Mac OS X v10.5: Incoming fax calls not answered

Products Affected

Mac OS Printing/Fax (any version), Mac OS X 10.5

Symptoms

When Mac OS X is set to receive faxes, the modem will answer incoming calls after the number of rings specified in the Print & Fax pane of System Preferences.  The modem may not answer incoming calls as expected.

If the modem is not answering incoming fax or phone calls, the fax software built into Mac OS X may be missing some required folders.

Resolution

Perform an Archive and Install of Mac OS X.


Advanced alternative using Terminal

As an alternative, you can enter three commands in the Terminal application. Only use these steps if you are comfortable with using the Mac OS X command line.

  1. Log in with an administrator account.  Click here for more information.  (You can check Accounts preferences in System Preferences to see which user account(s) is an admin account.)
  2. Open Terminal, which is located in /Applications/Utilities.
  3. Enter these three commands, each on its own line (press Return after each command):
sudo mkdir /var/spool/fax
sudo chmod 750 /var/spool/fax
sudo mkdir /var/log/fax

Additional Information

In this situation, Console Messages (viewed using the Console application) will show this message every 30 seconds:

/usr/bin/fax: line 537: cd: /var/spool/fax: No such file or directory
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