[asterisk-bugs] [Asterisk 0014173]: Agent shows "(In use)" and will not receive queue calls while agent is logged in waiting for queue calls (1.4.22)

[Asterisk Bug Tracker]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
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http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=14173 
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Reported By:                nathan
Assigned To:                putnopvut
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Project:                    Asterisk
Issue ID:                   14173
Category:                   Applications/app_queue
Reproducibility:            random
Severity:                   major
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     acknowledged
Asterisk Version:           1.4.22 
Regression:                 No 
SVN Branch (only for SVN checkouts, not tarball releases): N/A 
SVN Revision (number only!):  
Disclaimer on File?:        N/A 
Request Review:              
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Date Submitted:             2009-01-05 13:54 CST
Last Modified:              2009-01-09 16:42 CST
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Summary:                    Agent shows "(In use)" and will not receive queue
calls while agent is logged in waiting for queue calls (1.4.22)
Description: 
I have a queue with approximately 50 total agents, about 20 of which will
be logged in at any given time.  Seemingly randomly (if there's a pattern,
I haven't discovered it), sometimes after an agent completes an inbound
call the agent status (as displayed in "show queue x") changes to "(In
use)" and the agent never again receives a call until that agent logs off
and logs back into the queue.  

This will happen about 15-20 times every day with seemingly random agents
at seemingly random times.  It happens when there's only one agent logged
in or when we have a full 20 logged in.  I can't identify a pattern that
would cause this problem.

This causes a huge problem, because we are missing calls and breaking our
SLA agreements with clients even though we have enough capacity and people
sitting waiting for calls.  As a workaround we are trying to get each agent
to log off the queue and log back on the queue after each call, but they
often forget.
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 (0097390) a_villacis (reporter) - 2009-01-09 16:42
 http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=14173#c97390 
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I am one of the members of the Elastix development team (www.elastix.org)
that packages Asterisk 1.4.x as the core of the Elastix telephony distro. 

We have a package that implements a call center dialer with configuration
web interface, and we have seen this problem with at least two different
customers. Our dialer program checks the output of "queue show" to decide
whether one or more agents are idle, and then generates calls with the
Originate() command through the Asterisk manager interface. When this bug
happens, the agent is stuck with the "in use" flag while really idle, but
"agent show" lists it as idle. We have tried a workaround (SVN only) that
queries both sources and only lists an agent as busy when both sources
agree that a particular agent is busy. While this does route the call
regardless of "queue show" status, sometimes (most of the time) this
results in the call being considered as connected by Asterisk, but the
agent just hears the queue background music instead of the connected call.
However, relevant events (Join, Link, UnLink, Hangup) are delivered
normally to the dialer application.

This bug sounds similar to this bug report, except that this is for
1.6.0.3: http://bugs.digium.com/bug_view_advanced_page.php?bug_id=14139 .
However this one is marked as fixed in SVN. Maybe this fix is worth
investigating...

nathan, could you please try a different protocol for the IP phone (other
than SIP, that is), and check whether the bug occurs in that other protocol
as well? 

Issue History 
Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change               
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2009-01-09 16:42 a_villacis     Note Added: 0097390                          
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