Blur Background option suddenly missing

Hi everybody,

I am having the same issue but on the newest Macs. One is the MacBookPro from 2020 and the other one is the iMac from 2019.

The blur worked for me like a charm during last years/months and stopped working approx 1,5 month ago. I am using the most recent version of MacOS BigSur (11.2.3) and Teams (1.4.00.4971). 

When I start a telco, then I can see the switch for turning the blur and I can turn this switch on. Unfortunately after that nothing happens (no blur) and on the right hand side an empty settings toolbar appears.  See the screenshot below.

Switching off hardware acceleration, as suggested above, does not help.

What 's really weird is that when I run the above mentioned  command sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features, on my both computers, I get the following result:

% sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features

machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX SMX EST TM2 SSSE3 FMA CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC MOVBE POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE SEGLIM64 TSCTMR AVX1.0RDRAND F16C

Which is really strange because my MacBookPro is brand new.

BTW: This result is not consistent. If I try other similar commands, as suggested in other posts, then I get contradictory results:

% sysctl -a | grep avx

hw.optional.avx1_0: 1

hw.optional.avx2_0: 1

hw.optional.avx512f: 0

hw.optional.avx512cd: 0

hw.optional.avx512dq: 0

hw.optional.avx512bw: 0

hw.optional.avx512vl: 0

hw.optional.avx512ifma: 0

hw.optional.avx512vbmi: 0

% sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.leaf7_features

machdep.cpu.leaf7_features: RDWRFSGS TSC_THREAD_OFFSET SGX BMI1 HLE AVX2 SMEP BMI2 ERMS INVPCID RTM FPU_CSDS MPX RDSEED ADX SMAP CLFSOPT IPT MDCLEAR TSXFA IBRS STIBP L1DF SSBD

Which one is correct?

Could it be that Apple changed something concerning AVX2 in one of the recent BigSur updates?

What do you think? How could we fix it?

greetings,

Irek

I still have this problem today, Mar 1, 2021. Don't have anything show under background effects!

Hey Jane,

Basically your computer needs to have certain specs to be able to handle the background functionality.

The main problem for most, I'm assuming, is the ability to support AVX2. Seems like that's all part of the CPU, so either you can support it or not.

For Mac users, with the following command you can see what version of AVX you can support.

Open Terminal app and enter the following in bold and at the very end you'll see where it says AVX.

sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features

Last login: Sat Jan 30 18:58:49 on console

##iMac name and hard drive name here## $ sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features

machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX SMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE TSCTMR AVX1.0

Seems like I can only support AVX1.0, so that's why I'm having issues with the background features altogether; sometimes it's there and other times not.

My Mac is from 2011, which is the year AVX started, so use that date as a guide. I didn't look to see when AVX2 was released, but looking up your hardware information is the only way to definitely tell.

In looking around for PC, it seems like it's not as easy and might require an app to be installed to easily help. An app named CPU-ID from CPU-Z keeps popping up, however install that at your own risk.

I know it's not helpful, but it seems like Microsoft isn't helping those with older model machines or those that don't support AVX2.

Not a good look, Microsoft!

what does this mean for a normal person?

Hi Corey Doty,

As per the Docs article below, the background blur feature requires a CPU with AVX2 support: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/hardware-requirements-for-the-teams-app

Engineering has confirmed that a crashing bug was identified recently on machines without AVX2 which is why the feature was available previously for you and is no longer showing up. The bug has now been fixed and will be rolling out in an update soon. Once that fix reaches your machine, the background blur option should appear again.

Thanks,

Omar

whta