Silence Timeout on Call Transfer
# support
h
AI asked caller to hold for a moment while they transfer the call however the call ended due to Silence Timeout instead transferring. Can we please understand what happened and what adjustments need to be made to avoid this. CALL ID: 019baf71-7d8a-7333-ad99-d9589c613fc0 TIMESTAMP: 9:44:14 AM (+00:45.05)
c
Hi Liv, Thanks — I checked the docs and related tickets for this call (ID 019baf71-7d8a-7333-ad99-d9589c613fc0). Likely cause • The transfer assistant put the caller on hold and initiated the operator call, but silence-timeout ended the call before the transfer completed. The docs show transfer assistants use two timeouts: the transfer assistant’s maxDurationSeconds and a silence timeout (silenceTimeoutSeconds, default 30s). See Assistant-based warm transfer https://docs.vapi.ai/calls/assistant-based-warm-transfer and the Aug 28 changelog note: you can configure silenceTimeoutSeconds (default 30s) at the transferAssistant level: https://docs.vapi.ai/changelog/2025/8/28 What to check in your call logs • endedReason for the call (dashboard call log or GET /call/{call_id}). If it’s "silence-timed-out" or similar, Vapi ended due to silence. • The transfer assistant’s transferPlan: confirm transferAssistant.maxDurationSeconds and transferAssistant.silenceTimeoutSeconds values. • Whether operator answered or voicemail detected (transfer assistant prompts can detect voicemail and call transferCancel). • Any low-confidence transcript events in logs (related threads show that low-confidence transcripts can be treated as silence).
Recommended actions 1. Increase transferAssistant.silenceTimeoutSeconds to allow longer silence while connecting (valid range 10–3600). Example: set to 60. 2. Ensure transferAssistant.maxDurationSeconds is long enough for operator interaction (recommended 60–120s). 3. Improve transfer assistant prompts to detect voicemail/human and only call transferSuccessful when operator confirms. See prompts examples: https://docs.vapi.ai/calls/assistant-based-warm-transfer 4. If you see low-confidence transcript drops, lower the transcriber confidence threshold (related threads suggest lowering from 0.40 → 0.35) so brief/low-confidence speech isn’t treated as silence. 5. If transfers target phone numbers from web calls, note web→phone transfers are unsupported and will drop (see debug-forwarding-drops doc)