Essential FAX Software

Problems when faxing long distance or international

Are you sure the line has long-distance capability? You must check that the line that you are using has long distance, or out-of-state, capability. To do this, plug a regular telephone into the same outlet that the modem is plugged into and attempt to dial the number. BE SURE TO CHECK THIS! Users report several busy signal problems each week, and it very often turns out to be caused by exactly this. If the line is capable of long distance dialing, check the other items described in the following paragraphs.

Dialing: EssentialFax dials exactly what you tell it to dial. The phone number that you must use is the same as if you were using a stand-alone fax machine or just dialing from a phone. This means you must be careful about how you enter the phone number. The phone number consists of the following items, in this order:

The dialing rules dial prefix value, if applicable,
The fax number,
The dialing rules dial suffix value, if applicable.

For example:

If you are in an office and need to dial 8 for an outside line, then the software must also dial an 8 for an outside line. You must enter this information in the dialing rules or directly into each fax number.

If you must dial a 1 for long distance, then the software must also dial a 1, and this must be in in the Dialing Rules or entered directly into each fax number.

Configuration of EssentialFax

If you receive a fatal timeout error, the modem may need more time to complete the call. Take the following steps:

Click the Settings button.
At Preferences Item #6, click the Help With Init Strings button.
In the Modem Initialization String Helper dialog box, check the box which says: The Faxmodem frequently hangs up before the faxmodem/fax machine on the other end answers and/or I have problems with international calls.

Technical Note: This step increases the S7 value for the modem to 120; for example, S7=120.

Additional things to check

Some phone numbers and calling card numbers involve pauses at various points for messages, and so forth. To bridge any such pauses, insert commas in the dialing string. A comma tells the modem to pause for 2 seconds. Use 2 commas for 4 second pause, and so forth. See How to tell the modem to pause while dialing a number for more information.

If you receive a recorded message when dialing, this is coming from the phone company - not from the modem or the software. It generally means there is an error of some sort in the number being dialed.

If you receive a busy signal, the modem is reporting to the software that the line is busy. In most cases, it is just exactly what it says it is, and you should wait for the number to become un-busy. However there are exceptions to this, and this article on Busy Signals might help.