Queue occasionally rings agents already on a call

So, we have struggled with this issue for years, to the point that details about it have passed from fact into lore, but we have a queue that will occasionally send a second call to an agent who is already on the phone with another queue call, or perhaps an outbound call.

The extension has call waiting disabled. The Cisco 7960 phone being used has its call_waiting setting disabled. The queue is configured like so (plus agent restrictions is set to “Extensions Only”):

[500]
announce-frequency=0
announce-holdtime=no
announce-position=no
autofill=yes
autopause=no
autopausebusy=no
autopausedelay=0
autopauseunavail=no
joinempty=yes
leavewhenempty=no
maxlen=0
memberdelay=0
min-announce-frequency=15
musicclass=default
penaltymemberslimit=0
periodic-announce-frequency=0
queue-callswaiting=silence/1
queue-thereare=silence/1
queue-youarenext=silence/1
reportholdtime=no
retry=5
ringinuse=no
servicelevel=60
strategy=wrandom
timeout=25
timeoutpriority=app
timeoutrestart=no
weight=0
wrapuptime=30
context=
lazymembers=no

What can I start digging for in the logs to figure out why this happens from time to time? When we have an issue, we often see a single call that is repeatedly ringing agents that are not available or on a call, even while other calls that have been waiting for less time are presented to available agents. I do understand that the autofill setting will mean that calls won’t always be answered first-come, first-served, but when we have an issue, it’s particularly bad (one call holding 8+ minutes, another answered after 10 seconds).

Some additional detail: sometimes this manifests itself as the actual phone showing a second call presenting itself, and sometimes will manifest as our seeing the queue ringing a busy agent in Queuemetrics.

Did you make any back-end changes, or you manage this queue from the GUI?
Which version of Asterisk, FreePBX & Queue Module?

@PitzKey: I haven’t made any background changes, this has been something that has been an issue for well over ten years, but we have just lived with it and always made sure that queue agents don’t EVER have call waiting enabled.

We do manage this queue from the GUI and we always have, I just pasted the config file settings in, as it seemed simpler/easier.

We are on the FreePBX distro, SHMZ 6.6, running asterisk13-13.23.1-1.shmz65.1.204.x86_64. I will have to double-check the version of the queue module, but I suspect that we have something larger afoot here.

Sorry for the delay. Here are the version numbers for our modules:

[root@vox ~]# fwconsole moduleadmin list|grep q
| queuemetrics         | 2.11.0.3     | Enabled  | GPLv3+     |
| queueprio            | 13.0.4       | Enabled  | GPLv3+     |
| queues               | 13.0.34.15   | Enabled  | GPLv2+     |
| qxact_reports        | 13.0.15.3    | Disabled | Commercial |
| vqplus               | 13.0.42.7    | Enabled  | Commercial |

I am going to go through the module admin and make sure that we aren’t too far behind.

fwconsole ma listonline | grep q

Will show your version and the available version.

I did upgrade to the most recent versions, but I was only a few versions back for v.13. Here’s the current results:

| queuemetrics         | 2.11.0.3    | Enabled and up to date                     | GPLv3+     |
| queueprio            | 13.0.7      | Enabled and up to date                     | GPLv3+     |
| queues               | 13.0.34.17  | Enabled and up to date                     | GPLv2+     |
| qxact_reports        | 13.0.15.3   | Disabled                                   | Commercial |
| vqplus               | 13.0.42.18  | Enabled and up to date                     | Commercial |

I missed this. Is Skip Busy set to Yes?

Yes, it is. Skip Busy Agents = “Yes + (ringinuse=no)”

Perhaps a good question is “what should I expect to see?” I would expect that, when all agents are busy, the system will periodically try busy agents to see if any have come available, but what I seem to be seeing is the system trying one agent over and over, or trying them for 20 seconds or so, despite the fact that they are on the phone.

Does anyone have any suggestions to what I might search for in the logs to confirm or refute whether what I am seeing is normal?

Tom

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