element-hq
Audio drops and buttons freeze in the middle of the call when Camera turned off in windows settings
Steps to reproduce
In our organisations we start every working day with a online staff meeting (we all work remotely). We use Element Call, but have our camera's turned off.
We have had several people in the call who faced one or both of these issues:
- the middle of the call the audio of someone dropped (they were still in the call, but nobody could hear them anymore
- unmute button no longer works (i.e. people cannot unmute themselves)
When investigating I discovered that all the people affected by this had there camera turned off in their windows settings. It appears that if they turn on their camera in their windows settings and then restart the browser before the call, the problems do not occur (they would still turn of their camera's in the Element Call window).
This has been going for weeks. Every time a new person joins the staff call who has the camera turned off in their windows settings they have the problem. If they turn off the camera in their Window settings they no longer have the problem.
Outcome
What did you expect?
For the audio to stay on for the whole duration of the call and for the people to be able to unmute during the whole duration of the call.
What happened instead?
For some participants their audio drops (ie other participants can no longer hear them) Some participants can not unmute themselves.
Operating system
We are all using Windows 11 on our computers
Browser information
Initially we used Chrome browser for the call, now we use an Element Call link ((see below) as a widget in Element (Desktop); the problem occurred in both set ups
URL for webapp
https://call.element.io/staff_hdhw67ncos
Will you send logs?
No
Every time a new person joins the staff call who has the camera turned off in their windows settings they have the problem. If they turn off the camera in their Window settings they no longer have the problem.
I'm assuming the second 'off' in this sentence should be an 'on'?
So, to make sure I've understood correctly:
- Several people join a call with camera turned off in element call but otherwise enabled in settings etc.
- Another person joins with their camera disabled in windows settings, and at this point, everyone in the call experiences these symptoms?
Could you describe exactly how you're disabling the camera in Windows settings? Does the camera still appear in the dropdown list in element call?
Would it be possible to send debug logs from clients where the problem occurs? This sounds like a fairly specific setup, so this might be hard to look into without logs.
<< I'm assuming the second 'off' in this sentence should be an 'on'? >>
Yes, you are correct. My apologies. I meant to say when they turn off disabling the camera in Windows settings.
Also, my language is confusing re. the new person. I meant:
- we had this problem
- we got everyone to make sure their camera is not disabled in Windows; and the problem no longer occurs
- then a new person joins our staff and therefore starts participating in the staff calls; sometimes they face the problem I described. This happened several times; each time it turned out they had their camera disabled in Windows; when I asked them to turn on their camera in the windows settings before joining a call, they stopped having the problem.
<< So, to make sure I've understood correctly: >>
Several people are in a call. At some point in the call some people can no longer hear them (even though they are speaking, sometimes it happens mid sentence). Also sometimes when they are muted they can no longer unmute themselves.
This was happening with two staff members every day, until I found out the only thing in common was they had their camera disabled in Windows. I asked them to make sure their camera was not disabled in Windows before the call started. Then the problem did not occur anymore.
Then some time later we got a new staff member. They had the problem (people stopped being able to hear them in the middle of the call and they could not unmute themselves). I asked them if they had the camera disabled in Windows. They had. I told them to make sure their camera was not disabled during the call and they haven't had the problem since.
This morning a new staff member joined the call for the first time. He had the same problem and he confirmed after the call that he has his camera disabled in Windows. I told him to turn the camera on (in Windows) for the next call and I am fairly confident he will not have the problem again.
<< Could you describe exactly how you're disabling the camera in Windows settings? >>
I will need to check (I never had my camera turned off in Windows).
<< Would it be possible to send debug logs from clients where the problem occurs? This sounds like a fairly specific setup, so this might be hard to look into without logs. >>
I would not know how to do this. Can you give my instructions?
Thanks.
On 20 Jul 2022, 16:29, at 16:29, David Baker @.***> wrote:
Every time a new person joins the staff call who has the camera turned off in their windows settings they have the problem. If they turn off the camera in their Window settings they no longer have the problem.
I'm assuming the second 'off' in this sentence should be an 'on'?
So, to make sure I've understood correctly:
- Several people join a call with camera turned off in element call but otherwise enabled in settings etc.
- Another person joins with their camera disabled in windows settings, and at this point, everyone in the call experiences these symptoms?
Could you describe exactly how you're disabling the camera in Windows settings? Does the camera still appear in the dropdown list in element call?
Would it be possible to send debug logs from clients where the problem occurs? This sounds like a fairly specific setup, so this might be hard to look into without logs.
-- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/vector-im/element-call/issues/478#issuecomment-1190431781 You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
Message ID: @.***>
I would not know how to do this. Can you give my instructions?
In a call, just click the '...' button and choose 'submit feedback' (and make sure the 'include debug logs' option is checked).
Doesn't look like we've received debug logs for this - is this still a problem, or has anyone else experienced it?
No debug logs, but it seems likely this is still a problem, albeit in quite a specific scenario. We could try to reproduce this if we can find Windows machines on which to do so, but that would be our only way forward on this.