I bought a Brother multi-function, MFC 490cw, a couple of months back. The whole time, I've been having trouble receiving faxes.
Sending faxes seems to work fine. Well, except for the fax I tried to send last night.
For some reason that one didn't go through. But, I haven't played with it more.
All my other sent faxes worked fine. So, for now I'm assuming that works. Receiving faxes works 40% of the time.When I first got it, the couple of faxes I tried receiving didn't work at all. None of them. I messed around with customer support (it takes so long for them to go through every one of their step by step diagnoses scripts). And, they had me bring it into their local warranty center who played with it and it worked fine.
I brought it home and plugged it back in. I found a few fax-on-demand systems (where you call a number, respond to a voice menu, and they fax you whatever you askedfor) on the web and lo and behold! I received the faxes fine. I figured the support center must have fixed something somehow even though they told me they didn't.Then receiving faxes started failing here and there, seems like it was more than half the time.So, I called Brother again and they sent me a replacement. Plugged everything in real quick, called Brother to send me a test fax and receiving it failed.I would think it's the wiring in my house, but the thing is when the Brother one stopped working I put like a three year old fax machine, an HP Officejet 6210, right next to it. I unplug the phone cord from the Brother and plug it into the HP, and receiving faxes works fine.I guess I need to bring this 2nd fax machine into their local warranty place too (if Brother will let me) and just have them verify that it works.But, this is the 2nd one.
Surely it's not just that both are them are broken? And, the old fax machine works fine plugged into the same phone jack, so surely it's not the wiring in the house?Anybody with clues on where to go from here, advice appreciated.Anybody know if it's a valid reason to get a warranty refund because other fax machines work fine in your home, but this model just doesn't?The thing is, I really like this multi-function printer. It's easier to use than ones I've used in the past. And, Brother seems to have cheaper ink refills. Plus, Brother works on Macs, Linux, and Windows. I don't want to get rid of this multi-function printer, but if I can't receive faxes and Brother support makes the offer of a refund.
Fax From Computer
I've gathered additional data.Apparently, faxes only fail when I use the 'distinctive ring' number. That's a phone number AT&T gives you that rings your regular phone line, it just makes your phones ring with a different pattern.
E.g., for each one ring, your phones will ring twice.A different way to explain it is that you're one phone line has two phone numbers. When they call your 'main' phone number, your phones ring the regular way, like once for each time. But, when they call your 'dinstinctive' ring number, your phones ring twice for each ring.This is commonly used so that something like your fax machine can identify when a separate ring pattern is being used, and answer only when that separate ring pattern is being used.When a fax call comes in on the distinctive ring number, the Brother fax machine will answer it, but the receiving of the fax will fail.When a fax call comes in on the main number, the Brother fax machine answers it, and successfully receives the fax.This is the 2nd Brother machine I've gotten. I'm pretty sure waitex is right, Brother's just suck at faxing.waitex, what brand of fax machines do you recommend for moderate home/home office use?I like the Dell name brand, I buy all my computers as Dells, I'm going to buy a Dell Mini because the reviews sound closer to what I want than the others. Anyway, I like Dell, but those idiots have apparently decided they don't need to provide drivers for their printers on Macs.I did get back on the phone with Brother warranty support today. At the end of an hour and a half phone call, they offered to send me another multi-function, my 2nd replacement. I told them I'd call them back if I wanted it.
It might be the phone line. Once upon a time, everything was copper wire. From your fax machine to the other fax machine was nothing but a copper loop.Now, there are conversions to IP.
That's where signaling can get messed up. It bit our fax machines and our alarm system.
Some machines were ok, some just puked and sometimes it had to do with the unit on the other end of the line.What happened to us was that the local loop carrier changed over to IP switching without telling anyone. When that happened, we started getting intermittent failures on fax and alarm communications. I had tech support at HP and Brother pulling their hair out. I also had the alarm company pulling their hair out replacing components on their end and our end.Finally, the alarm tech went to lunch. When he was out, he ran into another tech from another company. They talked about the issue and he found out that it was widespread. Lots of alarms and faxes were getting flaky.
So, they called their 'guru' tech at a 3rd company.' Simple' he said.
'The local carrier switched to IP switching and they have echo compensation still turned on. Tell them to turn it off on the data lines.' And all was amazingly well with the world once again.So, it might not be anything you can control. I wouldn't blame Brother. I've got 11 of them. They are wonderful machines for the price.
Email To Fax Machine
But as you mentioned Mac. I don't know the compatibility.Also what Auritania's mentioning. Voip also can screw up the signals.But you mention destinctive ring. The 'double ring' might be effecting how your machine picks up. Here's how it works. The faxmachine is always on listen 24/7.
The phone company determines a 'pickup' when a certain amount of current is dropped. So the fax machine barely picks up the line listening and waiting for the other side to give off the start tone. So during the 'double ring' the other fax machine might be giving out the start tone and your machine's got no clue what's going on.I'd suspect all machines will have a similar issue. I use an AT&T POTS line.
The local baby bell here used to be Bell South. But, AT&T bought them not too long ago. But, perhaps even AT&T themselves is carrying my signal across Voip circuits?Auritania: But, would a change to IP switching just affect phone calls to me when people call in on my distinctive ring number and not when they call in on my main number?
That's the only time I have trouble. When people call in on my distinctive ring number.And remember, receiving faxes on my distinctive ring number with my old HP fax machine works fine.waitex, One thing that convinced me that this issue is only on the distinctive ring number is that I turned off 'auto-answer' on the fax machine. And, to answer faxes, I hit buttons manually on the fax machine to answer fax calls. The fax still failed after answering on the distinctive ring number.
It still worked fine on the main phone number.I was thinking what's the point in getting a replacement. It's just a waste of money. But, the thing is, it's a waste of Brother's money, and I'm slowly developing less and less sympathy for them. They're in this business and it's not anything I've done wrong. So, let them eat the costs of this weird stuff with phone systems.I'll probably ask for an upgrade and see if I get that. The next fax machine up with similar features is like an extra $150 so I don't know if they'll do it. And, I really don't want the next machine up because it's heavier and not as portable as this little cheap one.
But, if it successfully receives faxes? One thing I have to consider is purchasing in-home phone wiring insurance from AT&T, my phone provider. I've already called once, so if they keep good notes, they already know I'm having trouble with this. But, if I get in-home phone wiring insurance, maybe AT&T will come out for free looking at the issue?The thing is, I'm guessing it's really not a problem with in-home wiring, since the old fax machines don't have any problems. And, the new fax machine only has a problem when they call in on the main number. No matter how many times a phone rings for a 'distinctive ring', I'm going to call it a 'ring cycle'.You're not going to believe this.
But, all the work I did. Having become familiar with various sounds a phone line makes and noticing that the HP answers after one ring cycle and the Brother machine answers after one ring cycle, I finally decided to unplug the Brother fax machine, call the distinctive ring number and listen for any sounds.This fax machine isn't at my house, I have to run over to Mom and Dad's house to work on it making the whole process that much more difficult.A fax machine answered. I had to double check, both the HP and the Brother were unplugged from the phone line.
It turns out, Mom had been going up to an attic bedroom to use a really, really old Canon fax machine sometimes to send faxes while I was working on the Brother. The reason the Brother was working 40% of the time was because sometimes she'd leave the Canon unplugged and other times she'd leave it plugged in.Both the Canon and the Brother would answer at the same time, thus confusing all fax machines involved and the fax would fail.It's over, finally.I really like this Brother multi-function printer.