[asterisk-dev] hints and BLF behaving strange in 1.4.18/19

[John Lange]

We have recently taken the plunge and begun installing or upgraded our
clients to the 1.4.x strain of Asterisk.

Clients are now reporting some very strange behaviour with the way hints
and BLF indications are working with reception phones.

Some calls show no call progress indication or continue to show
indications long after calls are answered or hungup.

For example, during a page operation, all of the keys on the switchboard
would normally light up (since all phones are being paged) and then go
out.

However, now it takes asterisk a very long time to get all the lights
lit up and then they stay stuck that way for up to a full hour. It seems
something has gone wrong with the way Asterisk handles hints making it
very slow and inefficient.

Here is a snipit of the console output cut down for brevity and the
values edited for privacy.

    -- Called 000000000008x1
    -- Called 000000000001x1
    -- Called 00000000000ax1
 Extension Changed 2003332208[dids_local] new state Ringing for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 
    -- Called 00000000000cx1
 Extension Changed 2003332205[dids_local] new state Ringing for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 
    -- Called 000000000001x1
 Extension Changed 2003332203[dids_local] new state Ringing for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 
    -- Called 000000000006x1

.....

    -- SIP/000000000001x1-082c7738 answered
    -- Created MeetMe conference 1023 for conference '1803405613d'
 Extension Changed 2003332201[dids_local] new state InUse for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
    -- SIP/000000000006x1-0333f758 answered
 Extension Changed 2003332208[dids_local] new state InUse for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003332203[dids_local] new state InUse for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003334378[dids_local] new state InUse for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003334376[dids_local] new state InUse for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
    -- SIP/00000000000ax1-0824cae8 answered
    -- SIP/000000000001x1-0333b7e0 answered
    -- SIP/00000000000fx1-0835b5c8 answered
    -- SIP/00000000000dx1-0834b7e8 answered

.....


 Extension Changed 2003334388[dids_local] new state Idle for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003334372[dids_local] new state Idle for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003334377[dids_local] new state Idle for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003334365[dids_local] new state Idle for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)
 Extension Changed 2003334380[dids_local] new state Idle for Notify User 0008000000f8x1 (queued)

----

As you can see, the notify for ringing is sent to the device
0008000000f8x1, but all the further progress messages are "queued" and
remain that way long after the page is completed.

This manifests itself on the switchboard as all of the extensions
showing as ringing and staying that way.

Can anyone shed any light on this issue? Is there any reason to belive
that this would be unique to a specific model of phone?

In our example only the Aastra 57i with 560M sidecar was tested. It's
not so easy to swap out the switchboard but it can be done if the
problem is suspected to be in the console itself.

Regards,
-- 
John Lange
www.johnlange.ca