Recordings missing in VICIdial: where they go and how to find them

You go to pull a call and the recording is not there. Before you assume it was deleted, it is worth knowing that most missing recordings were never created in the first place. Here is where recordings live, why one might be absent, and how to prove which case you are in.

Where recordings actually live

A finished Call recording is written as an audio file on the server and indexed in the database so the admin screen can find it. The file format depends on your Recording format (WAV/MP3) setting. If either half is missing, the file on disk or the index row, the recording looks gone even when part of it survives. So the first question is not where did it go, but was it ever made.

This split between file and index matters because the two can drift apart. If the index row exists but the file does not, the admin screen will list the recording and then fail when you try to play it. If the file exists but the index row was never written, the screen will not show it at all even though the audio is sitting on disk. Knowing which of those you are looking at tells you whether to hunt on the filesystem or in the database, so it is worth pinning down early rather than guessing.

flowchart TD
  A[Recording expected but missing] --> B{Campaign recording setting}
  B -->|NEVER| C[No recording was ever made]
  B -->|ONDEMAND| D{Did agent start it}
  D -->|No| C
  D -->|Yes| E[File should exist]
  B -->|ALLCALLS| E
  E --> F{File on disk}
  F -->|No| G[Moved or archived]
  F -->|Yes| H[Check Recording Access Log]

Why a recording may not exist

• The campaign recording setting was NEVER, so nothing was ever captured for that call.
• The setting was ONDEMAND, which means recording only happens if the agent presses the button. With On-demand recording a quiet call simply has no file.
• A short Recording delay or an early hangup meant the call ended before audio was written.
• The file was moved or archived off the live box, often by a Recording retention job that sweeps old audio to cold storage.

A checklist to find it

1. Check the campaign recording setting for the time the call happened. NEVER or ONDEMAND explains most absences immediately.
2. Confirm the agent actually started recording if the campaign was ONDEMAND. No button press means no file.
3. Look in the Recording Access Log. If a row shows someone opened that recording before, it existed at some point, which points to a move or deletion rather than a recording that was never made.
4. Check your archive or retention storage. Files swept off the live server are usually still recoverable from cold storage if they were ever created.

Work the checklist in order rather than jumping to the disk. Each step rules out a whole class of cause, so by the time you are actually grepping the filesystem you already know the recording was supposed to exist. That ordering is the difference between a five-minute answer and an afternoon lost in directories.

Most missing-recording tickets end at step one: the setting was NEVER or the agent never started capture, so there is nothing to find. Knowing that saves hours of disk hunting. To go deeper on the audit angle, read how to read the Recording Access Log, and work the wider symptom set with the troubleshooting playbook. If you would rather not manage recording storage and retention by hand, VICIfast runs the box so you don't have to.