[Sean Conner]

I have set up multiple mailboxes and have run into a problem. My phone setup requires that I set a "hangup after 5 seconds of silence" so that I can avoid listening to a phone company recording "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again..." in all of my recorded messages. If the hangup time is >5 seconds, Phlink will record the the phone company message in addition to the awful disconnected noise that follows for the remaining duration of the recording. Resulting in a large file to email and an irritating sound to boot.

My setup: I have an initial greeting that prompts the caller to choose 1 or 2 and then another message is initiated. However, if the second message exceeds 5 seconds (the hangup time) the outgoing message is cut off and the call is disconected. I have verified this by simply extending the hangup time accordingly (>5seconds), however, I then get the phone company in every message for the entire duration of the call. I believe that the silence clock starts following the initial choice and Phlink is not recognizing the second message as sound. Is it possible to change Phlink so that the silence clock starts at a later time (i.e. after the second message)? It seems to me that this would most easily be accomplished by adding a simple script command to reset the clock. If this command exists, I've missed it. In all honesty, I'm a copy and paste kinda guy when it comes to AppleScript and would describe myself as an enthusiastic novice.

[Alberto]

Hmm...

Actually, Phlink really checks for silence in the audio - what you tell it to play shouldn't matter, so if you do hear sound on the line, the silence detector is already being reset appropriately.

The problem here might be that your maximum call duration is set to a low value, is this possible? What does Phlink report in the Log window when hanging up, if the line was not silent and there actually was a second message playing?

[Sean Conner]

Thanks for the reply Alberto.

The maximum duration was already set to 120 sec. My 4 year old nephew often calls and I would like to capture some of the hilarious things he says — fodder for the future. Actually, the way I tried to circumvent to problem, without success, was to enter "set silence detection to false" and "set maximum duration to 60" in the first script following the initial greeting, which is included with the mailbox scripts. Of course, while this gets around the 5 second cut off time for the particular script choice, it doesn't stop the phone company message from being recorded. Changing the silence detection in the preferences to greater than 5 seconds results in the same phone company message problem. I'm not sure what else to try.

On a related note, in the multiple mailbox script setup, why does the outgoing message get recorded if the caller terminates the initial greeting in less than 8 seconds by making a selection? This is very consistant. Under 8 seconds, you can see the record button light up and record—although when you play the recording back, the greeting is attentuated compared to the caller's recording. After 8 seconds, the record button lights very briefly, but does not record until the end of the second greeting. It seems to me that there may be a timing problem with either the scripts or Phlink. Of course I'm also open to the idea of having missed an option somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

The log information: It says "Long period of silence detected, hanging up".

[Sean Conner]

I happened to be setting up another server today and thought that I would try and run Phlink on a clean system (Mac OS X Server 10.3.4). I copied over my Phlink Items directory and gave it a run. Under the new system, Phlink worked fine, no premature cut-offs.

So, I decided to do a little file snooping and compare Phlink files between the new and old system. What files does Phlink create in addition to the files that I place in the Phlink Items Folder (/Library/Application Support/Phlink Items/), the recordings, and the temp QT files?

In the /Users/my user directory/Library/Preferences/ director of both systems I found:
com.ovolab.intouch.bags.plist
com.ovolab.intouch.plist
com.ovolab.intouch.log.plist

I expected this. However, in the old system I found about 10 invisible .com.something_long number_chain files while the new system had a Tempory Items folder (in addition to the other items I placed inside). Could this be the problem? I should point out that if I delete the invisible files and the preferences listed above in the old system, the problem isn't fixed. Did I miss something? If the same problem occrurs in the future, I hope to be able to shell script a fix. Is it possible that the problem is with a corrupted file?

The 8 second recording observation from above still holds under the new setup though.

[Alberto]

[Alberto]

[Sean Conner]

Yes, pause during playback is set. I'll try including the stop playback and see how it goes. Just a note: I have no speak command items, as I have included the play command to fire an audio file instead.

On the .com* file creation issue in the Phlink Items folder mentioned above — I'm pretty sure that these files were created by Phink or as a result of Phlink. Unfortunately, I have deleted them, but I seem to remember them being named something like .com.apple.ScriptEditor.??? I had the default multiple mailbox enter script in my root Phlink Items directory and I figured this is what was doing it. I removed the enter script as a result. I could be wrong, but nothing else on my system could have created the files, as Phlink was the only application running — except of course ScriptEditor? Ideas?

I just looked at my new Phlink Items directory and these files are found in the Temporary Items/501/TemporaryItems/ folder. Could the misplacement of these temp files have created the problems I was experiencing?

[Alberto]

I never noticed these files being created (supposedly by Script Editor). I will check carefully.

[Sean Conner]

Adding stop playback to 1.script or 2.script does not stop Phlink from recording the subsequent greeting if the caller selects either 1 or 2 within 8 seconds of the initial greeting. Any other suggestions?

Also, the play message command preceeds the start recording command in 1.scpt or 2.scpt.

[Sean Conner]

Alberto,
Above I mentioned that Phlink, or some other application was generating invisible com.something??? files/folders in my Phlink Items Folder. I have tracked down at least one example. In my setup I have a folder with the enclosed random greeting.scpt — completely unmodified. It appears as though the greeting.scpt or Script Editor is generating folders with an exact copy of the greeting.scpt inside [/Library/Phlink\ Items/6/com.apple.XXX/greeting.scpt]. In my case I have 10 copies of an invisible foler (likely reflective of 10 calls/entries into the directory) of a com.apple.ScriptEditor2_3065_109368756_124 through com.apple.ScriptEditor2_3065_109368756_133. If I call and select the folder by pressing the appropriate choice (in this case #6), I will generate com.apple.ScriptEditor2_3065_109368756_134. When I call in to check this selection, Phlink often cuts off prematurely. Is Phlink or Script Editor supposed to generate these folders with a copy of the script. Last time, it was an enter.scpt that was likely producing these invisible folders. Could the presence of these folders cause the lockup of Phlink and a cutoff of the call? I could write a shell script to delete them at a certain interval and this may solve the problem, but I don't want to create other problems. Is the generation of these folders known to you guys? Any advice?

[Alberto]

What I can say for sure is that it surely isn't Phlink which is creating all those temporary files. I do not know whether it is AppleScript or some other process though.