WebRTC Video and Voice Chat Issues

Thank you Steve K. for your candor. I have run through the troubleshooting steps and posted my findings quite a long time ago now. I will look into the Adblock issue on my system, but I have no control over other people in my game and as you say, one bad apple can ruin the whole bunch. The question many of us have here is WILL Roll20's WebRTC ever work for us consistently and reliable? What changes are coming that will allow someone with less than 5meg uploads to have a decent chat session? What about people on a VPN or overseas? We just want to know if we should hold out hope or give up? I don't have to use Roll20's WebRTC for my voice chat needs but I would prefer to.

Ed S. said: Thank you Steve K. for your candor. I have run through the troubleshooting steps and posted my findings quite a long time ago now. I will look into the Adblock issue on my system, but I have no control over other people in my game and as you say, one bad apple can ruin the whole bunch. The question many of us have here is WILL Roll20's WebRTC ever work for us consistently and reliable? What changes are coming that will allow someone with less than 5meg uploads to have a decent chat session? What about people on a VPN or overseas? We just want to know if we should hold out hope or give up? I don't have to use Roll20's WebRTC for my voice chat needs but I would prefer to. I think it'd be underselling it to say that we'd prefer that too. As we continue to refine our WebRTC code there will be more stability and reliability. It won't happen overnight but we are working on it. Our next major push is for exactly this. Our intention is to have finer-grained observation of the data being transmitted in the peer-to-peer connection so that way we can tell the difference between someone muting their call, a momentary internet slowdown, and when a call has dropped. Right now too many calls are failing quietly and underneath our detection so that the users are forced to manually reconnect. This often looks like everyone in the call is having trouble when actually it's only one person's internet slowing down. Hopefully with these changes we'll be able to automatically reconnect the user having issues and do a better job of highlighting exactly who is having the trouble so the process is more transparent to the other users in the call.

Thanks Steve. I've been afraid to try the integrated chat again after the last few experiences; our game time is too difficult to come by to use up on connection fixing. I'll have to give it a shot.

keithcurtis said: Thanks Steve. I've been afraid to try the integrated chat again after the last few experiences; our game time is too difficult to come by to use up on connection fixing. I'll have to give it a shot. Lately I've found that the only thing plaguing my players is the silent disconnect issue that Steve has mentioned. As a workaround, we've done as a few people have mentioned on this thread and used Discord for voice and then roll20 for video, that way you know when someone has an issue because the video will freeze, but you don't get as pulled out of the session as you can at least hear them (and they can then Reconnect in their own time). Hopefully that means that if the auto-reconnect system gets put in place, it should solve this last issue for my group at least.

techiecarer said: keithcurtis said: Thanks Steve. I've been afraid to try the integrated chat again after the last few experiences; our game time is too difficult to come by to use up on connection fixing. I'll have to give it a shot. Lately I've found that the only thing plaguing my players is the silent disconnect issue that Steve has mentioned. As a workaround, we've done as a few people have mentioned on this thread and used Discord for voice and then roll20 for video, that way you know when someone has an issue because the video will freeze, but you don't get as pulled out of the session as you can at least hear them (and they can then Reconnect in their own time). Hopefully that means that if the auto-reconnect system gets put in place, it should solve this last issue for my group at least. That's the same thing we are doing. Video internal, audio external. Then when video fails, the session can still go on.

Steve K. said: Just a reminder, if you and your affected players haven't run through our troubleshooting steps please have them do so. When posting here, just letting us know you are having an issue doesn't help us solve your issue. We also need you to provide the information we're asking for. From both you and the other players having the issue we need a browser console log, the WebRTC Connectivity Diagnostic Test, your bandwidth up & down, browser & version, OS, number of players in your game, and a description of your connection issues (never connects/spotty connection/connection frequently fails/only affecting one player/all players). The more information you provide us the more likely we'll see trends and be able to fix underlying problems. It's how we discovered Adblock was a serious culprit at the moment. Hey Steve, quick question (and maybe this has been answered and I just missed it): When you say that Adblock is causing issues, are you referring to a specific plugin or adblockers in general?

Ben Kugler said: Steve K. said: Just a reminder, if you and your affected players haven't run through our troubleshooting steps please have them do so. When posting here, just letting us know you are having an issue doesn't help us solve your issue. We also need you to provide the information we're asking for. From both you and the other players having the issue we need a browser console log, the WebRTC Connectivity Diagnostic Test, your bandwidth up & down, browser & version, OS, number of players in your game, and a description of your connection issues (never connects/spotty connection/connection frequently fails/only affecting one player/all players). The more information you provide us the more likely we'll see trends and be able to fix underlying problems. It's how we discovered Adblock was a serious culprit at the moment. Hey Steve, quick question (and maybe this has been answered and I just missed it): When you say that Adblock is causing issues, are you referring to a specific plugin or adblockers in general? Adblock Plus and Adblock, the two most popular, are blocking some WebRTC calls. Ublock and others have said they are as well. I'm not saying all adblock addons are an issue, but I'm comfortable saying it's a major trend.

If Adblock is an issue, people might check their AV (anti-virus) or malware software as well, it is not uncommon for those to interfere in apps too...

Everyone in my weekly group have whitelisted Roll20 and we still have frequent connection issues.

Ravenknight said: Everyone in my weekly group have whitelisted Roll20 and we still have frequent connection issues. Okay, thank you for the feedback. If you can, it would help us to know the information I requested in  this post .

Steve K. said: Ravenknight said: Everyone in my weekly group have whitelisted Roll20 and we still have frequent connection issues. Okay, thank you for the feedback. If you can, it would help us to know the information I requested in  this post . Call me stupid  but I don't understand what information you require. :)

There seems like a bit of a glitch with displaying the correct post if you are not already on the page. I believe the intended post was several posts below the top,asking for: From both you and the other players having the issue we need a browser console log, the WebRTC Connectivity Diagnostic Test, your bandwidth up & down, browser & version, OS, number of players in your game, and a description of your connection issues (never connects/spotty connection/connection frequently fails/only affecting one player/all players).

Ah, thanks Keith.

I myself find it difficult to grab console logs, etc mid-game and I'm sure some of you feel the same way. We only play for three hours and don't really want to stop the game to troubleshoot. I'm willing to host a game where some of us who are having problems can run though all of the troubleshooting steps and provide useful information to the devs. Heck, I'll even DM a one shot over the weekend if some of you would be willing to stop and troubleshoot with me. Maybe if we get a bunch of us who are having problems together, we can find some commonalities and give the devs some valuable info. Please PM me if you're interested!

Have you looked into Google's Meet to see if the API would be allowed to or could viable to integrate (since I'm assuming it's very close to the hangout api you were using before)?  Are there alternatives? I mean, honestly this feature is the one thing keeping me from making my account pro.   I have tried and tried to get it working but at this point, we stopped.  Last night was the first weekly session we didn't try. I opened skype, made the phone call, loaded up roll20 (the player's windows already set to name only) and we went about playing.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the ease at which the program works, the transitions, etc.  The experience would so much better if the video and audio worked. :( Makes me sad panda.

I corralled a bunch of players for VTT gaming, and to rotate GM duties between different campaigns. Roll20 was a hard sell, because of the a/v issues. I got them online yesterday to do chargen. I was a little late, and when I got on, the three of them who were online were already sick and tired of trying to get a/v to work, and were firing up a Skype call. You can bet that the talk was all about abandoning Roll20. I couldn't talk them out of the Skype thing, and next thing you know they're sharing files over Skype, too. Look, when you have competitors, and you get a bad reputation for unreliability, you're going to lose customers. If the players I want all get fed up and move to another platform, then so will I. And I'm a paying customer. I don't know how to convey how critical fixing this is, but of the dozen or so gamers I'm now involved with, they're all going to mutiny and leave. And then so will I.

Hiya Steve! As I mentioned in an  earlier comment , I put together a troubleshooting game to get some information for you. Six of us played for three hours, keeping our console logs running from the moment we opened the game. We went through all of the troubleshooting steps and did the WebRTC testing. All of our system information, logs and test results have been complied in this  google drive folder. We also kept a running log (time stamped) in the chat of the game itself. The game was created by me and is called Voice and Video Testing. I can PM you a link if necessary. And just to be super thorough, one of the guys streamed the video  on twitch , so you can see exactly what was happening (or just enjoy our very silly game! ;) ) Please let me know if this info is valuable to you. I've got more people willing to help, and we're trying to set up another game for next weekend. We'll keep doing this for as long as it takes to get you the information you need. On the other hand, if more logs would only tell you the same thing, let us know so that we're not wasting our time! And if there is anything  else we can do to help, just say the word

Thank you for gathering all the information, Kirsty. I'll start reviewing them shortly. Looking at the "google drive folder" link I'm only getting your log, not a folder with multiple logs.

Sorry about that!  This link should work. 

Why do I keep seeing new posts, but no new posts show up in the thread?

Warkoala said: Why do I keep seeing new posts, but no new posts show up in the thread? The last two posts before your own were deleted by either the poster or by a Mod. (Both posts were off-topic.)

Hey all- Just tried a session using Discord for audio and Roll20 WebRTC for video only, as someone earlier had indicated they are doing. It worked very well for us. Audio was consistent, and while we had some disconnect/reconnects on video, it didn't disrupt the game flow at all. Better yet, while I was worried about the lip sync being off, it actually wasn't much of a problem. It was pretty close. (I streamed it, and had a problem with my viewers getting distorted audio, but I am pretty sure that was a problem with the way my streaming software was encoding the audio - players weren't having audio issues at all). Just thought I would mention this as it seems to be a good workaround that allows for video and audio streams for those of us who are having problems with RTC. - Matt

Good to see this is still an ongoing thing six months on.  We've been using hangouts and/or skype all this time.  It sucks.

I've designed a game specifically for Roll20CON and would really like to use Roll20 WebRTC for both audio and video so players will only need their Roll20 account to play...but I'm worried about connection issues derailing the game. So I'm thinking they will need Discord account as back up (or just go with it from the start) as that seems to be a stable set up.

Doug, if you like to test it beforehand, we're doing another troubshooting game on Saturday. If youd like to join, send me a pm and I'll give you a game invite.

Thanks Kirsty but my Saturday is pretty booked up.

We did another Video/Voice test game last Saturday. Console logs, Web RTC Tests and system info is all in  this folder. And like last time, we streamed the video as well as kept a running log in the chat. Part 1 Part 2 We're going to do another game on Sunday morning to try and accommodate our UK players. If anyone else would like to join, send me a PM and I'll invite you to the game. The more console logs we can get, the better!

keithcurtis said: Thanks, Steve. It would help public perception a lot if there were any posts from people who do not have problems using the integrated voice/chat. Since this is a bug forum, we naturally only hear about the problems. I don't think I've seen a single positive experience post anywhere on the boards. Is there any data or anecdotal evidence from users who are having a smooth experience? It would go a long way toward improving the tarnished image the WebRTC implementation has developed. I will say that I've been in a number of sessions the last few months where the Roll20 video/voice works fine (and this is after dealing with it never working previously).  So those games do exist.

Brian said: keithcurtis said: Thanks, Steve. It would help public perception a lot if there were any posts from people who do not have problems using the integrated voice/chat. Since this is a bug forum, we naturally only hear about the problems. I don't think I've seen a single positive experience post anywhere on the boards. Is there any data or anecdotal evidence from users who are having a smooth experience? It would go a long way toward improving the tarnished image the WebRTC implementation has developed. I will say that I've been in a number of sessions the last few months where the Roll20 video/voice works fine (and this is after dealing with it never working previously).  So those games do exist. Thank you! That was exactly the thing I had hoped for someone to post somewhere. A few positive anecdotes help to dispel the impression that it never works, rather than that it is merely twitchy or broken for some percentage of the user base.

I'm tossing my hat into the ring. We've had pretty good luck with WebRTC for months, but experienced really weird random drop-outs during our past few games. Last time, one player had trouble seeing/hearing just one other player. Everyone else could see them fine. When the "invisible" player refreshed the connection, that other player could then see/hear them...for a few minutes. Then another dropout. As we run an actual-play podcast through roll20, this has definitely put a damper on our enthusiasm for the platform since we're trying to record/broadcast.

Hey Jeremy Podcasts, that sounds like some of the problems that we've been having. If you'd like to troubleshoot with us, we can put together a time and get some console logs. You are welcome to pm me and we can work something out.

Jeremy Podcasts said: I'm tossing my hat into the ring. We've had pretty good luck with WebRTC for months, but experienced really weird random drop-outs during our past few games. Last time, one player had trouble seeing/hearing just one other player. Everyone else could see them fine. When the "invisible" player refreshed the connection, that other player could then see/hear them...for a few minutes. Then another dropout. As we run an actual-play podcast through roll20, this has definitely put a damper on our enthusiasm for the platform since we're trying to record/broadcast. Brian as well.....can you give us an idea of your party size, locations, BW, when your campaign started, times you play, etc?  Maybe we can find something to point us in the right direction on why ours fails, and yours seems to work better.

keithcurtis said: I don't think I've seen a single positive experience post anywhere on the boards. Is there any data or anecdotal evidence from users who are having a smooth experience? I can at least say that our group has seen improvement to video reliability over the months, but see these caveats: That's video only. There's no way we're going to even attempt to use roll20 audio at this point, since no audio means no game, while video is optional. That's better, but not all better. We can usually see an average of 4 out of 6 player cameras, which is a lot better than the 1 or 2 or zero we would see in prior months. It isn't the same two people down for everyone; combinations vary. So, I interpret that as a system-side issue rather than player-side. I'm still hoping for consistent "it just works" in the future. For now though, with reliable (external) audio, we can play no problem.

Yesterday video and voice were working fine and all was set to go. Today, I've got no voice and no video. Please help.

Gina, I'm online now. Would you like someone to troubleshoot with?

Kirsty said: Gina, I'm online now. Would you like someone to troubleshoot with? It seems to be working now, for some reason.

Hi guys. Well things have improved at least for small groups 4-5 players on chrome seems stable with both Roll20 video/voice(this not the case if say other platforms are used within the mix.)Larger groups still major issues however better than it was in November.

Six of us online last weekend, still had multiple ongoing problems throughout the three-hour session. I keep hearing muttering about Skype, Hangouts, Discord and Teamspeak from my players. I'm not happy. And a new issue: if I hit the 'reconnect' button myself, my video feed switches to my built-in webcam instead of the wired external one that I want to use -- so I personally can no longer hit 'reconnect.' Abysmal. I'm extremely frustrated.

Eric G. said: Six of us online last weekend, still had multiple ongoing problems throughout the three-hour session. I keep hearing muttering about Skype, Hangouts, Discord and Teamspeak from my players. I'm not happy. And a new issue: if I hit the 'reconnect' button myself, my video feed switches to my built-in webcam instead of the wired external one that I want to use -- so I personally can no longer hit 'reconnect.' Abysmal. I'm extremely frustrated. You can probably get around this specific issue by disabling your internal webcam in device manager.

Thanks Karl V., good point. That'd be one less thing infuriating me! ;-)

I am not sure, but it seems like we have more issues when there is more than one player behind our firewall; that the NAT traversal seems to have trouble finding all of us all of the time, such that we keep reloading so we all can hear everyone.

Last session was... subpar. It's really a question of numbers for us. Up to 5 people = ok. More = total disaster and reconnect hell.

OK, having trouble even getting players to give Roll20 native audio/video a try anymore. All I'm getting is arguments, and no one can agree on a solution. Really, reaching the end of my rope here, groups may fall apart...

Eric G. said: OK, having trouble even getting players to give Roll20 native audio/video a try anymore. All I'm getting is arguments, and no one can agree on a solution. Really, reaching the end of my rope here, groups may fall apart... We are using Discord for voice. Works well and can run in a browser so noone has to install anything.

Hi Developers, We have been gaming for almost a month (once a week). - 4 players - me as GM - issue: they can hear/talk among themselves BUT they can not hear me and I can not hear them - OS (Win 10) - Google Chrome ( Version 59.0.3071.104 (Official Build) (64-bit)) - WebRTC Connectivity Diagnostic Test (microphone: green check; video: green check; UDP enabled: red X; TCP enabled: green check; IPV6: green check; relay connectivity: green check; reflexive connectivity: red X; host connectivity: green check; throughput: green check)