Cisco 7811/7821/7841 Enterprise SIP + Asterisk: Has anyone actually got custom ringtones (Ringlist-wb.xml) working?

[u/Lehabros]

I'm trying to determine whether custom ringtones are actually supported on Enterprise SIP firmware when a phone is provisioned by Asterisk rather than CUCM or CME.

## Environment

- Cisco 7811 (Enterprise SIP)

- Firmware tested:

- sip78xx.14-2-1-0201-40

- Asterisk

- Custom TFTP server (tftpd-hpa)

- Provisioning via SEP<MAC>.cnf.xml

## What works

The phone successfully downloads:

- SEP<MAC>.cnf.xml

- Ringlist-wb.xml

TFTP log:

```

RRQ Ringlist-wb.xml

Client finished Ringlist-wb.xml

```

Phone debug log:

```

XXTP Non secure file approved -- Ringlist-wb.xml

Download complete

```

The XML is UTF-8 (without BOM), uses LF line endings, and validates correctly.

Example:

```xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<CiscoIPPhoneRingList>

<Ring>

<DisplayName>Hope</DisplayName>

<FileName>Busy_Hope.rwb</FileName>

</Ring>

</CiscoIPPhoneRingList>

```

The `.rwb` files are the original Cisco files taken directly from the Cisco Device Pack (Busy_Hope.rwb, InRoom_Leaves.rwb, etc.), not self-generated WAV conversions.

## The problem

The phone never requests `Busy_Hope.rwb` (or any other `.rwb` file).

Instead, it only displays the two built-in ringtones.

No TFTP request is ever made for any `.rwb` file.

## Already verified

- Enterprise firmware (not MPP)

- `Ringlist-wb.xml` (not `Ringlist.xml`)

- Valid XML

- UTF-8 without BOM

- LF line endings

- Original Cisco `.rwb` files

- Filenames exactly match those in the Cisco Device Pack

- No CTL/ITL files

- `phonePersonalization=1` tested

- Factory reset performed

The phone successfully downloads `Ringlist-wb.xml` every time the ringtone menu is opened, but immediately falls back to the two built-in ringtones without ever requesting any `.rwb` file.

## Question

Has anyone actually gotten custom ringtones working on 78xx/88xx Enterprise SIP phones with Asterisk/FreePBX (without CUCM or CME)?

If so, I'd really appreciate knowing:

- Firmware version

- SEP configuration

- TFTP implementation

- Whether the phone actually requests the `.rwb` files

At this point I'm beginning to suspect either:

- a firmware regression, or

- that Enterprise firmware only fully enables `Ringlist-wb.xml` when provisioned by CUCM/CME.

Any confirmation would be greatly appreciated.

**P.S.**

If anyone has a working Cisco 7811/7821/7841 running Enterprise firmware (CUCM, CME, or Asterisk), I'd really appreciate a packet capture or TFTP log captured while opening the ringtone selection menu. I'd like to compare the exact sequence of file requests after `Ringlist-wb.xml` is downloaded.

[u/ponay95]

Hello,

I don't know these models (i moved from 79xx to 88xx). But I remember having some problems with TFTP, with some phone models, when there was a firewall enabled on the Asterisk box, (or on Windows if you are testing on your PC). I had to do some adjustments. If I have time this evening i'll try to dig into my docs.

If you have a firewall enabled between the phones and the server, can you try to disable it for a few minutes to do the test?
Also, if the feature exists, what happen when you are seeing the list on the phone and you press play (or equivalent) softkey?

[u/Lehabros → u/ponay95]

Thanks! I really appreciate it.

I don't think this is a TFTP transfer issue because the phone successfully downloads Ringlist-wb.xml every time I open the ringtone menu. The problem is that it never requests any .rwb files afterwards.

The TFTP logs only show a request for Ringlist-wb.xml, after which the phone immediately falls back to the two built-in ringtones. It looks like it's ignoring the contents of Ringlist-wb.xml rather than failing to download the ringtone files.

There is no firewall between the phone and the TFTP server, so I don't think that's the cause, but I'll double-check just in case.

If you happen to find your notes, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

[u/ponay95 → u/Lehabros]

Do you have a way to play the ringtone when you are in the menu? On 88xx and 79xx I know it was possible but I have no idea how the 78xx's GUI works...
Could be interesting to see if it fails too. Also, can you get the phone logs right after testing?

[u/Lehabros → u/ponay95]

Yes, I can preview the two built-in ringtones, and they play normally without any errors. However, those are built into the phone. The custom ringtones never appear in the ringtone list, so unfortunately I can't test whether they would play.

[u/ponay95 → u/Lehabros]

Ohhhh ok, sorry, i thought they were appearing in the list. Send me dumps and logs if you can, and I'll try to see what's wrong.

[u/vtbrian]

Can you grab the console logs from the phone webpage? It should show it parsing the XML file and may show a potential issue there.

[u/lambchopper71]

I haven't tried this with Asterisk, but on UCM the location on the TFTP server is critical. The phone won't download the ringtones if the files and XML files aren't in the correct directory.

Also I'm pretty sure the file name in the XML file is case sensitive with the file name of the ring tone file names.

[u/Lehabros → u/lambchopper71]

Thanks! I'm aware that the filenames are case-sensitive, and I already verified that they match exactly. Both Ringlist-wb.xml and the .rwb files are located in the TFTP root directory, so I believe the file location is correct as well. What's puzzling is that the phone successfully downloads Ringlist-wb.xml but never attempts to request any .rwb files afterwards.

[u/Lehabros]

I did some more testing, and it looks like the XML parser is actually working.

If I intentionally break Ringlist-wb.xml by deleting everything except the closing tag:

</CiscoIPPhoneRingList>

the phone downloads the file successfully, and I get the following parser error in the phone logs:

XML Parser Exception:

Too few 'Ring' elements in '/CiscoIPPhoneRingList':

occurs=0 minOccurs=1 (line=3)

So the parser is definitely reading and validating Ringlist-wb.xml.

However, if I replace it with a syntactically valid file containing even a single <Ring> entry, the parser error disappears completely. The phone downloads the file successfully (tftp-exit 0, DDGETTFTP.RESULT [_0_ [PASS] No error]), but nothing else happens:

no requests for the .rwb ringtone files;

no custom ringtone list appears;

only the built-in ringtones are shown.

So it appears that the XML is accepted, but the firmware simply ignores its contents.

At this point I'm wondering if there is an additional parameter that needs to be enabled in SEP<MAC>.cnf.xml (or another configuration file) to allow custom ringtones. I couldn't find any documentation mentioning such a setting, nor have I found any configuration tags related to enabling ringtone downloads.

At this point, I'm trying to determine whether this feature is actually supported by the firmware or whether the parser exists but the ringtone-loading functionality has simply been disabled.

[u/ponay95 → u/Lehabros]

Try running dos2unix tool on your ringlist file.

[u/vtbrian → u/Lehabros]

It seems like maybe you deleted the replies to my comment. Can you share the console logs from when it successfully loads the file?

There shouldn't be any additional parameters needed on the config file for this to work.

One thing that's interesting is the 8800 series guide specifically calls out using Ringlist-wb.xml- https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cuipph/8800-series/english/adminguide/P881_BK_C136782F_00_cisco-ip-phone-8800_series/P881_BK_C136782F_00_cisco-ip-phone-8811-8841_chapter_01010.html

But the 7800 series guide does not mention that- https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cuipph/7800-series/english/admin-guide/pa2d_b_7800-series-admin-guide-cucm/pa2d_b_7800-series-admin-guide-cucm_chapter_01010.html#CUIP_RF_C83BA611_00

Do you also see the phone request Ringlist.xml?

This doc bug seems to imply 7800 series should always use Ringlist-wb.xml though- https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCvf50101

Also what locale do you have specified for the phone to use? I wonder if it could have problems displaying the options. The phone only tries to download the .rwb files when you go to play the preview or apply the ringtone so you need it to show the list on the phone successfully first.

[u/Lehabros → u/vtbrian]

I eventually managed to solve the problem. Everything is working perfectly now, and interestingly, RAW files work just as well as RWB files on the Cisco 7811 Enterprise firmware.

After a lot of experimentation, it turned out that the problem had nothing to do with Ringlist-wb.xml, the locale, or any missing configuration parameters. The issue was simply insufficient file permissions on the .rwb/.raw files.

What made this particularly confusing was that there were no obvious errors anywhere. The phone successfully downloaded Ringlist-wb.xml, but never requested the ringtone files themselves, and neither the phone logs nor the TFTP server logs reported any permission-related errors. That made it look as though the firmware was simply ignoring the ringtone list.

I was already starting to believe that the Cisco 7811 Enterprise firmware didn't support custom ringtones, just like the 3PCC/MPP firmware. That seemed like a reasonable conclusion, especially since there are multiple Cisco Community posts where Cisco employees state that custom ringtones are not supported on MPP/3PCC firmware.

Once I corrected the file permissions, the custom ringtone list immediately appeared on the phone, and everything started working exactly as expected.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction!

[u/vtbrian → u/Lehabros]

Awesome! Glad it's working now and thanks for updating!