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Question about SmarterMail Online Meetings
Question asked by Curtis Kropar www.HawaiianHope.org - 2/12/2025 at 3:37 PM
Answered
Question
Today is the first time I tried to use the online meeting in smartermail.
One of our clients on their domain created a meeting and invited one of their staff (their same domain) and invited me (different domain) to the meeting.  Both of them could see and talk to each other.  I could not see or hear them, they could not see or hear me.
In the bottom right corner there was a flashing red symbol (and i could not make out what the TINY thing was.)
Does the online meeting participants need to be within in the same domain ?  Can meetings happen cross domain ?  can anyone from the outside join an online meeting ?

www.HawaiianHope.org - Providing technology services to non profit organizations, low income families, homeless shelters, clean and sober houses and prisoner reentry programs. Since 2015, We have refurbished over 11,000 Computers !
Matt Petty Replied
2/12/2025 at 4:32 PM
Employee Post
If you're using a browser with heavy privacy settings turned on it could cause issues. The meetings use the WebRTC (p2p) technology. Security software and network level devices can prevent this stuff from working sometimes. Trying a different browser, or trying with your phone (both on and off wifi) could net you different results.
To have more reliable connections with WebRTC you'll want to provide it with TURN servers (configured in the domain settings) and this will force the p2p tech in WebRTC to fallback to the TURN server if it can't find a valid network path to a meeting recipient. 

EDIT (with more info)
This could either be because your network environment is preventing the connection to them, or their network environment is only allowing local connections (if the people your talking to are near eachother)
Matt Petty
Senior Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.
Tony Scholz Replied
2/12/2025 at 4:36 PM
Employee Post Marked As Answer
Hello, 

Most likely the symbol in the bottom right was a network symbol showing a bad/slow connection. Online meetings support cross-users and domains, They do not need to be related to SmarterMail at all to be able to join. 

Online Meetings is a peer-to-peer connection using WebRTC. 


Online meetings include real-time audio and video chat, inline group chat, and document sharing. NOTE: While any number of participants can be invited to an online meeting, audio and video chat is handled via a peer-to-peer system, so it's limited to up to 9 concurrent users. However, an unlimited number of people can use the group text chat during a meeting. NOTE: If the domain administrator has set up an external STUN/TURN server, the max number of participants increases to 16.

A SmarterMail online meeting is a great way to gather people together. There's no software to download, no services to sign up for and meetings are both desktop and mobile friendly! (As long as your mobile browser supports WebRTC.)

In addition, online meetings can be set up and scheduled from within SmarterMail's powerful calendaring system. When creating a meeting invitation -- whether it's a one-time meeting or a recurring appointment -- a new online meeting can ALSO be created and the link is included with the invitation when it's sent out.

NOTE: In order to use online meetings your SmarterMail installation MUST be secured with an SSL certificate. This is because the audio, video and live chat connections require HTTPs connections in order to work properly and securely.
Tony Scholz
Lead Network/System Administrator
SmarterTools Inc.
In most corporate networks P2P are blocked and will most likely block the offending IP.

How to circumvent that?
Kyle Kerst Replied
2/13/2025 at 7:55 AM
Employee Post
@Brian: P2P here means the video/audio connectivity is from user to user with the server simply serving as a hub in the mix. The fix for connectivity issues in this setup is configuring a TURN or STUN server in the SmarterMail domain's settings so that a coordinator is available to the end user machines.
Kyle Kerst
Lead Internal Network/System Administrator
SmarterTools Inc.
Thanks guys.  Here is more info.  I have to do some testing too.
All 3 participants were at different locations
1) Host that set the meeting is here in Hawaii
2) 2nd participant (1 and 2 could see each other) is located in New York.
3) Me Also here in Hawaii, but actually sitting in the same building and on the same (internal) network as the server.  
Me - Using AdBlockPlus on all browsers.

I plan to test this with only external connections.  I am wondering if me inside the network is part of the problem somehow. Or the firewall settings (pfSense), like before when we could not get any of our domain emails to use lets encrypt because the domain could not "resolve" until i set up a DNS resolver.

www.HawaiianHope.org - Providing technology services to non profit organizations, low income families, homeless shelters, clean and sober houses and prisoner reentry programs. Since 2015, We have refurbished over 11,000 Computers !
OK, I just did 2 more tests. I set up a meeting and did 3 additional invites for our own domain.  

In all tests, any machine at any location can join the meetings. We just can not see video, even of a shared desktop.

1st test )
- I am logged in on my machine and logged into one account on another machine here inside our building. Both My computer and the other machine are able to see each other (video) on the same network as the server.
- Then did remote desktop to 2 different off site machines, 2 different locations. 
Same : I could NOT see those machines video, they could not see my machine.

In fact they could not see each other video either.

So then did test 2)
- restarted the meeting and hosted it from one of the offsite RD machines.
- went to the 2nd offsite RD machine and joined the meeting.  Neither machine can see each other.

Observation : In THESE 2 tests, all 4 sites are using pfSense as the firewall.  In the original client meeting that i posted about, I was the only one with pfSense, the others do not have it.
This leads me to believe it is a pfSense issue. Internal to the network works, crossing the firewall the video does not.

Is there a special port that needs to be open for the video to flow ?  by default, pfSense blocks everything and you have to open ports that you want.

www.HawaiianHope.org - Providing technology services to non profit organizations, low income families, homeless shelters, clean and sober houses and prisoner reentry programs. Since 2015, We have refurbished over 11,000 Computers !
Ok, Back to this again.
I just tried another meeting this AM.  

1) Everyone outside of our building could see each other and talk to each other.  I could NOT see /hear them at all, they could not see /hear me.

2) I then disabled my network port on my computer and tethered my cell phone for the internet connection.  Now connecting from outside, I COULD see and talk with them.

This appears to, at least partially, be a firewall issue.

What ports does the online meeting need to have open ? Or what ports does it use ? psFense automatically randomizes outbound ports so I might need to set up a static something

www.HawaiianHope.org - Providing technology services to non profit organizations, low income families, homeless shelters, clean and sober houses and prisoner reentry programs. Since 2015, We have refurbished over 11,000 Computers !
Tony Scholz Replied
7/24/2025 at 12:41 PM
Employee Post
Hello, 

Online Meetings will be over port 443, this will be a peer-to-peer connection using webrtc. A good tool to see what is going on (if using Chrome) is this page, chrome://webrtc-internals

Using a STUN/TURN server can help to mitigate any issues. Firewall routing tends to be the most common issue with video and audio. 

Thank you
~Tony
Tony Scholz
Lead Network/System Administrator
SmarterTools Inc.
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