asterisk users - Oct 2006 - CAPI channel not available but nobody is using the system

I have 23 CAPI channels defined and normally multiple channels are in use during
the day for outbound calling.  The problem is that every 3 or 4 months one of
the channels becomes unavailable and then no calls can come in or go out on any
of these channels.  CAPI INFO shows "Contr1: 23 B channels total, 22 B
channels free."  To fix the problem I reboot the asterisk server.  First,
is there a better way to reset the channels than rebooting?  Second, is there a
way to bypass the unavailable channel in the dialplan?  Third, what is causing
the problem and can I prevent it?
Thank you in advance.
Tim

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Tim Sharp wrote:
> I have 23 CAPI channels defined and normally multiple channels are in use 
> during the day for outbound calling.  The problem is that every 3 or 4 
> months one of the channels becomes unavailable and then no calls can come 
> in or go out on any of these channels.  CAPI INFO shows "Contr1: 23 B 
> channels total, 22 B channels free."  To fix the problem I reboot the 
> asterisk server.  First, is there a better way to reset the channels than 
> rebooting?
It depends where the problem really has its origin.
If just asterisk (chan-capi) has a wrong channel count, it would be enough
to unload chan-capi. Maybe asterisk itself need to be restarted.
But if the real problem comes from the CAPI/ISDN driver, you need to reload
these drivers. 

Which version of asterisk/chan-capi do you use? What ISDN hardware / CAPI 
driver do you use?
> Second, is there a way to bypass the unavailable channel in the dialplan?
No.
> Third, what is causing the problem and can I prevent it? 
chan-capi counts the active channels when the CONNECT/DISCONNECT message
of b-channels are indicated. If one of these messages are missing (it's a 
bug in the CAPI driver if that happens) the count is wrong.


Armin