asterisk users - May 2009 - Add Monitor application to call suppresses audio

I have an application where we receive calls on an inbound PRI.  After
hours, our Asterisk box dials our answering service on an outbound PRI
and then bridges the caller to the answering service.   The flow looks
like this:

(CALLER)INBOUND_PRI --> CONTEXT --> GOSUB(Incoming) -->
GOSUB(bridge-to-anssrv) --> DIAL(answering_service) -->
OUTBOUND_PRI(service)

This has been working fine for months without so much as a burp.  What I
need to do is record these calls.

If I insert a Monitor() prior to dialing the outbound call, I get no
audio in the recording and the caller hears no audio.   Occasionally it
works (perhaps 1 out of 5 times) but most of the time the caller can't
hear the callee, and vice versa.

The fully working code looks like this:
1) exten => s,n(place),Verbose(4,Dialing answering service);
2) exten => s,n,Playback(vrec_prompts/this-call-may-be-recorded);
3) exten => s,n,Set(GROUP()=ANSSVC);
4) exten =>
s,n,Set(CALLFILENAME=${STRFTIME(${EPOCH},,%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)}_${CALLERID(num)});
5) exten => s,n,Dial(${OUTGOING_PRI}/${ANSWERINGSVC},15,r);
6) exten => s,n,Goto(s-${DIALSTATUS},1);

If I insert

exten => s,n,Monitor(wav,${CALLFILENAME},m);

before the dial command on line 5, I'm virtually guaranteed that the
call will fail and no audio will be passed.

I'm using Asterisk 1.6.0.9,  LIBPRI 1.4.10,  and DAHDI 2.1.0.4.

Can anyone shine any light on why this problem is occurring?

TIA,

Barry

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Barry L. Kline <blkline at
attglobal.net> wrote:
> If I insert a Monitor() prior to dialing the outbound call, I get no
> audio in the recording and the caller hears no audio. ? Occasionally it
> works (perhaps 1 out of 5 times) but most of the time the caller can't
> hear the callee, and vice versa.
> I'm using Asterisk 1.6.0.9, ?LIBPRI 1.4.10, ?and DAHDI 2.1.0.4.
> Can anyone shine any light on why this problem is occurring?
I don't know why recording is breaking your calls. My guess is
something is screwed up with your PRI configuration. Are you getting
alarms in your logs from dahdi?

You should try to reproduce the problem on demand by generalizing your
dialplan, change the number of the answer service to the number of
your cell phone, and run some calls through.

I've been recording calls with 1.6.0 series using MixMonitor() and
haven't been having problems, making me think the recordings step is
coincidental. Crank up the verbosity, run some calls through and tell
us what's happening.

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Barry L. Kline <blkline at
attglobal.net> wrote:
> If I insert a Monitor() prior to dialing the outbound call, I get no
> audio in the recording and the caller hears no audio. ? Occasionally it
> works (perhaps 1 out of 5 times) but most of the time the caller can't
> hear the callee, and vice versa.
>
> The fully working code looks like this:
> 1) exten => s,n(place),Verbose(4,Dialing answering service);
> 2) exten => s,n,Playback(vrec_prompts/this-call-may-be-recorded);
> 3) exten => s,n,Set(GROUP()=ANSSVC);
> 4) exten =>
>
s,n,Set(CALLFILENAME=${STRFTIME(${EPOCH},,%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)}_${CALLERID(num)});
> 5) exten => s,n,Dial(${OUTGOING_PRI}/${ANSWERINGSVC},15,r);
> 6) exten => s,n,Goto(s-${DIALSTATUS},1);
What is the 6 for?
What is the goto supposed to do?

This could certainly explain why the first call works and not the
subsequent calls.
Why don't you want to just hangup the call after 5 completes?