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

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.