Last week 3CX sent the following message to all partners with customer licenses still on 3CX v18. In our case, all of our customers have been notified multiple times of the drop-dead date for more than a year. Yet, some simply refuse to upgrade in spite of our warnings. It’s time to look very closely at a number of points in this email:
“Apps will stop working within v18 in the coming months.”
We have known for more than a year that push notifications would be turned off by Apple and others. But is that all?
Is 3CX going to turn off the v18 Activation Services?
When 3CX turns off their v18 activation services (I believe they will), what does that mean for 3CX servers running v18? Bad things will happen. Periodically, your 3CX server “phones home” to 3CX to check whether your license has expired or has been disabled. If it cannot reach the activation server, your PBX will revert to free mode. That likely means your PBX will only allow 4 simultaneous phone calls, and other features will be disabled — or worse.
Do you really still have a couple more months?
It does say “in the coming months.” I wouldn’t count on that for one second. Google and others may end some services in a few months, but I think 3CX is going to make it a moot point because I believe your 3CX server is going to die. It may happen when your 3CX server phones home, but it could be a lot sooner…
3CX says “We will upgrade [your license key] for you.”
It sounds like if you don’t upgrade your license in the next few days, 3CX is going to upgrade your license key to V20 whether you are ready or not. Once they do that, your PBX will stop working. They go on to say “This is the last opportunity to act on your own.” I think it is pretty clear that if you don’t do something in the next couple of days, 3CX will. And if they do, expect service interruption.
Admittedly, they warned everyone in August last year that they were going to take action on December 31, 2024, but later pushed the deadline to May (if I remember correctly). Then they pushed the deadline back to this September. I think one of the considerations that contributed to 3CX’s willingness to postpone the end of life (EOL) of v18 may have been the need to release some missing features in v20, but I’m certain there is no reason for 3CX to hold off further.
I don’t work for 3CX anymore, so I don’t have any insider information, but I do know Nick Galea, the owner/founder of 3CX, and he is a very serious fellow. In his view, he has bent over backwards to accommodate his customers. My opinion is that this is a real deadline. Everyone has been warned over, and over, and over. At some point, 3CX has to make good on their threat, and September 29, 2025 is the cutoff.
What is VoIPTools going to do?
In August of 2024, 3CX said they would be dropping support for v18 on December 31 of 2024, which they did. But they obviously have not killed the v18 activation servers yet. We decided to continue to support our v18 customers as long as 3CX didn’t kill the servers. I believe that day will be here in a couple of days.
As a result, in the next few days we will be dropping all support for v18, including turning off our own registration services for v18. Like 3CX, this delay has required us to maintain a number of servers to support our v18 customers, and this has delayed some of the upgrades we wanted to put in place. Given that v18 will be officially dead on September 29, we will be turning off our v18 registration services and removing v18 from our download page and v18 manuals.
What should you do today?
I think it is obvious, but let’s state the facts. You can do nothing and hope your 3CX v18 server stays functional for a little longer. But I have long advocated for performing upgrades when YOU schedule the update, rather than having your 3CX server force the upgrade.
Frankly, if you are still on version 18, you have already put your business at risk. You are at risk of having your 3CX server die at any time. Doing 3CX upgrades in the middle of the week sounds like a pretty stressful exercise that could have easily been avoided. And I always remind people of the cost of having your phone system down unexpectedly. A broken phone system never reassures your customers that you have your act together.
So upgrade your phone system this weekend, come hell or high water. You must do it without delay.
Final thought
WARNING! You cannot simply upgrade your 3CX like we have in the past. There are very CRITICAL steps that must be performed BEFORE you upgrade or really severe problems will result. And since you are already out of support, you will be on your own. Follow the steps on the 3CX website to the letter:
https://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/v20-upgrade-checklist-faq/
https://www.3cx.com/docs/upgrading-pbx/
