Guests who were able to be seen and heard at first but started to present audio or video issues may be experiencing these issues due to unstable network connection and limited computer processing (CPU) and graphics processing (GPU) conditions, which prevent them from having a smooth Green Room experience.

This article lists the issues a guest may experience and steps to diagnose and troubleshoot this issue.

Symptoms

• Audio is desynchronized, cut off, chopped, or robotic

• Video is frozen, pixelated, lagged, or blacked-out

• Screen share is flashing

• Health indicator shows poor health

Diagnosis

Ask the following questions to determine what might be the root cause of the issue:

1. Is the issue isolated to a single guest or to multiple guests?

2. What are the guest’s network and device environment?

   • Are they at the office, at home, at a hotel, or at a remote location?

   • Are they using a corporate or personal device?

   • Are they using VPNs or Proxies?

   • Are they connected via Wi-Fi or Ethernet?

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting the Device

Perform the following troubleshooting steps in the order below to determine if the issue is related to the guest’s device:

1. Close all other apps (especially video conferencing tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx, etc.) and processes running in the background, including browser tabs that are not being used.

2. Adjust the webcam to a lower setting. The camera may be set to HD settings so the encoder will use a lot of CPU power to convert that video to lower quality for streaming.

3. Remove or avoid using webcam effects such as face filters, webcam filters, green-screen effects, etc.

4. Check if your device has enabled any hardware acceleration settings. Make sure this setting is enabled since streaming is a hardware-intensive process and the key is to maximize the CPU (processing) and GPU (graphics) settings.

5. Restart the computer and re-enter the Green Room.

6. Switch to a mobile device with the Socialive app.

7. If available, switch to another computer.

Troubleshooting the Network

Perform the following steps to determine if the issue is related to the guest’s internet connection:

1. Improve the connection to the internet. The minimum upload speed is 10 megabytes per second (Mbps).

   1. If at the office or where possible, connect the computer to Ethernet.

   2. If at home:

      1. Move closer to the Wi-Fi router.

      2. Make sure that other high-bandwidth usage activities (e.g., streaming) on the network are shut down.

      3. If possible, connect the computer to Ethernet.

2. Disable VPNs and remove proxy settings

3. If on mobile and using Wi-Fi, switch to 4G/5G.

Troubleshooting the Browser

Perform the following steps to determine if the issue is related to the guest’s browser:

1. Check if the guest is using the latest version of their browser:

   1. Google Chrome

   2. Microsoft Edge

2. If using Google Chrome (and vice versa with Microsoft Edge):

   1. Try using Incognito mode (instructions for Microsoft Edge)

   2. Switch to Microsoft Edge

3. Check if Google Chrome’s Hardware Acceleration setting is enabled. Try turning it off or on to see if the situation improves.

   1. In Google Chrome, enter the following URL command chrome://settings/system into the address bar to access the hardware acceleration setting.

Troubleshooting the Microphone/Camera

If using an external microphone or camera, switch to the internal microphone and camera of the device (if available). The use of external microphones, cameras, or virtual devices takes a lot of processing power. Hence, stopping the use of these devices might help minimize the issues.

Advanced Troubleshooting Steps

If none of the above resolve the issue, Investigate further by finding out the following information:

• Is the guest’s connection behind a corporate firewall?

• Is the guest’s browser managed by an IT team?

Need Further Support?

If the issue persists, submit a support ticket with the following information so the Socialive Support team can investigate further:

• Details about the issues experienced by the user

• Troubleshooting steps performed to try to resolve the issue

• Details of the affected user(s) devices (specifications of the computer)

The more details you provide, the easier it is for our team to assist you. Contact Socialive Support via live chat, email at support@socialive.us, or submit a support ticket.