team mysterious ringing

June 2022 and I'm still having this issue (since 2020!).

3 different Windows laptops (1 MS Surface and 2 Dell) from 3 different jobs and all of them have the same issues.

I do use bluetooth headphones but I've observed that the issue still happens even when I've finished work and disconnected the headphones. I would be away from the computer and the call ringtone would just randomly go off from the laptop speaker.

This is REALLY annoying, I can't turn off the ringtone permanently as I still need to know when my colleague is actually calling me during work hours.

And seems like the solutions suggested here are just to stop the ringing once it goes off, not so much to stop the random ringing from happening in the first place.

I've used Zoom for meetings & calls as well, and it works perfectly fine, no random ringing here and there like Teams.

C'mon Microsoft, billions of dollars and you can't fix an issue like this? 😠

@RobS.1 you are absolutely right Teams has a "Feature" to react on play and pause commands.

The play command can be triggered in several ways most commonly by bluetooth headsets or speakers. Some headsets trigger the play/pause command when disconnecting --> Teams starts ringing

on Win11 @gadgetgeek2000 showed a solution to stop it.

on Win10 you can bring up the volume/media control by changing the volume and press the pause button for Teams.

In my opinion it is a Teams bug, since it is not a multimedia app that should have a play/pause behaviour

It is 2022, and I have this issue all the time. It is really distracting. How do I fix it?

That might work while on the call, but the ringing continues eternally even when I'm not on the phone. I think the problem for me relates to the way Teams is trying to pause and resume media when it gets a phone call. Here are some other things I notice are happening:

1. I use Plex on my iPad and iPhone. Sometimes I have paused or stopped media from playing, but it is still actively in the queue ready to play/resume. After getting a phone call (I don't even have to answer it), my devices will randomly just start playing after the phone call stops ringing.
2. I upgraded to Windows 11. The sound control panel in the system tray is now different. If I am on the phone and Teams is continually ringing, I can hit this new panel and see a play/pause button that says 'Microsoft Teams' is currently playing audio. I can hit the pause button and it stops the ringing sound.

Teams kicks off some audio event, play the ringing sound media, and not stop playing when the call is answered or hung up. At least in Windows 11 I now have some sort of control over this.

Thank you! I did go into Task Manager and there were two Teams items running. I closed one and the ringing stopped.