CISCO CALL MANAGER 8 - NO OUTGOING CALLS

[Odette Danster]

Dear Anna

Thank you for your e-mail.

As discussed on our previous telephonic conversation regarding the memory allocation on Windows (64-bit) and TNG. TNG is a 32-bit application which can run on a 64-bit OS, however with 32-bit applications you may only allocate memory up to 2gigs.

Our suggestion is to decrease the "Percentage of available memory to reserve" option in TNG - General Settings to 10% and the "Flush to harddrive interval - seconds" option to 120 seconds.

Please set the TNG to these settings and allow time for data to be imported.

Once you have tried this and the results are not satisfactory, we can investigate further.

[Belinda Frick]

Please let us know once you have tried 2 suggested settings.

We want to know if it is an improvement. This will give us a better idea as to what could cause the issue where it stops loading call details. If it does, please check what percentage the storage capacity is on the 'Call List Page' (top right-hand side) and call details of last entry in the export file.

[Belinda Frick]

Anna, your client phoned in. He changed the settings to 10% memory capacity and the flush to disk to 120 seconds. I also asked him to restart the PC so that the 10% memory allocation can take affect.

Note that it will now only store round and about 300 000 call records. They want calls for 6 months. To identify the issue where the TNG seems to stop loading call details the first step is to ensure that TNG in total does not use more than 2 GIG (as explained in above post). If TNG does not use more than 2 GIG memory and the issue still occurs, then we need to look further.

The memory allocation was set to 20%(they have 4 GIG RAM). It has now been set to 10%. This will mean it will auto purge more frequently. The process is when 99% call capacity is reached, then it will auto purge down to 80% call capacity. If you open the TNG login page it will show when next auto purge will take place. On the Call List page it will also show the status top right-hand side and when it is busy purging.

If you have any issue where for example it looks like TNG hangs or not loading in calls or you cannot log in, first check the tng log if it started the auto purge process.

If so, allow TNG time to complete. If you are on the TNG Call List page it might be slow in updating.

Also note that we do not suggest leaving TNG open on the Call List page, this might also use memory - as it updates call details live(as they are imported).

I asked to let it run for a week to see if results are better after changing the settings.

[Belinda Frick]

How did TNG run since the settings changes was implemented?

Our goal is to ensure that TNG in total does not use more than 2 GIG memory.

Please confirm the software running on the PC.

I believe it is dedicated to TNG and only the following is running:

1. TNG
2. TNG Cost Centre
3. Cisco File Splitter

Is anything else running, for example backup programs from the client, pabx3, anti-virus, monitoring software, etc.?

My next suggestions is the following:

• To ensure no virus or malware is running on the PC(they can for example use TCP ports which slows the PC down), you can install Microsoft Security Essentials (comes with Windows licensing). For settings, use the following:
  
  
  • Settings -> Exclude Files and Locations:
    
    browse to the Datatex folder and select it - click on ADD
    
    
  • Settings -> Exclude: Processes:
    
    browse to the Datatex folder with sub folder and select tng.exe - click on ADD. Repeat this for all exe's.
    This is to exclude the Datatex software exe's (tng.exe/{costcentre}.exe/CiscoFileSplitter.exe).
    
    
  • Ensure that updates/scans is set outside office hours.
• Ensure that Windows update is also set outside office hours and if updates done the restart is set to manual.
  
  
• Since you are using the File Reader option you do not need to enable log rawdata as PERMANENT. The files will be in the processed folder if you need to re-import. You can disable log rawdata, to ensure less processing is taking place.

[Belinda Frick]

I would like to assist further, but no feedback on my previous 2 post with suggestion.

Has there been any issues with TNG and importing of call details since the setting in my first post was implemented?

[annam]

Afternoon,
I have spoken to Debswana this afternoon. So far, they have had to restart TNG twice since your recommendation. In terms of TNG's availability, they are happy that it has been sorted. The challenge is the limited active number of records and the outstanding Rates update. I will do the follow up on rates under the respective ticket that has already been logged. Many thanks.

[Belinda Frick]

Thank you for the feedback Anna.

I would now suggest the second stage of my recommendations:
Re: CISCO CALL MANAGER 8 - NO OUTGOING CALLS

We need to find out what the status was when they had to do the restart:

Why did they restart?

• Could they not log into TNG?
  or
• Could they not access the PC?

If they were logged into TNG:

What was the last action started that could possible cause the issue?
Was TNG on the Call List page?

If they tried to log in:

Could they access the log in page?

If not, could they ping the TNG PC?

Since last login, did scheduled reports run? Could the scheduled reports be busy?
Are they using the archive feature?
Was TNG busy with the auto purge process? NOTE: Once auto purge activates it will make a entry in the tng log file and after completion you can see on the Call List page that the Call Capacity will be 80%. If your alarm feature is enabled, it will also send an e-mail that auto purge will activate.

[annam]

An update: TNG machine and services were up and running, that call list page was not open and when opened there was no latest calls. The export file was not created and was only created after a restart after which callist page was updaed. Have not experienced the same issue in the last week or this week.

PC specifications:

Windows 7 64bit OS
4 GB Ram

Softwares

Antivirus - Microsoft Forefront EndPoint 2010

[Belinda Frick]

Thank you for the feedback.

What is the last entries in the 'tng.log' before you restarted?
Did you restart only the TNG service or the entire TNG PC(which will restart all services)?
If you restarted the PC, did you perhaps check which processes is using the most memory and which the most CPU? If not, please check this if it happens again. Also check if the File Splitter was still writing out files for TNG to read in. Check the number of files it needs to process.

Under Task Manager you can also check if disk usage is high when TNG is in this state.

Please configure the anti-virus for similar settings as I suggested for Microsoft Essentials. We need to ensure it is not using additional processing or locking files that TNG needs. You need to exclude all folders with Datatex soft ware as well as their executable files.

[annam]

I restarted both services then after that i restarted th pc and the export files were not generated. i did restart the services a while later that day. i realised the second day that the export file was created with very little data for that day.