Troubleshooting Tips for Online Meetings

Online Meetings is SmarterMail's audio and video conferencing service. It was built using web real-time communications, or WebRTC, an open-source specification that allows voice and video communication using a web browser. 

In most cases, starting up and using Online Meetings for audio and video conferencing is trouble-free. However, there may be occasional issues initially starting up an Online Meeting. These issues can include video not working for some participants, a participant's ability to see themselves but not others, their ability to hear participants but not see them, etc. Below are a few troubleshooting steps that may help resolve these issues, for yourself and other participants. 

• Make sure your SmarterMail installation is secured with SSL/TLS. Certain parts of the WebRTC framework require a secure connection, so NOT having your installation secured with an SSL certificate can cause issues.
• Make sure the browsers in use support WebRTC. Not all browsers support WebRTC, and older versions of supported browsers may have issues as well. The WebRTC site offers a test page that can check browser, webcam and microphone support. Some browsers, especially those built for "privacy" of data transmission such as Brave and Opera, may have additional settings specifically for how WebRTC communication occurs. Your best bet, if having issues, is to consult the browser's help files to see if there are any additional settings that need to be configured in order to allow uninterrupted WebRTC transmission.
• Make sure a firewall isn't blocking the connection. WebRTC uses peer-to-peer connections for offering up the audio and video portion of the meeting. Therefore, it's possible a user's firewall may be blocking these connections.  In addition, some operating systems (such as MacOS Sequoia) have additional Privacy and Security settings for local networks that can limit connectivity.
• Try disabling local antivirus/security/malware. Some users may have security software installed on their machines that can interfere with WebRTC connections. Disabling these temporarily will allow the connections, and then permanent changes can be added later.
• Set up a custom STUN/TURN server. If all else fails, it may be necessary to set up a dedicated STUN/TURN server for use with Online Meetings. SmarterMail uses a default STUN service to assist with the transfer of data from user-to-user. However, some implementations -- especially in larger organizations -- may restrict this. SmarterMail allows for the use of external or alternate STUN/TURN services to be used. For more information on setting up a custom STUN/TURN server, see the General Domain Settings page of the SmarterMail help documentation.

Please understand that, with most installations, Online Meetings will work just fine. In other cases, browser support may be the main issue to deal with, especially when people who are new to web conferencing are involved. Using the browser test provided by the WebRTC team is a great first step to ensuring your use of Online Meetings will be trouble-free. From there, implementing SSL -- which is highly recommended anyway -- is also a good step. If the items above don't resolve the issues seen, please feel free to contact our Team. We're happy to help.