Even though Zoom has its fair share of issues, it is surprisingly still widely used by a lot of users worldwide.
Of course, it managed to grab the attention of users before any other video calling solution could. So, it’s used by both professionals and casual users.
No matter how good it is in terms of usability, there are some common problems or questions that you might come across, such as — “Why can’t I see myself on Zoom?”. Hence, before scratching your head to troubleshoot the issue, we thought of listing out some of the common fixes to resolve issues during a Zoom call.
1. Make sure to allow access to camera and microphone
No matter whether you’re trying to access Zoom on the web, on your phone, or on your browser. You will always notice that it asks for some permissions to access your microphone and camera.
On a smartphone, if you deny access to any of these permissions, the Zoom cloud meeting app won’t work.
When using the desktop app or the browser, when launching Zoom — make sure to allow those permissions to let it function as intended.
In addition to the permission on Zoom app, if you have a system-wide privacy option on Mac or the webcam permissions on Windows, make sure to give the camera access to Zoom app as well.
2. Enable “Start with Video” option
Unlike a lot of other video conferencing options, Zoom provides a neat little feature that gives you the control to enable or disable the video feed when you start the call.
Of course, this lets you prevent any accidental bloopers. But, if you didn’t know about it and had the video disabled, you might want to enable it the next time you go on a call to make sure that your video feed is accessible.
3. Disable “Turn off my video when joining a meeting” option
Pretty much the same option as I mentioned above — but this is a consistent setting that you can tweak so that you never have to worry about showing your video feed as soon as you join a meeting.
- Open the Zoom app and tap on the “Settings” icon at the upper right corner of the Window.
- Now, go to Video option.
- Here, scroll down to the meetings option and uncheck the ‘turn off my video when joining a meeting’ option.
In case you did not know about it or forgot setting it up, you might want to uncheck the option from the Video Settings on Zoom app.
4. Check camera settings on Zoom app
If you have a separate webcam attached or maybe a different webcam application for your video feed, you might want to check the camera device option in the Zoom app. That could be the reason behind a blank video feed.
You just have to head to the video settings and then change the Camera device to any other available options. And, that should resolve the issue for the most part.
5. Close background apps using the camera/microphone
Sometimes you might have some background programs running that already has access to your camera and microphone, which is why Zoom gets an error to access them.
In that case, make sure no other application is accessing the camera and the microphone.
As an additional mention, coming from my personal experience, I often have my music DAW running in the background but it actually locks the audio driver so unless I close it, I can’t really use any video conferencing options with audio.
To stop running the unwanted background apps follow the below steps.
- Open Settings by searching in the start menu.
- Now, click on Privacy.
- Scroll down to the left panel and click on Background apps.
- Now, under the “Choose which apps can run in the background” section, turn off the toggle switch for the apps you want to restrict.
6. Ensure that you have the latest Zoom app
It’s always important to make sure that you’re running the latest version of an application. Not just limited to the fact that you can resolve the issues but also have the latest security issues patched.
So, you need to update your Zoom app if you haven’t already, both on smartphones and PC.
7. Update video drivers
Sometimes the application is just fine but your video driver is at vault (rare cases). If no other solutions work for you, make sure to update the video drivers (NVIDIA/AMD) to ensure that the drivers work as expected.
8. Faulty camera hardware or USB issues
If your USB port has a problem, you may end up with webcam not detecting issue in Zoom. USB ports sometimes suddenly stop working because of either software or hardware failure. Restart your computer for a quick fix of the USB not detecting the error. If anything stuck inside the USB port, clean it with a toothpick or any small plastic item.
9. Restart your system
It’s hilarious for an average consumer that a simple reboot fixes a lot of issues. But, technically, a reboot resets the state of the software (or the system) and restarts everything.
So, if a process is stuck — a reboot resets the state and restarts it from scratch.
You never know what’s causing the issue when you have a lot of important background programs running. In that case, a simple reboot should do the job.
Wrapping Up
I’m sure there are several issues that you might encounter while using the Zoom app depending on the platform you’re using.
Here, we tried our best to cover the solutions to the most common issues of Zoom. If you want us to look for more solutions, let us know your thoughts in the comments below!