The fax transmission failure caused by a dropped call or line noise, distinct from a busy line or unanswered call.
- A communication error is a fax transmission failure caused by the call disconnecting before the document finishes sending, or by noise and interference on the line during transmission.
- It's a distinct failure type from a busy line, an unanswered call, or a handshake negotiation failure, even though all of them can trigger a retry.
- Fax.Plus can automatically redial and resend a fax that failed with a communication error, up to 3 attempts with a configurable delay.
- Credit can still be deducted for a failed attempt if the call connected and ran for any duration, since telecom providers bill by call time regardless of outcome.
What Is a Communication Error?
A communication error is a fax transmission failure that happens after a call has already connected, caused either by the call disconnecting before the fax finishes transmitting (often because the recipient hangs up early) or by noise and interference on the phone line disrupting the signal mid-transmission. It's distinct from other common failure types: a busy line, an unanswered call, and a failed handshake negotiation are each logged and handled as their own separate error, not as a communication error.
Where a Failure Actually Happens
A communication error can surface at more than one point once a call has connected. It can appear right at the start, during the initial handshake negotiation, in the middle of the actual page-data transfer, or as the connection drops entirely before either stage finishes. Distinguishing which stage failed matters more than the generic label itself, since a negotiation-stage failure and a transfer-stage failure usually point to different underlying causes.
Many fax devices also display or print a specific numeric or alphanumeric error code alongside a communication error. That code is defined by the device's own manufacturer, not by a shared fax standard, so the same number can mean something different from one machine to the next. Reading what a particular code actually means requires checking that specific device's own documentation rather than assuming a universal meaning.
Communication Error and Auto Retry
Because a communication error often comes from a transient issue, a moment of line noise, a call that dropped for an unrelated reason, Fax.Plus can automatically redial and resend the fax, up to 3 attempts with a delay the sender configures. The same mechanism also responds to a busy line or an unanswered call, so a communication error is only one of several triggers, not the only one.
A Note on Credit and Failed Attempts
If the call connected and ran for any length of time before a communication error ended it, credit is still deducted for that attempt, since telecom providers bill by call duration regardless of whether the fax completed. This applies the same way whether the fax was a single-recipient send or one leg of a fax broadcast going out to several recipients at once, where one leg failing with a communication error doesn't affect the others.
A Common Case: A Government Office Troubleshooting a Recurring Fax Failure
A large government administration office in North Carolina notices a specific recipient's faxes keep failing with the same communication error. Reviewing the fax report points to line noise on that recipient's end rather than the sender's own setup, since other numbers dialed from the same account transmit normally.
FAQs
Does a fax restart from the beginning after a communication error?
Yes. Auto Retry on Failure resends the fax from the beginning, unlike Auto Resume on Partial Send, which continues a different kind of interruption from where it stopped.
Is a communication error the same as a busy line or an unanswered call?
No. Each is logged and handled as its own separate failure type. A communication error means the call connected and then failed mid-transmission, not that it never connected in the first place.
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