How to fix an empty hopper in VICIdial

An empty hopper is the classic VICIdial head-scratcher: agents are logged in, your lists are loaded, and yet nothing dials. The cause is almost never that you are out of leads. It is that none of your leads are currently eligible to enter the hopper. Work through these checks in order and you will usually find it within a few minutes.

Check your dial statuses and active lists

The refill script only pulls leads whose Status (lead status) is in your campaign's dial-statuses list and that live on a list marked active. The two most common causes of an empty Hopper are a list that got toggled inactive and a status mismatch, where every lead you loaded sits in a status you are not actually dialing. Confirm the list is active and that your dialable statuses cover the leads you expect to call.

Check call times and time zones

VICIdial will not load a lead whose local time is outside its allowed Call times window. If you start a campaign in the evening, leads in time zones that have already closed for the day are simply ineligible until tomorrow. An empty hopper first thing in the morning or late at night is often just call-time rules doing their job, not a fault.

Check the time zone spread of your leads against your call-time setting. If they are all in one closed region, the hopper stays empty by design until those numbers come back into their window.

Check lead filters and DNC screening

A Lead filter is a fragment of a query that decides which leads qualify, and it is easy to break. A tiny mistake in the filter can quietly exclude every lead, leaving the hopper empty with no obvious error. Switch the filter to NONE briefly to see if leads start flowing, which tells you the filter was the culprit.

If you have DNC (do not call) checking turned on, numbers that match a do-not-call list get flagged instead of loaded. A list made entirely of numbers already on your internal DNC will produce an empty hopper, which is correct behavior protecting you, not a bug.

Reset lists or force a refill

If your leads have all been called and moved to non-dialable statuses, a list reset puts eligible ones back in play. When you want to clear and rebuild from scratch, the Force Reset of Hopper option wipes the current contents and lets the next refill rebuild it within a minute. Make a change, then wait a refill cycle before judging the result.

If the hopper fills but agents still sit idle or you are dropping calls, the problem is pacing rather than supply, and how to lower your VICIdial drop rate is the next read. For the broader picture of how the hopper feeds your dialer, see the VICIdial dialing strategies guide, and if you suspect sizing rather than eligibility, revisit how to set your Minimum Hopper Level.

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