Summary

This article serves to describe how users can easily go through a few initial troubleshooting steps if their Polycom desk phone is experiencing issues. Regardless of which model type your phone is, if it is a Polycom-branded desk phone, the following steps should be applicable to your device.

The first steps covered are how to reboot (or restart) the desk phone, followed by steps on how to initiate a factory reset to the phone if the restart does not resolve the issue. If a factory reset does not provide any change in function either, please email the ITS Help Desk at helpdesk@bethel.edu to report your issue. If it is a more urgent and unexpected outage of 2+ phones, please call the ITS Help Desk at 651-638-6500 to report the issue and to find out if other issues have been reported with phones as well.

Restarting/Rebooting a Polycom Desk Phone

There are multiple options for how to reboot the device, so this will be addressed in the order ITS recommends you try it.

Option 1

Almost all Polycom desk phones receive their power not from a power cable but through an Ethernet cable (power over Ethernet, or PoE). The Ethernet cable should be plugged into the port on the back of the phone that is highlighted in yellow on the example photo below:

Step 1: Unplug the Ethernet cable from the highlighted port and let it remain unplugged for approximately 30 seconds. The phone screen should turn off when it is unplugged.

*Note: If there is an additional Ethernet cable plugged into the port to the right of the highlighted port (the port with a laptop icon above it), that port is providing internet to a device, likely a computer. That cable may remain plugged in, though the device it is plugged into will lose internet while the left-side port for phone power is unplugged.

Step 2: Plug the Ethernet cable back into the same port that it was unplugged from. Final steps continued under Steps that apply to both options.

Option 2

Step 1: Hold the 1, 3, and 0 keys on the dial-pad for approximately 5 seconds. The phone may beep or display a message on the screen about "Reboot initiated" before the screen briefly turns off.

Steps that apply to both options

The screen should turn back on and some of the buttons may light up. The phone may beep a few times during the reboot process, which can be expected to take approximately 2-3 minutes.

After the reboot is complete, the phone should have booted to the home screen, where it displays the phone's 4-digit extension number. If you have been experiencing issues with phone service, note any errors that are displaying. If there are no errors, attempt a test call both to and from the phone.

Factory Resetting a Polycom Desk Phone

If a reboot of the desk phone does not resolve the issue, a factory reset can be an additional step worth trying. This process defaults the desk phone back to its original settings. Phone configuration settings, such as if the phone is a part of a group, call center, or shared call appearance, should be unaffected by the reset because those settings are tied to the back-end configuration of the phone number, not the desk phone itself.

*Note: Items that may need to be reconfigured after a factory reset are voicemail passwords and any home screen preset dialing options. Please email the ITS Help Desk if there are any questions, concerns, or a voicemail password reset is needed.

Step 1: Hold the 1, 3, and 5 keys on the dial-pad for approximately 5 seconds until a password prompt appears on the screen.

Step 2: Enter password 347479989 using the dial-pad and press Enter (which can be done by pressing the right-most button in the row of four buttons below the screen, see photo below).

If the password is correct, a brief message will appear on the screen saying something like "Factory reset initiated" and the process will begin.

*Note: If the above password does not accept, it may not explicitly state that the password is incorrect, but it will not show the message and it will not do anything else. If this occurs, repeat steps 1-2, this time with password 159. If this also fails, repeat steps 1-2 a third time with password 456. If none of the three passwords work, email the ITS Help Desk to report the issue.

The factory reset process will take approximately 5 minutes. Within this process, the phone may have buttons light up, make beeping noises, and reboot at least once. When the reset is complete, like the rebooting process, the phone will return to the home screen, where it displays the phone's 4-digit extension number. Note any errors that are displaying. If the phone does not show any 4-digit extension numbers, it is very likely not receiving service. If it shows the extension and has no errors, attempt a test call both to and from the phone.