asterisk users - Jun 2009 - extensions not being detected consistently

G'afternoon everybody,

I'm having a problem with consistently being able to ring our extensions 
from an outside line. I don't have a problem reaching the number, but 
during our calls to Background(msg) that I am having a problem. It seems 
to be an issue with timing. If I press the extension towards the end of 
the Background(msg) the it often works. However, in the middle of the 
message it will not work at all.

What is also strange is that I can dial an extension any time if I call 
from one of our ip phones. This seems to be strictly a problem with 
regular phones, then the timing of dialing the extension becomes important.

The fact that the ip phones always work seems to suggest that I need to 
look at tone detection, but after googling and searching the bowels of 
every conf file I could find, I haven't found any magic bullet.
I should mention that the first call to Background() usually works, even 
for the regular phones, I think this is because it is short enough that 
the timing of dialing the extension is relatively easy.

I don't know if it is significant or not but it seems that once a callee 
tries to dial an extension and it doesn't work, even the next few calls 
will also not work. And similarly, sometimes it works and then a few 
calls will go through, but then it will go back to not detecting 
properly again. Asterisk is running on its own box and there is nothing 
unusual happening with the system, or even people on other lines, that 
is happening.

Checking the log files when I call in Asterisk tells me that either it 
only detects 1 of the 3 digits (usually the second or third one) or, if 
I dial the extension at a different point in the message, that the first 
digit was pressed twice e.g. '22' instead of just '2'. The
inconsistency
of the problem is starting to drive me bonkers as I can't accurately 
nail down the problem.

Ideally I'd like our callees to be able to dial an extension as soon as 
the call to Background() is hit in the context, from any phone that 
calls in, not just ip phones. My setup is an installation of 
asterisk-now (Centos 5 with Asterisk 1.4.24)

If anyone has seen a problem like this before or has even an inkling of 
what it might be, that would be awesome :D Thanks in advance.

My dial plan:

[incoming-our-number]

exten => s,1,Answer              
exten => s,n,NoOp(incoming-our-number)
exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/CustomWelcomeMessage)       ****This 
line is usual fine, I think because the message is short enough that 
timing the dialing of the extension is less of an issue.
exten => s,n,GotoIfTime(09:00-17:30,mon-fri,*,*?open)
exten => s,n,Wait(0.5);
exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/OfficeHours)
exten => Wait(10)
exten => s,n(open),NoOp(open)
exten => s,n,WaitExten(0.5);
exten => s,n,Set(TIMEOUT(digit)=10)
exten => s,n,Set(TIMEOUT(response)=15)
exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/NextRep)                              
      ****This is the line where I have a problem with dialing an 
extension. The timing is very fickle and heaps of our callees cannot get 
to the right extension properly.
exten => s,n,WaitExten(10,m[default])

exten => s,n,Macro(dial-us)
exten => s,n,Macro(hangupcall)

exten => i,1,Playback(pbx-invalid)
exten => i,2,Goto(s,open)
exten => t,1,Macro(hangupcall)
exten => #,1,Macro(hangupcall)

Extensions that are dialed within macros like the following lines
could cause the type of problems as you mentioned:

    exten => s,n,Macro(dial-us)
    exten => s,n,Macro(hangupcall)

This line:

  exten => s,n,Wait(0.5);

should be changed to "exten => s,n,WaitExten(0.5);" and  these
lines:

    exten => Wait(10)
    exten => s,n(open),NoOp(open)

are not valid. Try this:

exten => s,1,Set(TIMEOUT(digit)=10)
exten => s,n,Set(TIMEOUT(response)=15)
exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/CustomWelcomeMessage)
exten => s,n,GotoIfTime(09:00-17:30,mon-fri,*,*?open)
exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/OfficeHours)
exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/NextRep)

exten => t,n,Macro(dial-us)
exten => i,1,Playback(pbx-invalid)
exten => i,2,Goto(s,open)
exten => #,1,Macro(hangupcall)






On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Terry Nathan <tnathan at aiinc.ca>
wrote:
> G'afternoon everybody,
>
> I'm having a problem with consistently being able to ring our
extensions
> from an outside line. I don't have a problem reaching the number, but
> during our calls to Background(msg) that I am having a problem. It seems
> to be an issue with timing. If I press the extension towards the end of
> the Background(msg) the it often works. However, in the middle of the
> message it will not work at all.
>
> What is also strange is that I can dial an extension any time if I call
> from one of our ip phones. This seems to be strictly a problem with
> regular phones, then the timing of dialing the extension becomes important.
>
> The fact that the ip phones always work seems to suggest that I need to
> look at tone detection, but after googling and searching the bowels of
> every conf file I could find, I haven't found any magic bullet.
> I should mention that the first call to Background() usually works, even
> for the regular phones, I think this is because it is short enough that
> the timing of dialing the extension is relatively easy.
>
> I don't know if it is significant or not but it seems that once a
callee
> tries to dial an extension and it doesn't work, even the next few calls
> will also not work. And similarly, sometimes it works and then a few
> calls will go through, but then it will go back to not detecting
> properly again. Asterisk is running on its own box and there is nothing
> unusual happening with the system, or even people on other lines, that
> is happening.
>
> Checking the log files when I call in Asterisk tells me that either it
> only detects 1 of the 3 digits (usually the second or third one) or, if
> I dial the extension at a different point in the message, that the first
> digit was pressed twice e.g. '22' instead of just '2'. The
inconsistency
> of the problem is starting to drive me bonkers as I can't accurately
> nail down the problem.
>
> Ideally I'd like our callees to be able to dial an extension as soon as
> the call to Background() is hit in the context, from any phone that
> calls in, not just ip phones. My setup is an installation of
> asterisk-now (Centos 5 with Asterisk 1.4.24)
>
> If anyone has seen a problem like this before or has even an inkling of
> what it might be, that would be awesome :D Thanks in advance.
>
> My dial plan:
>
> [incoming-our-number]
>
> exten => s,1,Answer
> exten => s,n,NoOp(incoming-our-number)
> exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/CustomWelcomeMessage) ? ? ? ****This
> line is usual fine, I think because the message is short enough that
> timing the dialing of the extension is less of an issue.
> exten => s,n,GotoIfTime(09:00-17:30,mon-fri,*,*?open)
> exten => s,n,Wait(0.5);
> exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/OfficeHours)
> exten => Wait(10)
> exten => s,n(open),NoOp(open)
> exten => s,n,WaitExten(0.5);
> exten => s,n,Set(TIMEOUT(digit)=10)
> exten => s,n,Set(TIMEOUT(response)=15)
> exten => s,n,Background(cassandra/NextRep)
> ? ? ?****This is the line where I have a problem with dialing an
> extension. The timing is very fickle and heaps of our callees cannot get
> to the right extension properly.
> exten => s,n,WaitExten(10,m[default])
>
> exten => s,n,Macro(dial-us)
> exten => s,n,Macro(hangupcall)
>
> exten => i,1,Playback(pbx-invalid)
> exten => i,2,Goto(s,open)
> exten => t,1,Macro(hangupcall)
> exten => #,1,Macro(hangupcall)
>
>
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On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 12:47:22PM -0700, Terry Nathan
wrote:
> G'afternoon everybody,
> 
> I'm having a problem with consistently being able to ring our
extensions
> from an outside line. I don't have a problem reaching the number, but 
> during our calls to Background(msg) that I am having a problem. It seems 
> to be an issue with timing. If I press the extension towards the end of 
> the Background(msg) the it often works. However, in the middle of the 
> message it will not work at all.
> 
> What is also strange is that I can dial an extension any time if I call 
> from one of our ip phones. This seems to be strictly a problem with 
> regular phones, then the timing of dialing the extension becomes important.
> 
> The fact that the ip phones always work seems to suggest that I need to 
> look at tone detection, but after googling and searching the bowels of 
> every conf file I could find, I haven't found any magic bullet.
> I should mention that the first call to Background() usually works, even 
> for the regular phones, I think this is because it is short enough that 
> the timing of dialing the extension is relatively easy.
Do you have any sort of hardware DTMF detection on that channel? I
assume not. But if you do, there are other tests to do.

Does Asterisk get proper DTMF tones? The way to check that is to record
them with dahdi_monitor . 

Note that the first misdetected digit is the one that matters. If you
got the number '1123' instead of '123' and you have no number
that
begins with '11', Asterisk may give a busy tone after the '11'.
> 
> I don't know if it is significant or not but it seems that once a
callee
> tries to dial an extension and it doesn't work, even the next few calls
> will also not work. And similarly, sometimes it works and then a few 
> calls will go through, but then it will go back to not detecting 
> properly again. Asterisk is running on its own box and there is nothing 
> unusual happening with the system, or even people on other lines, that 
> is happening.
> 
> Checking the log files when I call in Asterisk tells me that either it 
> only detects 1 of the 3 digits (usually the second or third one) or, if 
> I dial the extension at a different point in the message, that the first 
> digit was pressed twice e.g. '22' instead of just '2'. The
inconsistency
> of the problem is starting to drive me bonkers as I can't accurately 
> nail down the problem.
-- 
               Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755              jabber:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406           mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
http://www.xorcom.com  iax:guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir