How to read the Latency Gaps Report and what a gap actually means

Most latency problems are about slow data. A gap is the opposite — it's missing data. The Latency Gaps Report shows where the agent screen stopped reporting its latency entirely while the agent was still supposed to be logged in. Those gaps are often the real reason an agent's session goes sideways, so this report is worth understanding before you chase anything else.

What a gap actually is

A latency gap is a missing segment of latency log entries that occurs while an Agent is supposed to be logged in. Normally the agent screen reports its Latency on a steady heartbeat. When that heartbeat stops for a stretch and then resumes, the missing stretch is a gap. It means the screen went quiet — the browser couldn't reach the box, the connection dropped, or the session stalled — even though VICIdial still thought the agent was on.

Why gaps explain session trouble

Gaps are one of the most common reasons an agent has trouble with their Agent session. During a gap, the agent's screen and the dialer are out of contact — calls can stop appearing, the status can stick, and the agent may even look logged in to a supervisor while their screen is effectively frozen. A gap that lines up with the moment an agent says "it froze" is your confirmation: the session didn't crash, it went silent.

That's a meaningful distinction from plain high latency. High latency is slow but continuous; a gap is a hole. The fixes differ — slow points at load, a hole points at a dropped connection or a Keepalive that didn't fire.

Reading the chart across the day

The report can chart the latency gaps for all agents over the course of a day. Read the chart the way you'd read an attendance sheet — you're looking for blanks:

• Gaps clustered on one agent → that agent's connection or device is dropping.
• Gaps hitting many agents at the same moment → the server or network blinked for everyone at once.
• A gap right at the time an agent was kicked out → the dropped reporting is why they got logged out.

From a gap to a cause

flowchart TD
  A[Agent reports a frozen session] --> B{Gap in the report at that time?}
  B -->|No| C[Not a gap: check Agent Latency chart for slow data]
  B -->|Yes| D{Gap on one agent or many?}
  D -->|One agent| E[That agent's connection or device]
  D -->|Many at once| F[Server or network blip for everyone]

Pairing gaps with latency

Gaps and latency are two halves of one picture. Read them together: if the Agent Latency Report shows a clean low line but agents still have trouble, the gaps are where the trouble hides. If you're tracking lag-driven logouts more broadly, the Agent LAGGED Report adds the per-event detail. All of it sits inside the VICIdial troubleshooting playbook.

When gaps trace back to the box

Synchronized gaps across many agents are the worst kind, because they mean the dialer itself went unreachable for a window — and that usually traces to an overloaded or under-resourced server dropping connections under pressure. A box with headroom doesn't blink. VICIfast runs each dialer on a dedicated VPS sized to your agent count, so the connection stays steady through the busy hours instead of dropping logging mid-shift — see the plans. Confirm tracking is on, read the chart for blanks, and a gap stops being mysterious — it's a recorded moment the screen went quiet, and now you know where to look.