Common Fax Failure Errors
Learn how to read the error messages found on printed or emailed Failure notifications.
Written by Val Campos
Updated at June 6th, 2025
Table of Contents
Fax Errors
While sending faxes using your fax machine or fax-to-email service, you may see various error messages when a fax runs into issues being sent. These fax error messages can usually be referenced from fax confirmation messages printed by your fax machine or received by your email tied to one of our fax-to-email services.
The Call Dropped Prematurely
The fax session may have disconnected before the fax transmission could complete. This often happens when the recipient terminates the call or the fax machine receiving the fax runs into a technical issue mid-session.
Not Accepted Here
The destination you faxed to does not accept T.38 Fax Media. This could be because the phone number that was faxed is not configured to handle faxes.
Quick Tip: Verify that this phone number is the correct fax number and try again.
Ensure that the country code and area code at the beginning of the destination number are correct.
Error Starting Fax Session
One possible reason a fax may not be sent is due to the recipient's device/server not sending back a response to initiate a faxing session. Some examples of
- Recipient's fax machine or faxing service is blocking inbound faxes. This can be because your fax number was blocked, or their faxing device/service is set to block faxes from unknown numbers.
- The recipient's fax machine is disconnected or not set up to receive faxes.
- The recipient's fax machine is malfunctioning, jammed, or connected with damaged cabling (e.g., a damaged phone line cable).
- The recipient's fax machine has auto-answer disabled, and the recipient did not answer the fax in time.
- The fax number is not in service.
Quick Tip: If this is the reason for the failure, it may be necessary to contact the person you are trying to fax to see if they are experiencing any issues with their own fax machine or fax-to-email service.
Attempt to send your fax again when you are confident the recipient will answer or have their fax machine set to Auto-Answer.
If there are no issues on the recipient's side or you are experiencing issues faxing other destinations, please contact our Technical Support team by emailing support@spectrumvoip.com or calling (469) 429-2500.
Busy (486)
If you receive this error, then the destination returned a busy tone when the fax was sent. This could be because the receiving party is occupied with a different fax session.
Quick Tip: Wait a few minutes and then attempt to resend the fax.
If this error is received again, consider contacting the receiving party to schedule a time to resend the fax.
Far End Cannot Receive at the Size of Image
Sending large faxes over Fax over Internet Protocol (FoIP) runs the risk of faxes taking an excessive amount of time to process or timing out and failing to send.
Quick Tip: To ensure a large fax is completely sent without any issues, it is recommended to break up large faxes into smaller batches.
For example, a fax that is over 25 pages long and fails to send may need to be sent in batches of 5-10 pages at a time as a work around.
Disconnected After Permitted Retries
The fax sender made several unsuccessful attempts to send the same message. This could result from poor connection quality.
Quick Tip: It is recommended to check the quality of your network.
– If your network's health and speed are healthy, perform test faxes with a different destination.
– If the test faxes are sent and received without any issues, attempt to resend the fax to its intended destination.
– If the fax still cannot be received by the receiving party, then the destination could possibly have a poor connection.