Common problems with GoToMeeting and how to solve them

GoToMeeting is a great option for hosting meetings remotely, but like any other videoconferencing app, it still has issues that need troubleshooting. For this guide, we found five common problems GoToMeeting users may encounter and the solutions to each of them. From audio issues to connectivity problems, let’s look at these difficulties and the best ways to solve them.

Annoying sound effects when people enter or leave meetings

With GoToMeeting, there are two kinds of people: Organizers and participants. Organizers are usually the hosts of the meetings and set up the meeting in the first place. Participants are just the meeting attendees — they just get invited to a meeting and show up. If you’re an organizer, you’re probably familiar with the various sound effects that occur while you’re waiting for your attendees to show up (on-hold beeps) or the sounds that occur when your attendee joins or leaves your meeting (entry/exit chimes). As an organizer, if you’re tired of hearing those beeps and chimes, you can actually turn them off.

Here’s how to do it in the desktop app:

• When you’re in a meeting, click on the Settings gear icon on the right side of the screen.
• At the bottom of the Settings menu that appears, click on the word More.
• A smaller menu will open, with two toggle on/off buttons next to the following options: On-Hold Beeps and Entry/Exit Chimes.
• If you want to turn both options off, tap on their corresponding toggle buttons until they say Off instead of On.

Can’t hear other attendees speaking

The GoToMeeting help webpage actually goes into quite a few scenarios that could explain why you can’t hear the other attendees speaking during the meeting. Two of these scenarios stood out the most to us — the wrong audio output device is selected, or the wrong audio mode is selected. It’s possible to have more than one audio output option (like external speakers and built-in speakers), so the wrong audio output may have been selected on your computer. You can check if the wrong audio output is selected by going into your computer’s audio settings and seeing if the right speakers are selected. If not, select the correct output, and save your settings.

The “wrong audio mode” scenario is an issue with the GoToMeeting app. In this scenario, you’re unable to hear anything because your GoToMeeting audio settings for that meeting are set to the wrong audio mode. If you want to use your computer’s setup (microphone and speakers), your audio mode needs to be set to Computer Mode. If you’re using a phone, you need to select Phone Mode. Using the wrong mode can cause you to not hear the meeting. To check and adjust your mode in the desktop app:

• In the meeting screen, click on the Settings gear icon.
• If you want to be in Computer Mode, click on the Computer tab, then click on the Turn On Computer Audio button.
• If you want to be in Phone Mode, make sure the computer audio is turned off in the Computer tab, and then click on the Phone tab.
• Then, dial the phone number provided in the Phone tab on your phone, and follow the prompts that ask you for the provided access code and audio PIN, which you will also find in the Phone tab.

You can also check your computer’s audio setup by testing your speakers and microphone via the GoToMeeting desktop app’s audio tests, located in the app’s Preferences menu. In the top-left corner of your meeting screen, tap the GoToMeeting drop-down menu and select Preferences > Audio. Then, follow the on-screen prompts to test your speakers and microphone.

Having trouble connecting to GoToMeeting

According to GoToMeeting, there are three main reasons why you’re having trouble connecting to your meeting: No internet connection, a firewall is preventing you from connecting, or GoToMeeting is having an outage.

• If it’s your internet connection, you’ll want to reset your connection and then try to connect to your meeting again.
• If you think it’s your computer’s or your anti-virus software’s firewall that’s blocking the connection, GoToMeeting actually has pretty detailed instructions on how to handle that. Basically, the gist is this: You need to configure your firewall’s settings to allow GoToMeeting to connect you to your meetings.
• If GoToMeeting is having an outage, you will have to wait for GoToMeeting to resolve that. You can check if GoToMeeting is having an outage by checking its status on sites like Is It Down Right Now.

The other attendees can’t hear me

If the other people at your meeting can’t hear you, here are some of the issues that could be going on: Your microphone might be muted, you’re set to the wrong audio mode, or you’re using the web app version of GoToMeeting on a browser other than Chrome. If your microphone’s muted, you can unmute yourself in the desktop app:

• Hover your mouse over the bottom part of your meeting screen.
• A series of icons (including a microphone icon) will pop up.
• If you’re muted, the microphone icon will be red.
• Tap on the red Microphone icon to unmute yourself — the microphone icon should turn green.

Just like having the wrong audio mode set can affect your ability to hear your co-workers during the meeting, it also affects your ability to be heard by them. This is how to adjust your audio mode in the desktop app:

• In the meeting screen, click on the Settings gear icon.
• For Computer Mode, click on the Computer tab, and click on the Turn On Computer Audio button.
• For Phone Mode, make sure the computer audio is turned off in the Computer tab, and then click on the Phone tab.
• Dial the phone number provided in the Phone tab on your phone, and follow the voice prompts that ask you for the provided access code and Audio PIN found in the Phone tab.

The last scenario is that you’re using GoToMeeting’s web app version, but you’re accessing it via the wrong browser. If you’re trying to use Computer Mode on the web app, you have to do so via Google Chrome. Otherwise, it won’t work, and your co-workers won’t be able to hear you. The only exception is for those who use Linux. Linux users can access Computer Mode through the web app by using Firefox. This one is still an easy fix: Open the web app via Google Chrome and connect to your meeting that way.

MacOS Catalina: Can’t access the microphone, camera, or screen sharing

If you’re using the web app of GoToMeeting on MacOS Catalina, you may have encountered an issue in which you’re unable to access your microphone, share your camera, or use screen sharing while you’re in a meeting. According to GoToMeeting, here’s how to fix that: You need to grant Google Chrome the permissions to access your microphone, camera, and screen sharing (recording).

Here’s how you do it:

• Open your Mac’s Security And Privacy settings screen.
• Select the Privacy tab.
• Configure your settings to allow Chrome to have access to your microphone, camera, and screen recording.
• Restart Google Chrome, and then try connecting to your meeting on Chrome via the web app.

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