Vicidial goautodial - dialer hanging, calls dropping,

[SriniN]

Hi,

gotodial 2.0
vcdial 2.2.1 with asterix 1.4 this is dialer
for agent calling - asterix with Definity integration
on phone - ulaw, on dialing calling trunks g729
codecs compression - is already in separate server and a separate code with transcoding card

MySQL 5.0.77
centOS 5.5 32bit,
vicidial scratch install, 2.2GHZ, 2GB RAM
2gb, 320gb hdd, core2duo

We currently have 10 agents, but we wanna increase it to 30, but we are experiencing multiple issues with our setup. The issues are;
1) Calls getting dropped while agents are taking survey
2) Dialer shows agent on disposition, while agent is on call
3) Dialer is taking customer on auto-pause
4) Call is taking 8-10 seconds to get disposed
5) Agent logged out automatically while taking survey

I request the experts for your help on this.

Thanks

[williamconley]

1) Welcome to the Party!

2) Please post your Vicidial Version With Build (2.2.1 is Part of the Vicidial Version, but you skipped the build .. please post the rest on every post so we know what you have)

3) You mention a sep server for codecs. You also state something about mysql being a "scratch install". Please describe your actual network setup (not just the construction of the equipment involved). How did you cluster your servers? According to which instruction set? Have you modified the database to allow for lots of connections as Vicidial MySQL servers require?

4) You are describing networking issues, calling problems, etc all at once. You'll likely have to work out several problems, but one at a time. Start with your network connectivity issues. Describe how your agents access the vicidial server with their web browsers. (Any dropped packets - logged out automatically); This could also be the 8-10 second delay, but that could also be mysql server issues; I do not have any idea what #3 means ; Dropped calls could also be from the "server with the codecs installed" but ... we don't have a good description of this relationship yet.

[SriniN]

Hi William,

Here are the answers;
1) Can you provide your current Vicidial Build version details.
VERSION: 2.2.1-237
BUILD: 100510-2015

2) You mention a separate server for codecs, and also this being a "scratch install". Please describe your actual network setup (not just the construction of the equipment involved). How did you cluster your servers? According to which instruction set? Have you modified the database to allow for lots of connections as Vicidial MySQL servers require?
Server for codecs/transcoding is installed from scratch. I'm not using any cluster there. Its used only for transcoding purposes and the interconnection is a simple IAX2 link. Its a x86 arch machine and uses CISC instruction set.( For that matter none of our infrastructure uses any RISC platform and most of our OSes are Linux. Attimes for high load applications, we may use freeBSD.) It doesn't use any Mysql. It uses Postgres for cdr.

3) Can you share current db parameter values?
Nothing great here just below.
old_passwords=1
skip-name-resolve
skip-host-cache
max_connections=200

4) Current system is experiencing several issues including networking, calling problems etc. Starting with your network connectivity issues, can you please describe how your agents access the vicidial server with their web browsers. (Any dropped packets - logged out automatically); This could also be the 8-10 second delay, but that could also be Mysql server issues that I’m suspecting.
The agents access the dialer directly using their browsers. There are no packet drops in internal network.

5) Dropped calls issue could also originate from the "server with the codecs installed" but we need to analyze this information further.

Let me know what details you would require from this. I can provide you the same.

Please help

Thanks

[williamconley]

Your assertion that there are no packets being dropped is (I'm sure) based on sound reasoning/testing. However: the situation you describe screams "dropping packets".

I asked "Describe how your agents access the vicidial server with their web browsers." By how I was referring to network topology. Are the agents workstations with their web browsers on the same subnet (and NOT using VPN, Proxy, etc.) as the Vicidial server?

If they are in ANY way removed from the Vicidial Server, please test with a single agent/workstation that is LOCAL to the Vicidial server. Even if the machine in question is being managed through Logmein or some such as long as that workstation is on the same physical network as the Vicidial server and there is NO other traffic on that network (ie: no facebook, no server traffic not related to vicidial ....). Even a 5 minute test with NO errors may satisfy you that something is being dropped somewhere (or may satisfy me that even under those circumstances you experience the same error ... but this has not been my experience to date with GoAutoDial or Vicibox installations, they are quite stable IF there is a clean network to the server).

Also, if you can, try a call that does NOT go through your "codec" server and see if that call is more stable than the ones that DO go through it. As a test. Obviously I cannot speak about the stability of this system at all, as I have no idea what it is, but taking it "out of the loop" could remove a variable. If the same issue happens on calls NOT going through that server, then we can begin to zero in one why the calls terminate (agi logs, zip/iax debugging, etc).

[SriniN]

Hi,

Is it possible that GoAutoDial is the culprit for such Vicidial issues?

Can we check something else for narrowing down this problem set?

Please advice.

Thanks

[williamconley]

Certainly. That will involve digging through debug logs to find why calls terminated.

debug logging would have to be turned on in asterisk and vicidial (logger.conf for asterisk and admin->servers for vicidial) and then you can wade through and find out why one of the calls terminated ... but if the answer is anything other than "remote party hung up" ... the problem will turn out to be "dropped packet". In which case you are back where you are right now.

Logs are stored in /var/log/asterisk and /var/log/astguiclient.

Happy Hunting.

(I do not recommend leaving the debugging on, it will generate a LOT of data which takes up CPU cycles and disk space ).

[gardo]

Looks more like you missed some configuration or two. Specially on setting up the database portion side. Have you read the load balancing guide?

GoAutoDial can't definitely be the culprit. It's the installer and the whole system. Not to mention there are lots of GoAutoDial users who have successfully ran a multi-server Vicidial system.

Hi,

Is it possible that GoAutoDial is the culprit for such Vicidial issues?

Can we check something else for narrowing down this problem set?

Please advice.

Thanks