The modem sees the line, but does not negotiate or does not recognize that
it has an incoming fax.
"Error message: "The incoming call cannot be answered as a fax."

The phone line quality may have deteriorated. What kind of phone line do you
have --POTS, or something else?
You may have added phones to the line, dropping the line levels.
The modem or it's driver & software may be the cause.

Try enabling the modem log, and see what the command reply sequence looks
like. This can be a major clue as to what is actually causing the problem.
The modem.log file is a text file that notepad can read.

There are different fax modes, and the send fax may be operating in one that
your fax modem cannot handle, or
needs to have it's fax settings massaged a bit.

A common setting involves how long the fax modem allows for negotiation
before it gives up.
(I hope you have some sort of manual for the fax modem that lists it's
commands.)

If that isn't bad enough, software applications that run in background can
also be a factor.
They can have an effect on "real time" operations, such as answering a fax.

I've always had better luck with external modems when it comes to fax. Most
of the internal modems are "soft modems" and depend on software to provide
the basic functionality, and a hardware modem has, well hardware to do the
same sort of things, thus reducing the real-time requirements placed on the
computer. You would think that this would not be an issue with today's
computers, but it can be.

A long standing example having nothing to do with fax.

Midi keyboard with a software application such as windows built in
multimedia player.
Windows built in synthesizer
It's possible with some effort to assign channels or "tracks" as they are
sometimes called to either or both. Each channel or track usually consists
of one instrument.
When a midi song is played, several tracks are played at the same time.

Getting the external midi keyboard and the internal windows synthesizer to
play in sync can be a major problem. It wasn't such a problem when much
slower computers and windows 3.11 were common.




"Amanda" <Amanda@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:68502924-9153-4DAA-A45E-C275BBB3E34C@microsoft.com...
>I am having a problem recently with the fax program in Windows Vista
> Ultimate. I have been using the program for some time without problem,
> this
> has just cropped up.
> I have the program set to manually receive faxes, and when I answer the
> phone and hear a fax tone I click on receive fax now, and when I hear the
> program make it's squeal I can hang up and the program will receive the
> fax.
> Lately, the squeal comes but it never receives the fax.
> Error message: "The incoming call cannot be answered as a fax."
> I don't think the problem is on the sending fax machine.
> Any thoughts?
> I checked Microsoft knowledge base and found an article talking about the
> class of the modem, but since this has already been set up for some time
> successfully I am skeptical about that, and reluctant to edit the registry
> without knowing for sure.
> Thanks
>
> --
> Amanda B