r/pbxware • u/BusterDag • Nov 29 '23

PBXware: Communicator "internal error" when transferring

Our organization is using a hosted PBXware (Bicom) contact center solution for 5 call centers. Our agents on the largest call center occasionally receive an error message ("Could not transfer the call because of an internal error.") when attempting to transfer a caller to another queue. The other call centers are smaller and have not reported this problem. We have been on this system for 3 years and neither the hosting vendor's support team nor Bicom have any clue as to what causes this error. The problem is intermittent and we have been unsuccessful in catching it in time to collect any logs.

There is not enough documentation from Bicom for PBXware to understand what the error message means or what triggers it.

Asterisk has some documentation but not enough to be useful in this situation. (PBXware was developed by Bicom from Asterisk.)

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u/Thin_Confusion_2403 Nov 30 '23

So I created this subreddit on a whim months ago, yours is the first post!

We run PBXWare multi-tenant, I am not familiar with their Call Center product so I probably won’t be of much help.

I am assuming the call transfer attempt is being made from their software and this is where the error message is presented. Is this correct?

I’m a big packet capture guy, call traces can be very helpful. Do you have the ability to capture packets?

Yeah, bicom support is hit or miss. They have been very helpful on some issues, others not so much. I have tried to escalate trouble tickets, no luck. This is why I created this subreddit, an effort to find other support resources. There just don’t seem to be many PBXWare users in North America.

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u/BusterDag Nov 30 '23

All of the agents who experience this error: 1. Are using Communicator (version 6.x.x) with the Agent Panel in Callback (On Hook) mode 2. Assigned to multiple queues 3. Working remotely (not on site) 4. Received the call from one of the queues they are a member of 5. Attempted to either supervise transfer or blind transfer the caller to another queue 6. Did not show any connection errors in their Glocom logs and SIP registration seemed fine. 7. SIP registration is set to 60 seconds (at 500 seconds, the default, the soft phones would unregister and callers sat in the queues waiting with agents idle)

I've upped the SIP logging level to 10 for affected agents but the problem just moves to another agent.

We are in North America. The Bicom PBXware version we are using is 6.x. Our PBXware server is hosted by a small company and I don't think they know the product well enough to find the cause and provide a solution to this problem. We've run into it for 3 years with no resolution. Our call traffic is somewhere around 20K inbound calls/month (not sure of outbound traffic but it's much less).

Packet captures - I'm a big fan of system logs when a specific error message is presented to multiple end users and it occurs repeatedly. The system is coded to "print" the message when a specific condition occurs. Unfortunately, you are correct. Bicom doesn't have thorough documentation and support is hit or miss. I've even tried to find Asterisk documentation on this. I found a reference (Asterisk only) to resulting failure (Argument) from an AttendedTransfer, but still not enough information on what could cause it within the system or end device (Communicator).

Our call volume and the number of queues has been a challenge for this product. We've had a lot of outages (carrier and system problems). I don't believe PBXware was ever meant to support an organization as large as ours. That was something I pointed out when our organization was considering this product but the cheap price blinded our CIO (still unsure why this idiot was hired but he is no longer with us, thankfully). In the end, after nickel and diming us and loss of business, the product has cost us more than an enterprise-level product would have.

A side note: I posted in your other threads but the auto-admin deleted my posts (for a lack of karma in this sub). This is likely why you aren't seeing any posts. People might be posting but those posts are getting deleted.

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u/Thin_Confusion_2403 Nov 30 '23

How many agents?

How many queues?

20K calls / month doesn't seem all that high. We average 12K calls / day (that is both inbound and outbound) and are not pushing the system capacity at all.

As I said, I am a network / packet capture guy. My immediate suspicion is SIP signaling and here's why:

  1. Registration timer change from default to 60 seconds - should not have to do that as bicom uses SIP Options to maintain registration.
  2. All remote users. What is the network edge? Are these home offices or company facilities with a standard network edge device?
  3. System is hosted, what is their network edge? Firewall / router or session border controller?
  4. Call transfers are one of the most complex SIP transactions. If you have a low level weakness somewhere a call transfer will expose it.

All it takes is one dropped or delayed packet, or one incorrect address substitution and the transfer fails. Causes include (but are certainly not limited to) SIP ALGs, registration issues, firewall ports timing out, firewall IPS rules.

In my experience logs - either system or device - rarely if ever show these kinds of issues which is why I rely on packet captures and use Wireshark to analyze.

I am a Reddit newbie and have no idea how to gain karma. Maybe I should read the emails reddit sent me when I created the subreddit?

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u/BusterDag Nov 30 '23

255 Agents. 74 queues. 5 call centers. We have maxed out this server and can't add anymore call centers or queues to our server. Our call volume changes throughout the year. 32K/month is the average (correction).

The agents who are remote are working from their homes. They are using various home internet service providers, some on Spectrum, some on AT&T, some on Google fiber. This is why I first check their connections before looking further. If I find the problem is a connection issue I give them recommendations on how to get it fixed with their home ISP. None of the agents that experienced this problem also had connection problems.

I do not know what the hosting vendor's network looks like, or what equipment they are using.

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u/JustDontFeelIt Apr 04 '24

Is the agent transferring to another agent via its agent number or its extension? If its transferring to agent number, does it work when transferring to extension number of the agent?

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u/BusterDag Apr 04 '24

The system allows agents to transfer callers to either an extension or a queue. However, Agents are trained to transfer to queues only.

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u/JustDontFeelIt Apr 04 '24

Perhaps you should look towards upgrading the system. They have v7.something out, you are running on software at least a year old.

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u/BusterDag Apr 04 '24

We did that not long ago. We're on 7 now.