Factory reset vs terminate

Your server has two red buttons, and they do very different things. Factory reset wipes the dialer clean and reinstalls VICIdial on the same machine — you keep the server, the IP address, and your subscription. Terminate (the Cancel subscription dialog) deletes the machine forever and stops your billing. Both are permanent, both are owner-only, and both offer you a backup first. This guide walks through each, click by click.

Where both buttons live

1. Click Servers in the left sidebar.
2. Click your server’s name.
3. Click the ⋮ button (three vertical dots) at the top-right of the page, next to Reboot.

The menu that opens holds both options: Cancel subscription under Subscription, and Factory reset under Recovery (marked "wipe + reinstall"). If you only see Hard reset and no Factory reset, your server is a bring-your-own server — see Good to know below.

Factory reset — wipe the dialer, keep the server

Use this when your VICIdial install is broken, cluttered with test data, or you simply want to start from a clean slate without changing servers. Afterward you get the exact same machine — same IP, same web address (subdomain), same monthly bill — running a brand-new, empty VICIdial. Everything on it today (campaigns, leads, recordings, agent logins, settings) is destroyed.

1. Open the ⋮ menu and click Factory reset.
2. Optional but smart: in the left column, Download a backup, flip Include call recordings on if you want those too (off by default — archives can be many GB), then click Download backup. We email you a download link that works for 7 days. The database lands within a few minutes; recordings can take 5–30 minutes.
3. On the right, leave Include a pre-reset backup ticked. It is on by default and runs automatically as the first step of the reset, before anything is wiped. Recordings are included in this one automatically.
4. In the box under Type DELETE MY DATA to confirm, type exactly: DELETE MY DATA
5. Click the red Email me a confirmation link button. Nothing destructive has happened yet.
6. Open the email and click the link inside within 5 minutes. The moment the link opens, the reset starts — there is no further "are you sure?" after that click.

What happens next, in order: if you kept the pre-reset backup ticked, we dump your database and recordings first and email you a 7-day download link. Then the machine is rebuilt from a clean image, VICIdial is reinstalled, and a fresh admin password is generated. You get a final email with the new admin URL and password — your old admin password stops working. Plan on roughly 10 minutes of downtime (longer if the backup is large), and watch live progress on the server page. Your IP, subdomain, DNS, and SSL certificate all stay the same, so trunks and firewall rules that point at your address keep working.

Only the account owner can run a factory reset, and only while the server shows as Active. The 5-minute email link is the safety gate: if you change your mind, just delete the email.

Terminate — delete the server, stop the bill

Use this when you are done with the server entirely. The machine is deleted at the hosting provider, its web address is released, and billing ends. There is no getting the box back — your only copy of the data is the backup we email you before deletion.

1. Open the ⋮ menu and click Cancel subscription.
2. Read the date at the top of the dialog: Billing stops followed by the exact moment your paid time ends. (The dialog title is Cancel subscription, or Cancel auto-renewal if you pay from a wallet balance.)
3. Pick a reason under Why are you cancelling? and add anything else we should know (optional). Depending on your reason, a discount offer may appear — take it or ignore it.
4. Under When?, choose how it should end:

• At the end of the billing period (recommended) — the server keeps running and dialing until the date shown, then termination runs automatically. Click Cancel subscription to schedule it. You can change your mind any time before the date: open the ⋮ menu again and click Resume subscription.
• Cancel now — billing stops immediately, with no refund for unused days, and the server is destroyed within the hour. To guard against misclicks you must type the server’s full hostname (for example demo.vicifast.com, exactly as shown, including capitalization), click Cancel now and delete, then confirm the browser pop-up.

Whichever path you pick, the actual deletion works the same way. First we take a final backup — database plus call recordings — and email you download links (good for 7 days). Then the machine is deleted at the provider, its DNS record is removed, and its SSL certificate is revoked. The server’s page in your dashboard switches to a read-only Server terminated view so you can still look up old reports. After the 7 days, the backup files are gone too — download them promptly if there is anything you might need.

Good to know

• Both actions are owner-only. Team members and sub-users never see these menu items.
• Factory reset requires the server to be Active. If it is still installing or in a failed state, the reset will refuse — fix that first or contact support.
• Every backup link we email — the standalone download, the pre-reset backup, and the final pre-termination backup — expires after 7 days. Download first, then click the red button.
• The factory-reset confirmation link lives for 5 minutes. If it expires, simply request a new one from the dialog. Nothing happens to the server until you click the link.
• Cancel now is final: no undo, no refund for the days you did not use. If there is any chance you will want the server back this month, choose At the end of the billing period instead — that one can be reversed with Resume subscription right up to the date.
• On a bring-your-own (BYOI) server there is no Factory reset — we cannot re-image hardware we do not own. Cancelling there means Disconnect from VICIfast: we uninstall our management software but your VICIdial install and all its data stay on your box.
• The screenshots here use our fictional demo server. On your real server, double-check the hostname in the dialog title before confirming anything.