Troubleshooting Tips

Echo is introduced by one or more of the parties on the conference call. Echo is supposed to be filtered out by the caller's phone or by echo cancelers in the phone network. Echo occurs because the caller's microphone is picking up the audio from the speaker, and re-transmitting it back into the conference call. Because of the normal latency in conference calls (generally between a half-second and one-second), the echo is very noticeable. Often this comes from speakerphones with poor echo cancellation or cell phones because of their shape. The first challenge is to identify the source of the echo. You can ask participants to mute their lines by pressing *6, and to un-mute by pressing *6 again when they need to speak. Or, if you are dialed in as a Host, you can press *43 on your keypad to mute all the participants (they will be told they can un-mute by pressing *6). Once you identify the source of the echo, you can ask that caller to remove speakerphone mode (if applicable), or ask him to hang up and dial back in. (Sometimes the problem is a bad echo canceler in the phone network, and redialing may get around that problem.) If the problem persists, you can press *99 on your keypad to activate our diagnostic recording feature. This allows us to individually record the incoming audio from each participant, which allows our engineers to identify the source of the echo. If you do use the *99 command, please send an email to customer support to alert our engineers to investigate and follow up with you. Pressing *99 will not fix the call in progress, but could identify the echo source in advance of future calls.

Echo is not created by the conferencing system, and it is very difficult to remove echo in the audio mixer. Trying to do so could introduce other problems, and would increase latency. (Latency is the delay between when you speak and when others hear you.) The best remedy is to remove the echo at its source.

Most commonly, noise and static is coming from one or more of the phone lines that is connected into the conference. Our audio mixer filters out low-volume line noise, but a caller may simply have a “bad connection”. The more callers dialed into the conference, the greater the likelihood of caller-introduced background noise or line static. If you expect more than a dozen participants, you should consider putting the conference into Presentation Mode or Question & Answer Mode, which automatically mutes all non-Hosts when they arrive.

If you encounter noise or static during a conference, ask all callers to press *6 on their keypads to mute their lines. If the noise disappears, then you know it was coming from one of the now-muted lines. (A caller can press *6 again to un-mute their line. If the noise recurs, then you've discovered its source. Ask that caller to hang up and dial back in, preferably using a different phone.) If the noise persists, contact customer support, since there might be a connection issue between the phone network and the conferencing servers. If all the callers sound “garbled” or “metallic”, or if all the callers appear to be “breaking up”, that suggests potential packet loss in the connection between the phone network and the conferencing server.

In rare cases (about once in every 50,000 calls, though some office phone system are more susceptible to this problem), two phone lines from the same office get looped into your conference bridge. This can occur when a caller already connected into your conference presses the flash hook on an office phone to hang up from the conference, then dials back into your conference bridge. Instead of completely disconnecting the initial call, that connection is “parked” by the office phone switch pending a call transfer. When that caller subsequently hangs up at the conclusion of the conference, the office phone switch completes the call transfer, essentially forwarding the first line back into your conference bridge, creating a loop between the conference server and the office phone switch. To our system, this appears as two callers with identical Caller IDs being “active” in the conference call, even though there is no live person involved. (Eventually the conference call will time-out when the 24-hour conference limit is reached.) In this scenario, the office phone system will generate noise or tones into your conference line, making it unusable.

To verify this condition, use the Host Control Panel to see the status of your conference line. If you see two parties with identical Caller ID numbers who have been connected for long durations, most likely you have encountered this “stuck call” situation. You can click on the End Conference icon to disconnect the stuck lines and clear your conference bridge for the next call. If you do not have access to the Host Control Panel, you can dial into your conference bridge as a Host, then press *91 to terminate the stuck conference.

This can occur when one of the participants in the call places his line on hold to accept another call. The caller's phone system starts playing hold music into the conference call. If you have access to the Host Control Panel, you may be able to identify the source of the hold music based on the icon status in the Activity column in the Host Control Panel and then mute that caller's line. Alternatively, you can use a Host Keypad Command, pressing *43 to mute all the lines (silencing the hold music), then instruct callers to press *6 to un-mute their lines.

A caller can incrementally increase his speaking volume by repeatedly pressing *86, or decrease his volume by pressing *87. Since you can't tell the volume that others are hearing you, the other participants will have to advise you on whether you should continue pressing *86 or *87 to achieve the appropriate volume. Alternatively, you can use the Host Control Panel to adjust any caller's volume. Click on the Caller ID displayed in the Host Control Panel, where you will see option to increase or decrease that caller's volume.

On a live conference call, the Host can press *78 to turn off entry and exit chimes. If you want to make this change before a conference starts, log in to the Host Control Panel, and click the Settings tab. Choose None for Entry Notice and Exit Notice. Remember to click the Save button at the bottom of the screen. If the conference is already in progress, you can toggle the Entry and Exit alerts on and off using the selection boxes at the top of the Live Conference tab in the Host Control Panel.

Yes. When you click on the trash can icon to delete a recording, you are actually only deleting the link to the recording, not the recording itself. Please contact customer support to have the link restored. Make sure you provide the Conference ID along with the date and time of your conference call.

Cases of deliberate unauthorized use of conference bridges is extremely rare. If your conference bridge is configured for codeless entry using a customized dial-in number, somebody may have simply dialed your number by mistake. If you are using a common number sequence as your Conference ID, then you are more prone to unintentional use. It's also possible that somebody with a similar Conference ID distributed your code by mistake. There are also cases where callers simply mis-entered their Conference ID (skipping, duplicating, or transposing digits) and end up connecting into the wrong conference bridge by mistake. In most cases, these will be short-duration, one-party conference calls, once the caller recognizes the error.

You can use the Caller List tab in the Host Control Panel to block a caller based on the Caller ID phone number. Navigate to that tab and click on the Add button, then enter the caller's phone number and check the Block checkbox.

If other participants report that they can't hear you, or if your line is too loud, press *86 to increase the volume of your speaking voice or *87 to decrease your speaking volume. (This affects the volume of your voice that other people will hear in the conference). You can repeat the action for further incremental adjustments until you achieve the desired volume. If you are logged into the Host Control Panel, you can click on the Caller ID of any participant and choose "Increase Volume" or "Decrease Volume" to adjust that caller's volume.

Press *88 to increase the volume you hear or *89 to decrease the volume. (This will not affect other parties in the conference.) You can repeat the action for further incremental adjustments until you achieve the desired volume.

Each Caller ID phone number has an associated Caller Name, which we purchase from a third party. In many cases Caller Name information is not available, particularly with mobile phones. You may update the Caller Name by clicking on the underlined name displayed in Host Control Panel, which is stored in the Caller List associated with your conference bridge. (This does not affect how the name is displayed for other conference bridges. Each conference bridge has its own independent Caller List.) If there is no conference in progress, you may also add or edit names by selecting the Caller List tab in the Host Control Panel. Note that in some instances, different callers share the same Caller ID number. (For example, parties calling from the same office building share the same Caller ID listing the business name, and there is no individual Caller ID associated with a particular employee. Also, callers who use Internet-enabled phone services like Skype or Google Voice all share the same Caller ID number.) Editing the Caller Name associated with a shared Caller ID number can lead to inaccurate caller identification on future conference calls.