Troubleshooting "Your internet connection is unstable" on Zoom calls

ttorimoto

Hey guys - 
Any suggestions on tools to help troubleshoot "Your internet connection is unstable" that I get every so often on Zoom video conference calls?  It seems to come and go.
(I do have asuswrt-merlin on my router, and also have the Fing box)

DocZZZ

Zoom has been in the news recently for privacy and security breaches, and the company is actively trying to improve the weaknesses in its conferencing software. I'm not sure if this relates to your unstable notifications, but if you are limited to using Zoom, be sure to update frequently to the latest versions available. If you have other conferencing options, I suggest that you try them out to see if they perform better. There are a lot of alternatives on the market.

Marc

In addition to what Doczzz says, you need to remember that everyone is on line at this time, eating into bandwidth that would normally not be in use.  Video is very sensitive to this and I would imagine Zoom has built in some check to tell you when bandwidth is not optimal for its video conferencing.  I know Skype has a similar feature.  Wen it occurs again you could use any of the commercially available bandwidth detection apps, Fing included, to see if there is a slowdown...

gw68

If you get no error message from Zoom but still suffer from 'choppy' sound when using Bluetooth headphones, check if you are using a Bluetooth trackpad at the same time. Trackpads can bang out huge amounts of low latency data that can eat up Bluetooth bandwidth. Connect using USB instead if possible, or use a wired headphone.
Zoom also shows a bitrate icon in red, yellow or white for every participant during meetings. This can help identify where low bandwidth breakup is happening.
Also try a direct cable connection instead of WiFi. It's far better!

tobtobitob

Zoom is designed to work in difficult/changing network environments.

We have designed mechanisms to adjust quickly even if there is more than 50% packet loss.

Business customers get a Dashboard function to diagnose issues. The message you are getting disappears as soon as the client adjusts - prioritising always the Audio stream over video.

The standard thresholds that generate an error message in my standard reporting are as follows:

Latency: 750ms

Jitter: 750ms

Packet Loss: greater than 70%

Bandwidth: 0 Kbps

@ttorimoto - if you get the error message you mentioned then there must have been a time in the meeting where you almost completely lost connectivity or missed one of the benchmarks above.

Here is a link to give information about the bandwidth/network requirements:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023-System-requirements-for-Windows-macOS-and-Linux#h_d278c327-e03d-4896-b19a-96a8f3c0c69c

I also fully agree with what @gw68 said - quite often it is the peripheral that causes an issue. When we started with webconferincing the cheapest stuff did the job as we were just using G.711 and CIF - but now with OPUS and H.264 actually peripherals really matter.

In addition if you can try and use our static virtual backgrounds as this reduces the amount of video bandwidth as well. (you can also try MP4 backgrounds but that will take up some more ;-)

(I a working @ Zoom - but this is my private view and not intended to be promotional)

ICChief

tobtobitob I dont ever have the issue with my work(business) account but run into it more frequently with my free personal Zoom acct. Same WFH network, different machines.   I just figured there are likely differences in QoS between the account types in that one is free and one is paid.     

tobtobitob

@ICChief - Technically there are no differences when connecting. We are not prioritizing your business account. QoS - per definition - is not used as we cannot use classic „QoS“ over the Internet - as no markers traverse ISP boundaries. There are just two options that influence the connectivity - your local machine (Personal Firewall, CPU, Version of the Zoom Client). Second option - not often used - is that your Zoom account @ work is connecting to an on-premise Zoom installation and you are proably not authenticating towards Zoom but to a local SAML adapter that is hosted by your company. Personally I see 90% of the issues on the local machines.

ttorimoto

Hi guys - after some troubleshooting myself - I got it fixed. 
Oddly enough, it was caused (worsened) by my QoS setting on my router.  I enabled "Adaptive QoS" with high prioritization on streaming and VOIP on my Asus Router, and it made things worse.
This all started with Zoom calls that would freeze for about 30 seconds.  When looking for a pattern, I noticed it happened at exactly the same time(s) - every 10 minutes; and then noticed the same pattern on my Google Home speakers when I streamed TuneIn Radio, which would also happen at exactly the same time(s).
Once I figured out it was not only Zoom, and then figured out it was not my ISP service (AT&T Fiber) by not seeing the same problems connecting to a Wifi signal that was coming from the AT&T gateway (which I have set to only pass-through to let my Asus router manage everything), the culprit became my Asus router.  First thing I tried was toggling the QoS setting off, and that fixed this specific issue!  I read reports that the Adaptive QoS setting on Asus routers sometimes makes things worse - and it definitely did here.
Crazy - but true story :-) 

ICChief

tobtobitob I dont ever have the issue with my work(business) account but run into it more frequently with my free personal Zoom acct. Same WFH network, different machines.   I just figured there are likely differences in QoS between the account types in that one is free and one is paid.