuration panel, clicking on the "SIP" tab and then on the "Advanced" tab.
Default port for both the Registrar and the Proxy is 5060.

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Check that:
1. Your SIP User is correct.
2. The SIP transport ("UDP" or "TCP") is supported by the Registrar (open the Mirial Softphone configuration panel and click on the "Advanced" button).
3. If the Registrar requires authentication, check if your user and password are correct, and that the Registrar authentication type is supported by Mirial Softphone (it supports "Digest" and "Kerberos" authentications).
4. The Registrar host (hostname or IP address) is correct. If you wish to specify the Registrar host using the IP address instead of the hostname, please append the string "@hostname" to your SIP User, where hostname is the hostname of the Registrar (this may be required by some Registrars).

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Check that:
1. You have configured TCP as the default SIP transport to use (open the Mirial Softphone configuration panel and click on the "Advanced" button).
2. The LCS server is not using NTLM authentication. Only Kerberos authentication or no authentication is supported by Mirial Softphone v4.0.0.
3. Your machine is in the LCS domain.
4. You are authenticating using your LCS domain credentials (user and password) and the LCS Administrator has activated your user.
5. The SIP User field is configured as "user@lcsdomain" where "user" is the same user of the domain credentials and "lcsdomain" is the domain of the LCS server.
6. You have enabled and configured identically the Registrar and the Proxy to point to your LCS server.

Please see Figure 3 below for an example configuration of user "alice" in the LCS domain "lcs.dy". The LCS server IP address is 10.10.10.31.

Figure 3: LCS Configuration example

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Misconfigured hardware can always generate problems when the system is under heavy stress. Classic symptoms are:

Symptom 1. The system freezes and no user input is possible. A reboot is needed.
Symptom 2. The system suddenly resets and reboots.
Symptom 3. The system crashes with a BSOD (blue screen with kernel error).

WARNING: Solutions to hardware problem require an advanced knowledge of computer systems, and are therefore NOT recommended to basic users. Opening your computer to change the hardware configuration may void your warranty.

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Some devices in the system may have defective drivers. The main problem is detecting the device that causes the problem among all the devices present in the system. A possible guess could be given by the BSOD error in Symptom 3 above, which usually reports some useful info about the driver that crashed.

If a guess is not possible, the following procedure should be applied to all the multimedia devices present in the system:
1. If the system is using Intel's "HyperThreading" feature, disable it from the computer BIOS. Some drivers are not compatible with multiprocessing environments.
2. Check if the hardware manufacturer has released newer drivers. The problem may have been fixed.
3. If possible, remove the suspect device and use a different one as a replacement.

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Some devices in the system may be sharing the same PCI/AGP IRQ channel of other ones. Problems may range from high CPU load to system instability. Some hardware/drivers do not tolerate IRQ sharing which should always be avoided.

Checking if two or more multimedia devices share the same IRQ can be done at boot time (POST IRQ list display) and from Windows (Start  - Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Information - System Summary - Hardware Resources - Conflicts/Sharing).

The only solutions are the following:
1. If possible, from Windows Device Manager, disable the conflicting peripherals.
2. If the system has free PCI slots, try moving PCI boards to a different slot to see if the conflicts are resolved.

It is not always possible to remove all conflicts without removing one or more devices from the system.

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If you experience glitches with a Yamaha sound card, try the following:

1. Open "Control Panel"
2. Open "Sounds and Multimedia"
3. Select "Audio" tab
4. In "Sound Playback", click on "Advanced"
5. Select "Performance" tab
6. Set the slider value of "Sample rate conversion quality" to "Good"
7. Click on "Ok"
8. Click on "Ok" to exit

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If you experience poor video quality, try the following:

- Close all programs but Mirial Softphone
- Lower bandwidth setting in the Network tab of Mirial Softphone configuration panel
- Lower framerate setting in the Video tab of Mirial Softphone configuration panel (set FPS to 15 or 7)

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If you experience local black Video, or a misplaced local video window (open in an external window) you should check the installed programs on your system.
If you installed non-certified Direct-X filters (like "DirectShow Subtitle Filter") or codec packs (like "Nimo Codec Pack"), you should uninstall them.

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This problem is due to an old version of DirectX installed on your system. Please upgrade to at least DirectX 8.1b; we recommend getting the latest DirectX 9.0b runtime for best performance and stability. This will also improve the performance of most multimedia applications on your system. You can find the latest version on the Microsoft web site: http://www.microsoft.com/directx

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This problem is due to a known problem with some Creative webcams, whose drivers claim the webcam to be available even if not connected to the PC. This causes problems with all programs trying to access the webcam (not only Mirial Softphone). If you ever installed a Creative webcam, we recommend not running Mirial Softphone without a webcam connected to your PC.

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Just dial: number@gateway

E.g. 23441@mygateway
     23441@192.178.0.1

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Concurrent usage of the webcam by Mirial Softphone and other applications (such as MSN Messenger Video Conversation, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger) is not allowed. Only one application at a time can access the webcam, so please close all other video-related applications.

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Be sure that your current webcam is the correct source: open Configurations panel in Mirial Softphone, select Video tab and check in the drop down box that the correct webcam is selected.

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Presence of DirectShow plugins (like third-party codec packs) or special applications can alter the webcam capture or display functionality. Should you experience any issues, you can remove the plugins and run Mirial Softphone.

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Old Video For Windows / VFW based drivers are not supported. Windows Driver Model (WDM) is the new basis for more modern drivers that will work with Win98, ME, 2K, and XP. Mirial Softphone requires Windows Driver Model based drivers.

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Using Mirial Softphone 4.5.x, a DirectSound capture issue may occur when some Osprey cards operate at 48 KHz: the Osprey drivers fail to lock the capture buffer. In order to solve the problem, please open the Osprey "AudioConfig" tool (in the Start menu Osprey folder) and force to 32 KHz the "Preferred Audio Sample Rate" parameter.

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If none of the above resolved the problem, please do the following:
1. Click "Start"
2. Click "Run"
3. In the box type dxdiag /t c:\dxd.txt

Get the file "dxd.txt" generated in the C: volume of your hard disk and send it to Mirial Softphone Support Team (support@mirial.com) along with the details of your Webcam.

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