Dropped Connections on older devices

[Andreas Oelsner]

Hello everyone,

our school is now using BBB via Moodle for school conferences. Unfortunately, we are encountering some connection issues.

I tried using BBB via Moodle via two iPads. One is from 2014, the other is a current model from 2020. Both are running on latest OS and I use the standard browser Safari. Unfortunately on the old model the BBB-page keeps refreshing approximately every 60 seconds forcing me to join the conference once more. On the new model it works flawlessly.

Another family confirmed the same problem also with Apple devices, while another had problems connecting on a laptop, but found the connection over mobile phone working.

Can anyone give me some pointers as to where to start trouble shooting?

Thank you!

Andreas

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Andreas,

> Both are running on latest OS and I use the standard browser Safari

What version of model/iOS is running on the 2014 iPad?  We can do some testing on our end.

> while another had problems connecting on a laptop, but found the connection over mobile phone working.

Can you share any more details on their difficulty in connecting?  Can they connect to https://test.bigbluebutton.org/ using their home internet?  If they switch to a hotspot and it works, the problem is with their internet connection.  You could try disabling IPV6 on the router.

  https://bigbluebutton.org/how-to-disable-ipv6

Regards,... Fred

 

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[Andreas Oelsner]

Dear Fred,

thanks for getting back to me.

My Devices are an iPad Air 2 and an iPad Air 4 both running iOS 14.4. The other family's devices were a MacBook running 10.15.7 Catalina and an iPhone 11.

On yesterday's conference the Air 2 and the Macbook were experiencing connection drops. The Air 4 and the iPhone 11 worked fine.

I also tried the link you provided. The test website works flawlessly on all devices.

So can I assume it's something with our local server setup?

Thanks!

Andreas

[Andreas Oelsner]

Sorry to bring this up again, but the problem keeps recurring. The connection seems rather bad on my older device (iPad Air 2) with some audio and video dropouts and after a couple of seconds the page is refreshing and I have to reconnect. 

The iPad Air 4 works perfectly with the same OS and same browser. Is there anything left I can try? Could it be some problem in my router configuration? 

I hope someone can help me.

Thanks!

Andreas

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Andrewas,

> Another family confirmed the same problem also with Apple devices, while another had problems connecting on a laptop, but found the connection over mobile phone working.

If you are not seeing the connection refresh on test.bigbluebutton.org, check if your school has set up a TURN server for their BigBlueButton server.

A TURN server makes it possible for devices that are behind a restricted firewall.   See

   https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.2/setup-turn-server.html

Also, ask them if they are running BigBlueButton 2.2.31, which is the version we care currently running on https://test.bigbluebutton.org/

Regards,... Fred

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bigbluebutton-users/70f8b6cb-2dd1-44d3-8a4d-b6ae610c7cfbn%40googlegroups.com.

[Andreas Oelsner]

Hi Fred,

thanks for your help so far. I just heard back from our school. They told me that they are using version 2.4 with some kind of auto update feature which ensures that they are always running the most recent version. Does that sound plausible to you?

Additionally, they told me that they don't have access to the configuration in order to setup a TURN-Server.

Sincerely

Andreas

[SeGi JeTh]

Hi,

maybe it is the same like I noticed.

I have the nearly the same issue with one iPad HW revision, but not every 60sec.

On iPad 5 (2017) the safari tab reloads sporadic, on iPad 2020 I have a  stable bbb-session.

It looks to me like a memory issue or something like that, because I noticed the problems only if many users share the camera video.

I have some iPad debugging output (via MacOS console), just in that moment the problem occurs. If there is a need.

Regards,

Sebastian

[Andreas Oelsner]

Hi Sebastian,

that might be the same problem, but if it is, I don't know where to go from there? Do you have any idea or do we just have to accept this issue?

Andreas

[SeGi JeTh]

Hi,

I accept that issue currently, because i'm not sure if this is a bbb-problem or a hardware/software (iPad) problem.

There are many bugs facing the webrtc implementation on safari, so it can be "anything" ;)

The console on iOS devices produces a mess of debug, info and failures messages, which is not understandable by a non-developer. So without any field knowledge it is impossible to find the issue.

My personal guess, there is a memory lag on safari in that iPad-HW version.

Sebastian

[Jemand]

Hi,

I have the same phenomenon: an older iPad Air has connection difficulties, a newer one connects fine. In my case, the school told me that changing the server-side configuration would not fix anything. Instead, I was told to check whether my firewall (client-side) was open to the ports that BBB requires.

However the FAQ refers only to ports that should be open on the firewall protecting the BBB server, if I understand correctly.

Is there any hope of fixing the connection issue by playing with my client-side firewall settings? If so, which ports do I need to open/forward?

Kind regards

Sebastian