I have been using meet.jit.si to meet with a group of friends and with a client for more than one year. I have this high-pitched beep issue with Google Chromium on Linux, but it goes away when I use Brave browser. The people I connect to use Google Chrome on Windows, Samsung mobile browser or Google Chrome on Android devices, and one uses the JitSi Android app.
Two weeks ago or so, all people on different groups that I meet with started having the same problem, making meetings with Jitsi impossible. The synchronicity of it happening to two different groups in different countries using different operating systems and web browsers and on using the native app makes me suspect that something changed in the platform instead of on Chrome, for example â although it may be.
Does anyone have any clue as to why this is happening and how to solve it please? Iâd like to keep using Jitsi, but it is impossible with this error.
Hi Saghul, thank you for your reply. I apologize if I was not entirely clear describing the problem, because I figured that anyone who experienced it would recognize it immediately by the title alone.
The symptom now is that people other than me hear the loud repeated beeping noise in their speakers/headsets, much louder than any speech I might be doing. The only reason I donât hear the noise is because I am not using Chrome anymore. As I made clear, though, it happens on different machines, different operating systems, different browsers and even on the Jitsi native Android app. Brave browser on Linux seems to be the exception.
I could really use some contact with the developers, as I am willing to help them debug this issue. I bet me and my friends and clients are not the only ones experiencing it in the world. And I bet many people are leaving Jitsi thinking that it simply does not work.
At my job weâve got a large number of hosted Jitsi customers using a variety of Jitsi versions and the described bug, if widespread, would have resulted in a flood of support tickets â yet weâve never had one. That leaves the possibility that meet.jit.si alone is affected, and not Jitsi Meet in general, but youâd still expect that if it was a general issue there would be at least one other report of the issue here on the forums or on GitHub.
So I suspect that there is some specific common factor between the meetings where youâve experienced this, with that common factor being the cause of the issue.
You say youâve tried different machines â what about the other participants? Was at least one of them common between the different meetings where you experienced this? If you participate in two meetings with completely disjoint sets of participants (ideally each participant using different hardware as well), do you experience it in both? What if you replicate the same meeting (same set of participants) in another WebRTC-based meeting software, such as Google Meet?
We havenât heard of anything like this, which doesnât mean it doesnât happen, but itâs a strong indication that itâs not widespread, thankfully. Generally speaking those kind of noises tend to be caused by one participant injecting them into the meeting, hence my questions above.
I experienced similar issue before but the cause is not related with jitsi. The internal microphone of some notebooks causes annoying background sounds, especially when the CPU load is high. The participant would not have any idea on this issue since they donât hear their own voice.
Hi @jbg, thank you for helping me. Your assessment makes sense in that I may be the only common factor in all these experiences, except the one back then in which I myself heard the noise, which went away when I switched browsers from Chromium to Brave. This worked well for over a year until last week, when others started to hear the noise when speaking to me.
Let me go over and answer each question you posed:
You say youâve tried different machines â what about the other participants?
Each other participant only tried the same machine that had been working for over a year. While it is a normal mindset for me to change setups in search or a root cause, it is not easy for âunsophisticatedâ users to understand and have the patience to troubleshoot like a developer does, much less if they are my clients wanting to have a business meeting with me.
Was at least one of them common between the different meetings where you experienced this?
No, different groups. I was the only common person in them.
If you participate in two meetings with completely disjoint sets of participants (ideally each participant using different hardware as well), do you experience it in both?
Yes, exactly this. Two completely separate sets of participants, each one with its particular hardware, all different from each other.
What if you replicate the same meeting (same set of participants) in another WebRTC-based meeting software, such as Google Meet?
I was caught by surprise, so we improvised and just switched to an ordinary phone call with the client and to a WhatsApp mobile app group call with the group of friends. In both cases we used only our cell phones and could not share screens, which was important in the first group. In both cases we were able to carry on the meetings without any other issues once we left Jitsi.
I will address troubleshooting with the group of friends and see if they would do it with me. We considered using Zoom, but Zooms cuts the meetings short at 40 minutes in their free layer, which is annoying. I will post any findings here.
Hi @saghul, thank you for helping me too. Let me go over and give you answers to each question you posed earlier. Please read my detailed comment to jbg above, as I will try to not repeat what I just wrote above, lest it makes it boring and unreadable.
I am happy to know that it is a localized particular problem that only I am facing and not a widespread issue with the platform. I will take steps to troubleshoot it thoroughly to bring you as many details and scenarios I can think of.
Is the noise caused by a participant? Check when they are all muted.
The noise may be caused by a participant. I will try to schedule a troubleshooting session with the group of friends and will include this test in my list. I will post any findings here.
Is it you the only one that can hear it?
I only heard this on my speakers over a year ago when I used Chromium. It went away when I switched to Brave, so I assumed it was something about Chromiumâs specific codecs or whatever in it that was causing it. Using Brave solved it, so I forgot about the issue until now.
The difference now is that the others are the ones hearing it in their speakers, instead of me.
Does the same thing happen in a different browser on the same machine?
The problem happened with me when I used Chromium browser and went away when I switch to Brave browser, on the same Linux notebook. I will make a varied set of test scenarios and take notes as memory becomes blurry after a while. I will post any findings here.
I was able to do some troubleshooting today and here is what I have found:
The problem is on my computer. I run Linux Lite
If I use Chromium or Brave browsers whoever is meeting with me hears loud beeps instead of my voice
If I use Firefox browser they donât hear beeps, but they donât hear my voice either
I had to start using Google Meet, despite their 1h limitation on the free tier. Google Meet works with Firefox. On Chrome or Brave they heard the same beeps with Meet as they heard with Jitsi.
@saghul, is there some information I can log here and give to you to help us pinpoint the cause, which would help you fix the problem? Maybe some Linux drivers, codecs that need to be updated⌠How can I help you solve that? Would you like to schedule a call with me during US EST business hours or in the evening?
I did some troubleshooting today and tested with two microphones, the one built into the notebook and with a headset, and my friends heard the loud beep-beep on both. Thank you.
This seems like device or device driver issue, it is something either in the OS or how the browser interacts with the OS. You can open a ticket and report it to chromium issue tracker. There is nothing we can do about it.
This shows that itâs not something Jitsi Meet can fix; itâs a problem with your OS configuration (audio config, codecs, etc), which is interacting badly with Chromium in some way (both Chrome and Brave are based on Chromium).
The solution was so simple I feel almost ashamed to talk about it, but I will document it here in case anyone else comes with the same problem.
Because I had been using Jitsi for over a year without an issue, it did not occur to me to try the audio settings again.
Even though the message on the Join Meeting page says âYour microphone is working properlyâ, it was not. Liar.
I clicked on audio settings and the selected option was Same as System (default). Then I chose the named option, which is Built-in Audio Analog Stereo, and BAM!, problem fixed.
I did the same on Chromium, Brave and Firefox. Firefox is the only one that did not work. The other side does not hear me on Firefox no matter what, but at this point I donât care.
Thank you to all who jumped in to try and help me. Jitsi is a very good product, I wish the company and the team the best of luck. Live long and prosper, Jitsi.
