Why a new audio file takes two minutes to appear

You upload a prompt to the Audio Store, refresh the audio chooser, and it is not there. Nothing is broken. New audio in VICIdial is not instant. A background process copies and validates the file before it becomes usable, and that window is about two minutes. This post explains why the delay exists and what is happening during it.

What happens when you upload

Dropping a file on the Audio Store page does not put it where Asterisk reads prompts from. The upload lands in the central store on the web server. A scheduled background job, the keepalive cycle, then picks it up, checks the Recording format (WAV/MP3), and copies it into the live sounds directory where the dialer can play it. Only after that copy completes does the file appear in the audio chooser and become playable on a call.

The same holds for prompts you record over the phone by dialing 8168. The recording is saved, and after roughly two minutes it lands in the Audio Store the same way an upload does.

The keepalive cycle

VICIdial runs a set of background jobs on a regular tick. These handle housekeeping the admin pages cannot do in real time, including distributing audio. Because the cycle runs on a schedule rather than firing the instant you upload, you wait for the next pass. Worst case you just missed a pass, which is why the delay rounds up to about two minutes rather than "a few seconds".

flowchart TD
  A[Upload file or dial 8168] --> B[File saved to Audio Store]
  B --> C[Wait for next keepalive tick]
  C --> D[Validate format]
  D --> E{Format valid}
  E -->|No| F[Red warning, reformat]
  E -->|Yes| G[Copy to sounds directory]
  G --> H[File appears in chooser]
  H --> I[Playable on calls]

Music on hold works on a similar tick. Changes to a Music on hold entry are picked up once per minute when there are changes to apply, so a new hold track is not live the moment you save it either.

Why the delay is a good thing

Batching the copy through the keepalive cycle means the file is validated before any agent or caller can hit it. If the format is wrong, you get the red warning and the broken file never reaches a live call. It also means on a multi-server setup the same file lands on every box in the cluster, so a prompt used by an Ingroup plays identically no matter which server answers. An instant copy would risk pushing an unvalidated or half-written file into production.

What to do while you wait

Use the window to confirm the file is correct rather than refreshing the page. Make sure it is PCM mono 16-bit 8k WAV or 8-bit 8k GSM, since the validation step will reject anything else. The trade-offs between the two are covered in VICIdial GSM vs WAV audio, and if your file is the wrong format, uploading an audio prompt to VICIdial walks the whole flow. A prompt that depends on TTS (text to speech) or a recording made elsewhere still has to clear the same validation, so format is the thing to double-check.

Two minutes is the normal, healthy behavior, not a fault. For the full picture of how the store, formats, and playback connect, read the audio prompts, voicemail, and TTS guide. VICIfast hands you a dialer with the Audio Store and keepalive cycle already running, so the only thing left is to wait the two minutes. See our pricing to spin one up.