Troubleshooting

Overview

The Vonage Voice API offers a highly available service. However, due to the nature of providing service across hundreds of phone carriers around the world, problems may arise occasionally that are outside of Vonage's control. In addition there are certain limitations placed on Vonage by partner networks, which can have an impact on how your application functions. While not exhaustive here are a few things to look for if you are experiencing problems.

Timeouts

When Vonage sends a webhook to your Answer URL it expects the server to respond in a certain time frame:

  1. The TCP connection should be established within 3 seconds.
  2. The HTTP response (NCCO) should be returned within 5 seconds.

If Vonage does not get a response within these time frames it will retry the request twice. If this fails, Vonage will make two further attempts to access your Fallback Answer URL, if it is configured. If Vonage does not get a response within these time frames from your Fallback Answer URL it will retry again. If the Fallback Answer URL responds with a HTTP error code or invalid NCCO then the call is disconnected.

Capacity

As standard the Voice API has the following capacity limitations:

  1. Maximum of 3 outgoing calls per second created either via the REST API or using the connect action within another call.
  2. Maximum of 15 requests per second to the REST API (excluding create calls).

If you exceed these limits you will receive an HTTP 429 response or a webhook to your event_url with an error.

Error events

The Vonage Voice API sends error events to the event_url associated with the application. For example, when we encounter an invalid NCCO or an outbound call failure.

Regions

To ensure optimal call quality and support mixed channel calls within the app and PSTN, it is necessary to utilize the closest regional data center. For more information, see Regions.

VBC Smart Numbers

If the calls you make are not being received despite the call events being successful, check that in your application, you do not have "VBC Smart Numbers" enabled. This can interfere with call routing, so it is recommended to disable this capability in the application settings if you don't need it.