Hopper empty, dialing paused
The pre-dial lead cache is empty and the fill cron hasn't run, dialing stops until new leads enter the hopper.
Symptoms
- •Dialing stops but campaign is still active
- •Report shows 0 calls in progress despite ready agents
- •Manual hopper check shows empty queue for the campaign
Common causes
- •All leads exhausted under current dial statuses + call time rules
- •Hopper fill cron job failed or is disabled
- •List recycle rules prevent any leads from re-entering hopper
- •Time-zone restrictions (local_call_time) excluded all leads
How to fix it
- 1Check available leads: `SELECT count(*) FROM vicidial_hopper WHERE campaign_id='YOUR_CAMPAIGN'`
- 2Check cron: `crontab -l | grep hopper`
- 3Review campaign `lead_filter`, it may be excluding everyone
- 4Review `call_time_id`, business hours restriction may be filtering all leads
- 5Import fresh leads or adjust filter/recycle rules
VICIPanel's hopper monitor shows current depth, drain rate, and time-to-empty. We alert before the hopper drains, not after dialing stops.
Related issues
More Asterisk errors
Asterisk not running on the dialer box
The Asterisk process is dead, no calls can be placed or received until it's restarted.
Campaign dial level stuck at zero
Campaign auto-dial level drops to 0 and never recovers, dialing stops.
Dial prefix invalid for campaign
Campaign is configured with a dial prefix that doesn't match any Asterisk dialplan extension, every dial fails instantly.
VICIdial worker process not running
One of VICIdial's background daemons (AST_send_listen, AST_update, etc.) has died.
Stop troubleshooting. Start operating.
VICIPanel's health dashboard catches most of these issues before they impact your agents — with plain-English diagnostics and one-click remediation.