MusicOnHold Configuration

Asterisk 1.2

In Asterisk 1.2.x and above you no longer need to use the mpg123 player to play mp3 files, you can use the asterisk addon "format_mp3". mpg123 or something similar is still required for mp3 streams.

Achtung!: In 1.2.17 (mb other versions too) usage of older mpg123 version (pre-October 2007) with some mp3 formats (probably with new ID3 tags) causes Asterisk to close itself while reloading MOH without any error messages. On restart it closes itself again (because on restart it reloads MOH too).

Note (rchadwel): Format_MP3, Asterisk's mpg123 replacement, will play the MOH file from the beginning each time a caller is put on hold or each time the musiconhold command is invoked from extension.conf. If you have one file (mp3, ul, wav, raw, etc) as your source, they will hear the first part of it over and over again - driving them insane.

In order to use Asterisk's built in MOH playback support with the default MOH mp3 files (fpm-calm-river.mp3, fpm-sunshine.mp3, fpm-world-mix.mp3) you must have installed the asterisk-addons package! It contains a utility called format_mp3 which is required for mp3 playback.
Note: in Asterisk 1.4 the default file format is changed to wav which does not require format_mp3

File format

The format for this file has changed in Asterisk 1.2.
The format up to Asterisk 1.0 was with one line per class under the [classes] section

[classes]
classname => mode:directory,application

The new format in Asterisk 1. ...