magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

az2008 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:51 am Post subject: "Lucky You" upgrade? (6/8/2009)

Anyone else getting the "Lucky You" (kiss of death) forced upgrade?

It looks like the .dll version is 1.80.484.1. (The one from Dec. 17 is 1.80.466.3).

I run dongleless. So, the upgrade doesn't work. I'm reluctant to plug in the dongle and let it do the real upgrade. I'm thinking about blocking access to upgrade.talk4free.com (and continue running with my dongleless setup). But, I'm worried that now that it tried one upgrade, my dongleless environment may be broken.

Mark

Atari Man · MagicJack User Joined: 04 Jan 2009 Posts: 43

az2008

bitstopjoe · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject:

Wow you did the equivalent to talking to yourself on here:)

So far 911 info doesnt show on soft phone and the Do Not Disturb is gone. Other than that all seems ok. No idea if time limits on calls have been removed, or shortened or lengthened. I am sure we will find out over the next few days and weeks that info and anything else that may have been changed. Heaven forbid they have a change log right??

Joe Sica

Popgory

Matt9876 · Dan Should Pay Me Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 504

Just forced a reboot and got the Lucky You!,after update all seems OK on my end.

Called wife and she said it sounded fine! Smile

Update:Noticed this version is much more responsive,faster dial tone,faster to ring,faster to connect Very Happy

eesamo · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

I'm using MJ without the dongle, because of the fact that the dongle seems to be broken so I am relaying on the softphone version of MJ. But since I got this message, the softphone without dongle trick won't work.
The thing is I can't upgrade my MJ since the dongle is broken and every time I plug the USB device it freezes my computer and eventually unplug automatically and the blue light turns off.
Now, I am not able to run the softphone nor do the upgrades that require the USB device to be plugged ... I hate these updates ...

Anyone have any ideas how to overcome this problem???

az2008 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:48 pm Post subject:

az2008 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:49 pm Post subject:

eesamo · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

Thanks for the advice, I did not know that you can ask for replacement.
I am trying with these guys since forever to get replacement and they tell me to do so and so, even I am sure that mine is broken...

az2008 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:07 pm Post subject:

eesamo · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Feb 2009 Posts: 4

I contacted them and they transfer me to a higher level customer care and eventually he said that they will send a replacement and I should return the broken one back... Very Happy

I am waiting now for the confirmation email...

az2008 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:23 pm Post subject:

cell14 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject:

"So far 911 info doesnt show on soft phone and the Do Not Disturb is gone."

The 911 info is back. It must have been a temporary glitch.
I wonder why would anybody want to run the service without the dongle ?

az2008 · Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject:

mitchgrdc · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

My mj has been down for over 24 hours. Four hours was spent chatting with tech support only to find out finally from them that it is a network problem after they tried to do an upgrade. They still say that the engineers are working on the issue. No ETA to fix it.

VanguardLH · MagicJack User Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 38

Regarding getting the dongle replaced, chatting with them, even after getting to an "engineer" is completely fruitless. They will *not* issue you an RMA. Fact is, they don't do anything for you regarding a replacement. Eventually, once they cave in, they will tell you to simply ship the defective dongle to their Florida office to get a replacement. So just go ahead and ship it with a note asking for replacement without wasting your hours trying to convince the chat folks to let you do the replacement for which they don't issue an RMA or add any ticket to authorize you to do the replacement. They can't do anything, so just send it in and skip the chat crap.

magicJack LP
PO BOX 6846
West Palm Beach, FL 33405

Well, I'll clarify that. They WILL charge your credit card and send you a new unit, you ship the defective one back to them, and they cancel (rather than refund) their initial charge. It's called an "exchange". You pay, they send, you send back, they refund. If you don't need the dongle (i.e., you're not worried about down-time *if* you are using the dongle) then just ship it in. Chat reps can only handle an exchange, they cannot issue an RMA to do a normal replacement (where you are without the product for a while).

az2008 · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:50 pm Post subject:

VanguardLH · MagicJack User Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 38

VanguardLH · MagicJack User Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 38

As noted above, I shipped the dongle to MagicJack to get them to replace it. That means I don't have the dongle now. I had the dongleless setup (i.e., the data/config store folder was moved to the hard drive and the magicjack.exe software was loaded with parameters to have it find its data/config store on the hard drive). Alas, now I am also stuck with the damn thing wanting to do an update.

Of course, it wants to find the emulated CD drive and emulated disk drive that their dongle creates when plugged in. Since I don't have the dongle, the update fails. So rather than waiting until whenever they decide to ship back the replacement dongle, I'd like to keep the softphone from attempting an update.

I tried blocking access to magicjack.exe (since the router's log showed connects to notify.magicjack.com and web3.magicjack.com). That didn't work. Right before magicjack.exe decides to do an update, it connects to these sites. It also tries to connect to prov1.talk4free.com but, as I recall, that is used during the VOIP process to establish a session.

Any clues on how to kill, thwart, or disable the attempt to do an update?

az2008 · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:28 pm Post subject:

VanguardLH · MagicJack User Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 38

I tried a restore of the %userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp folder (and also the C:\magicjack folder to where the data/config store got copied from the 2nd emulated drive for the dongle). Didn't work. Those files were from Monday of last week. I'll have to try restoring to an earlier date. I'm just wondering if the update is timed so that no matter what files are restored that they will see some date threshold has passed and try to do the update, or if it is triggered by it phoning home and seeing an update is available. So whether it's a date threshold or phoning home to check for an update, restoring files from 2 months ago won't help (that's as far as my backups go).

UPDATE

Did the file restores from backup. Could only go back to May 18 (apparently the partition for the backups got filled up with backups that were larger than I had anticipated so they got rolled over and I can only back a month). After the restore, the newest file was dated 4/1/2009 (April Fool's Day, ta-da) for a .gif file.

When I started magicjack.exe, it actually got to the point of saying "Ready for Call". So it fully loaded and was readily. However, immediately thereafter it went into an update check. So I need to prevent the update or make it look like it cannot connect "home" without destroying the VOIP function.

Someone mentioned the magicjack.dll files. After the restore from backup, I have (under %userprofile%\Application Data\):

mjusbsp\magicJack.dll (12/17/2008, v1.80.466.3)
mjusbsp\ar00000\magicJack.dll (2/29/2008, v1.80.426.3)
mjusbsp\in00000\magicJack.dll (12/17/2008, v1.80.466.3)
mjusbsp\st00000\magicJack.dll (12/17/2008, v1.80.466.3)
mjusbsp\ug00000\magicJack.dll (12/17/2008, v1.80.466.3)

I restored again from backups but deleted any upgrade.exe file found under those paths, and deleted the mjusbsp\Upgrade folder. Then I loaded magicjack.exe (with the params to have it look for its data/config store folder on the hard drive). Nope, it still got to the Ready for Call state and immediately started an upgrade.

Restored again, deleted the upgrade.exe file and Upgrade folder, and also deleted all the install.exe, mjsetup.exe and setup.exe files (and the magicJackLoader.exe and magicJackSplash.exe files although they should no longer be involved in a dongleless setup). Since I'm not starting MagicJack using the cdloader2.exe program that it puts in the registry Run key, I deleted that, too. What was left were the magicjack.exe and magicjack.dll files along with some ancilliary .gif and .html files.

Loaded magicjack.exe and it again gets to "Ready to Call" and then unloads and does an update. Once it populates the adware panel in the softphone, it has phoned home and found an update. I was going to see if using a software restriction policy (SRP) that would block install.exe, mjsetup.exe, setup.exe, and upgrade.exe under the mjusbsp folder and subfolders would prevent the upgrade from running. Those files were deleted after doing the restore - and they were still gone after the update started (and dumped me at www.magicjack.exe when it opened the web browser after reporting it could not find the dongle). So the softphone itself must be running the update.

So how do I prevent the update from occurring? Nothing of its files have yet been deposited on my host. The softphone must be connecting somewhere to check for the update.

I used the log in the router to see to where I was connecting during Magicjack's startup. Up to the point when it said "Ready to Call" (and immediately started an update but which doesn't do any network access after that because it's trying to find the dongle), I see it going to:

216.234.76.89 (notify.magicjack.com)
216.234.76.104 (web3.magicjack.com)
67.90.152.80 (prov1.talk4free.com)

I tried blocking on *.magicjack.* in Avast's Web Shield (its URL blocker) but apparently the softphone is using the IP addresses instead of the IP names. Avast just has its URL blocking, not IP blocking. I'm just using the Windows Firewall for now but don't see that IP addresses can be blocked. I really don't want to go to Comodo or OnlineArmor to get better granularity in firewalling. Rather I just want to prevent the softphone from finding an update.

mitchgrdc · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 3

From a just finished chat: "am just check from our engineers and found that the fixed will still take within 12-24 to get it fix for they are still doing some upgrades on our system. We really do apologize for the inconvenience that has caused you"

az2008 · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 4:36 pm Post subject:

VanguardLH · MagicJack User Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 38

Alas, neither SRP, TCP/IP config, Avast's Web Shield, or Windows Firewall will let me block on an IP address. Blocking on the IP name has not worked. Both magicjack.com and talk4free.com were blocked by their IP name (I actually expected a failure in not establishing a VOIP session). Nope, they didn't get blocked so IP names are not been issued but instead IP addresses. I took a brief wander through IPsec but couldn't see how to block on specific IP addresses. So I'll have to consider installing a more potent 3rd party firewall (I've had them before but prefer a simpler setup - and I hate doing all this work for one shitty program).

I did the run of MagicJack, let it start (and fail) its update, and then went into the group policy editor (gpedit.msc) to define SRPs (software restriction policies) that disallowed the loading of the install.exe, install1.exe, mjsetup.exe, setup.exe, setup1.exe, magicjackSplash.exe, magicjackLoader.exe, and upgrade.exe files everywhere under %userprofile%\Application Data\mjusbsp that they were found. I then did a restore of those files (and c:\magicjack for the data/config store folder) and ran magicjack.exe. It got to the "Ready to Call", disappeared, and that was it. I looked in Event Viewer and saw that SRP had killed off the magicjackSplash.exe program.

So the softphone is trying to initiate the boot sequence performed by the autorun.inf file on the 1st emulated [CD] drive produced by the dongle.

az2008 · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:28 pm Post subject:

hsweiss · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 10:59 am Post subject:

I hadn't been checking the forum for a few weeks and so I was surprised when I saw this thread about a new software release. I had been thinking that MJ was overdo since the last release was in Dec. But what was more surprising was that I had no idea that I had already been upgraded. I'm not even sure when it happened. June 9 was right on top of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday so my machine was definitely rebooted on either June 9th or more likely on June 10th which of course would have caused MJ to restart. I remember during a reboot that the MJ splash screen came up (e.g., the minute for a lifetime of savings crap) and then went away for a few minutes only to be followed by the splash screen again. I got worried but then I saw the "magicjack loading" pop-up and the softphone came right up and all was good. It hasn't missed a beat since then and if anything, the calls have had good quality and no one has said anything about sound quality or tones on the other end. I talk to my hard-of-hearing 97 year old mother nightly and she has no problems with the sound quality (as she does when I call her from my less-than-great Sprint cell phone).

At least for me, not only was the upgrade totally invisible, but its working fine.

Anyone else have an "invisible" upgrade?

synchron · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject:

A few days back, I caught a nasty virus/malware attack (yes, it was early in the morning and I stupidly ran an unknown "exe" off a newsgroup.) Dos boxes were opening up like crazy and I couldn't even 3 finger salute but I managed to save what I could and restore a Ghost backup from 9/08.

At any rate, once my PC went "back in time" I noticed that when the upgrade/lucky you occurred, I was up & running with the 4/10 S/W. But after setting up to run dongleless like deja-vu it wanted me to verify my account (I refused) and then from then on, it wouldn't work as I kept getting a form saying 'Serial number didn't pass'(dongleless only). After researching here, I lowered my security, ran with the dongle and eventually got it to work dongleless again (which works fine running simultaneous with mjmd5 proxy).

I thought this story was interesting in that it definitely proved that this upgrade wanted to know who I was by entering my mj account credentials. With "millions" of people using mj, am I like flagged for something?? Did this happen to everybody?? I just don't get that we are being queried when you have to have the hardware anyway to perform the upgrade and I hope this doesn't keep occuring with future upgrades.

Synchron Cool

Peabody · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 4

LiveByTheGulf · Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2009 4:23 pm Post subject: Now my Fax doesn't work

I bought MagicJack in February 2009 to replace Comcasat digital phone. MJ worked great for making & receiving calls from friends & family. I also used it for faxing to customers. I was a very happy customer. Recently, we started to have problems faxing. I thought it was our customer's fax machine.

Today I had problems sending faxes to another customer and even sending a test fax. We fired up another fax machine - same problem. Then I set up MJ on my computer to send a fax (great idea) using the fax modem. I was able to send fax pages, but it wasn't reliable. It would send 1 page and part of the second page. Faxing was so slow & it seemed to fax each page minutes apart as a separate fax.

I took my promotion of MJ off my website. I've been sharing the praises of MJ for so long until now. I'd like to uninstall the update, but looks like the experts on this forum have been unsuccessful.

LiveByTheGulf · Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:52 pm Post subject:

I found the problem why the fax stopped working. I tried everything. Then I noticed at the top left of the magicjack window, there are two settings: 1) Normal (High speed connection) DSL, Comcast... and 2) Aircard 3G (AT&T, Sprint)...

I must have accidentally tapped the area and switched from highspeed connection to a 3G connection. I never noticed that feature before - the two different types of connections. Wonder how/why you would use the 3G connection.

hsweiss · Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:35 pm Post subject:

I just got a surprise as a result of the recent upgrade - I actually got a BUSY signal when dialing a number! I tried it several times - it doesn't appear to be a fluke. Also the sound quality is MUCH better than it was before the upgrade. My wife called me at the office on MJ and it sounded like she was sitting next door to me - also no beeps.

magicJack and magicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Tricks

"Lucky You" upgrade? (6/8/2009)