Philips VOIP841 Firmware Upgrade Procedure Interruption and Mute Calls

In the beginning there were only positive reviews about the Philips Voip841 phone. A perfect choice for those – like me – live abroad and want to be in touch with the family while not having the PC on all the time.

But a few days ago I discovered a lot of bad reviews about it… Whenever I tried to call using the voip841 phone or whenever someone called me, the call was active but both ends were silent. Looking around (also here) I quickly discovered it is a widespread problem with the phone’s firmware.

Well, Bruce Marriott’s post convinced me to try the firmware upgrade.

Yes, I know the firmware upgrade on philips voip841 must not be interrupted, but what to do if the page reloads automatically and suddenly shows up:

“The connection has timed out
The server at 192.168.1.3 is taking too long to respond.
* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.
* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network
connection.
* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.”

???

Well… the phone freezed and trying to access via web interface wasn’t working anymore. So I managed to recover the corrupted firmware doing this:

• Removed the batteries from the handset
• Unplugged the base from the power line
• Replaced batteries in the handset and waited until the phone displayed the message saying it is “out of range, check base”
• Plugged the base back into the power line
• Went to handset settings/options and reset to default settings (not keeping network settings)

I am not sure all the steps above are needed, or should be done in this order to work. Anyway, I got skype running again and the web interface accessible. So I tried once again to do the firmware, and it now works fine! Hope this helps other people out there with the same problem.

Despite all the problems until now and perhaps those that may come in the future… it still remains a good choice to be connected to skype and your landline at the same time while having the PC off.