asterisk users - Apr 2006 - Blocked channels, according to our telco... leading to CONGESTION status

Greetings,

Our telco called last week, saying that a lot of channels on our
PRIs are blocked. And with blocked they have the following description
in the Siemens exchanges:


    BBAC BLOCKED BACKWARD
    This status is set when the partner exchange has
    a blocking set and the signaling of the trunk
    (non-CCS7) is able to report this blocking in
    the backward direction. This status can remain
    a long time. Other usages of this status are the
    DCMS specific blockings: "DCMS Out of Service",
    "Pilot Alarm" or "Analog Carrier Failure".
    This status may also be set for a short time when
    performing DIU tests. In that case it prevents
    outgoing seizures.


    BBAC BLOCKED BACKWARD
    The GP reports the subscriber port with BBAC if a
    subscriber goes off-hook and does not dial or if a
    subscriber does not go off-hook during a set-up
    connenction. After further three minutes the status of
    this port is changed to BPRM.


    BPRM BLOCKED PERMANENT
    When a blocking is set in the partner exchange,
    but the signaling of the trunk (non-CCS7) is not  
    able to report this blocking, the trunk will be
    idle in the own exchange. When an outgoing seizure
    is generated on such a trunk, this seizure
    will remain without answer and the release will
    be unsuccessful. In that case, this status will
    be set.


He gave me a list of all blocked channels (1 to 5 was normal busy,
6 to 20 was idle and 21 to 31 were blocked). I ran a "zap show
channel zap/" on them, but couldn't find anything in the output
which made me go "All idle/busy channels have this, and all blocked
ones have that".

When asterisk is trying to call out via one of these blocked channels,
it returns the dreaded CONGESTION status.

Of course, reloading the (TE405/TE410) card drivers and zaptel
drivers unlocked everything, but nothing in the asterisk CLI did
the same.


I'm very confused about this one, and am stuck with it for some
time now. If anybody has an idea on what to do (except filing a bug
with Digium) or a hint what I could/should try, let me know!


Edwin

-- 
Edwin Groothuis      |            Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org
edwin@mavetju.org    |          Weblog: http://weblog.barnet.com.au/edwin/

If you are using Digium cards, then I suggest you take this up with
Digium support.

On 4/3/06, Edwin Groothuis <edwin@mavetju.org>
wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Our telco called last week, saying that a lot of channels on our
> PRIs are blocked. And with blocked they have the following description
> in the Siemens exchanges:
>
>
>     BBAC BLOCKED BACKWARD
>     This status is set when the partner exchange has
>     a blocking set and the signaling of the trunk
>     (non-CCS7) is able to report this blocking in
>     the backward direction. This status can remain
>     a long time. Other usages of this status are the
>     DCMS specific blockings: "DCMS Out of Service",
>     "Pilot Alarm" or "Analog Carrier Failure".
>     This status may also be set for a short time when
>     performing DIU tests. In that case it prevents
>     outgoing seizures.
>
>
>     BBAC BLOCKED BACKWARD
>     The GP reports the subscriber port with BBAC if a
>     subscriber goes off-hook and does not dial or if a
>     subscriber does not go off-hook during a set-up
>     connenction. After further three minutes the status of
>     this port is changed to BPRM.
>
>
>     BPRM BLOCKED PERMANENT
>     When a blocking is set in the partner exchange,
>     but the signaling of the trunk (non-CCS7) is not
>     able to report this blocking, the trunk will be
>     idle in the own exchange. When an outgoing seizure
>     is generated on such a trunk, this seizure
>     will remain without answer and the release will
>     be unsuccessful. In that case, this status will
>     be set.
>
>
> He gave me a list of all blocked channels (1 to 5 was normal busy,
> 6 to 20 was idle and 21 to 31 were blocked). I ran a "zap show
> channel zap/" on them, but couldn't find anything in the output
> which made me go "All idle/busy channels have this, and all blocked
> ones have that".
>
> When asterisk is trying to call out via one of these blocked channels,
> it returns the dreaded CONGESTION status.
>
> Of course, reloading the (TE405/TE410) card drivers and zaptel
> drivers unlocked everything, but nothing in the asterisk CLI did
> the same.
>
>
> I'm very confused about this one, and am stuck with it for some
> time now. If anybody has an idea on what to do (except filing a bug
> with Digium) or a hint what I could/should try, let me know!
>
>
> Edwin
>
> --
> Edwin Groothuis      |            Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org
> edwin@mavetju.org    |          Weblog: http://weblog.barnet.com.au/edwin/
> _______________________________________________
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On Monday 03 April 2006 20:21, Edwin Groothuis wrote:
> He gave me a list of all blocked channels (1 to 5 was normal busy,
> 6 to 20 was idle and 21 to 31 were blocked). I ran a "zap show
> channel zap/" on them, but couldn't find anything in the output
> which made me go "All idle/busy channels have this, and all blocked
> ones have that".
Have you turned off the B channel resets in zapata.conf?  It's called 
"resetinterval"  Try setting it to 3600 (1 hour) or commenting it out 
entirely, and don't forget to reload chan_zap.so or restart Asterisk after 
making the change.

I kind of doubt that is the issue, if reloading chan_zap.so and restarting 
Asterisk did nothing, as you indicated.

-A.