Small install in my lab v13/v13 with 5 phones. One extension, which is the default if caller times out on AA.can get smacked by 5 messages for every legit call. CDR shows 6 calls on inbound every time, Carrier CDR shows a single call each time. Oh, and this happens both on my PI and a PC based system I built. Is it a bug or undocumented feature?
Are all of the phones in the ring group?
If so, that’s why. They are all ringing, so they all show up in the CDR.
Makes sense, but on my PC based system I have calls going to one and an external number, and I see the same entries in the CDR.
We’ll need an example.
Okay. What form of the example would you like to see and I’ll try to accommodate. I’m going to the site with the PI. I have my PC system with me and may need to plug it in there. If not, I’ll pull the PC example when I get home tonight and put the PC back in my rack…
A screenshot of the CDR records from the system that is exhibiting the single-phone, multiple entries problem will probably be more than enough.
So 601 is a ring-group. How many phones are in the ring group?
5 extensions
There’s your answer. The ring-group plus each of the extensions in the ring-group is 6 CDR entries.
To avoid this, a new mechanism has been implemented (events) that don’t put as many entries because the event is the nexus of the log entries.
Got it. Let me look at that and see what I find.
Hi Dave!
I don’t quite get why the CDR report can’t simply remove duplicate entries with the same UniqueID (possibly displaying a little something to show that it has done it)…
The problem is not the number of entries in the CDR report, it’s how it was decided to show them…
It’s extremely trivial to do this with a reporting tool… It is slightly harder to do it programmatically but not that much I think…
Have a nice day!
Nick
The problem is one of perspective. A couple of years ago, Asterisk decided that the way to handle a single call going to six places was to document that by including all six places the CDR.
To be honest, at this point the issues is mostly moot. As you pointed out, it seems like they are recording a lot of accurate detail (there are six calls - one to each of the six destinations - they are just call the same call) but the detail is redundant. Could they have left the CDR the way you describe it? Sure, but then they lose the detail the users were clamouring for.
When the decision was made to expand this, it was done consciously. The argument was exactly the one you just made: “If someone doesn’t need that level of detail, they can write a tool to reduce the detail.”
Think if it this way - you can’t create new detail in the CDR after the fact. The CDR is 100% accurate and reflects what is actually happening in the system. The fact that you don’t like that and would rather see less detail doesn’t change the fact that the details you are seeing are actually 100% accurate.
As you pointed out, writing a reporting tool that culls the data to meet some lower level of accuracy is trivial. You could have easily written one in the days that you’ve spent tilting at this specific windmill. Perhaps you should do that - this is a use-supported, open-source system, after all.
Hi Dave!
Which is perfect, you can filter the rest of the data out…
Just to be sure you are perfectly understanding what I am saying, I am not talking of not putting those entries in the CDR table, just not showing them or displaying them differently in the CDR report and this could be configurable…
Some people are clearly considering this too much detail or at least not easily understandable…
We both know not everyone can do that…
I know and I am just suggesting displaying that information differently…
Just so you know I have been in IT for close to 23 years now (and I am only taking into account the years I have done so professionally) and most of it as a programmer…
(I am not counting my BASIC or assembly language years… 
)
Actually, I don’t mind having that kind of detail but I wish it was displayed slightly differently…
I actually said in a previous thread that I would not want this information to completely go away, let me check if I can find the thread…
Other people however are clearly having problems with this which is why I posted what I did, to get the conversation going on this subject…
Actually, I meant using a tool such as Cognos Report Studio, Crystal Reports and the like but I don’t think it would be that hard to do this programmatically…
Actually, I am not doing that… The only installation of FreePBX I have is at home and I set it up to learn more about IP telephony…
I have done the same thing with mail servers…
I have done the same thing with firewalls…
etc…
The amount of calls it processes is very low…
What is there is overall ok for my needs…
If I was better at PHP and had a better idea of what would be the best way to handle the displaying of a call that rings a ring group, join a conference, etc… I probably would…
But not for myself as I don’t really have a use for it but for others since this is not the first time people complain about that kind of issue with the CDR report…
And I am no stranger to this since I am a developer of a well-known open source application… Not a core one since I am no guru of the language most of it is written in but still a developer…
I also contributed to another open source application and chances are my name is actually somewhere on your hard drive because of it (there’s a long story behind that one and I definitely didn’t ask for this…).
Have a nice day,
Nick
edit: Please excuse the typos, I was clearly too low on caffeine when I wrote this…
I didn’t know back then it was so easy to have a similar problem but I still think removing “duplicates” based on System UniqueID should not be done by default…
Maybe you would need to click a checkbox, a different disposition choice (maybe “final disposition” or something similar…).
Maybe the default choices could be done through a settings page, etc…
There should be a way to filter those out or have them displayed differently if that is what you want however…
Have a nice day,
Nick