Hopper empty errors: what they mean and how to clear them

The campaign is running, agents are ready, and the dialer reports the hopper is empty. No calls go out because there is nothing queued to dial. The hopper is the short staging table that holds the next batch of leads the dialer will place; when it can't fill, every other piece sits idle.

The Hopper is refilled continuously by a background process that pulls callable leads from the active lists. An empty hopper means that pull returned nothing, and there is a finite list of reasons why.

Why the hopper can't fill

The fill process only takes leads that are callable right now. A lead is skipped if its list is inactive, if it falls outside the campaign call time window, if it has already been called and not yet recycled, or if a time-zone filter pushes it out of range for the current hour. If every candidate is excluded, the hopper stays at zero. Callable also depends on disposition status: a lead marked sale, dead, or do-not-call is no longer eligible, so a list that looks full can still produce nothing.

A useful habit is to read the empty hopper as a question: of all the leads in the active lists, why is none of them dialable this minute? Almost every answer is one of a handful of filters stacking up. Check them one at a time rather than reloading lists at random, because reloading an inactive or out-of-window list changes nothing.

flowchart TD
  A[Hopper fill runs] --> B{List active}
  B -- No --> E[Empty]
  B -- Yes --> C{Inside call time}
  C -- No --> E
  C -- Yes --> D{Leads not yet called}
  D -- No --> F{Recycling on}
  F -- No --> E
  F -- Yes --> G[Refilled]
  D -- Yes --> G

Refill it in order

1. Confirm a list is active. The campaign must have at least one Lead list set active. A list that was finished or deactivated yesterday contributes no leads today even if it is full of records.
2. Check the call time window. The campaign Call times definition gates which hours leads are dialable. Outside the window, the hopper will not fill no matter how many leads exist.
3. See whether everything was already called. If every lead in the active lists has been dialed and dispositioned, there is nothing left to queue. Turn on Lead recycling or reset the list so eligible statuses become callable again.
4. Verify the hopper level and auto-fill. The campaign sets a target hopper size and the fill runs automatically. If the hopper level is zero or auto-fill is off, the staging table never tops up. Set a sensible level and leave auto-fill on.
5. Rule out time-zone filtering. Leads carry a time zone, and the dialer respects local calling hours. If all your loaded leads are in a zone where it is too early or too late, none qualify until their local clock enters the window.

Run the five checks and the hopper fills. For the wider context, see the troubleshooting playbook. To confirm what the dialer actually attempted, the dial log report shows every placed call. To skip babysitting list status on your own box, VICIfast hosts the dialer so the plumbing stays out of your way.