Microsoft Teams Kills all Network Connectivity During Calls

Anonymous
2019-10-28T14:37:04+00:00

Despite having a good WiFi or Ethernet connection, regardless of which network I'm on, if I join a Microsoft Teams call, all network connectivity stops working and teams simultaneously reports poor call quality and no network connectivity. All this while on an active call which I can see and hear. Here's a full description of symptoms.

Every time I connect to a Teams call:

  • Incoming call quality is ok. I can hear and see others.
  • Outgoing call quality is very poor. Others say my voice is breaking up.
  • If I unmute and speak for more than a few seconds, I am booted from the call.
  • If I stay muted I can stay on the call indefinitely.
  • I can share my screen just fine, I don't get kicked from the call.
  • Teams periodically puts up a warning symbol in the call controls reporting poor connectivity.
  • Teams puts up a blue banner stating that I have been disconnected from the internet.
  • (Intermittent) Teams puts up a big overlay on top of the whole app saying I have been disconnected
  • The call continues though all of this, including voice and video.
  • All other network connectivity is broken (e.g.: Browsers cannot load pages, network drives stop working)
  • Text chat features work fine (but not during calls, where they fail to work like all other network activity)

The instant the call ends, all the symptoms stop. I can access network resources again. My wifi connection is fine. I've tested using wired networking and encounter the exact same issue. I've also tried various audio devices and disconnecting all peripherals as longshot solutions. No dice. I don't have anything weird on my system as far as I am aware. Teams works fine on other machines but not on my primary laptop. 

This issue not only makes Microsoft Teams itself nearly unusable, it knocks my whole system offline for the duration of the call, which is incredibly frustrating.

I'm booting into Windows 10 on a 2015 MacBook Pro 13". I have all the latest patches for everything. I've seen two other people here who have what I think is the same issue as mine, but their question threads didn't have any solutions either, and now they're locked.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/microsoft-teams-always-appears-poor-network/1a9ef89c-e495-4e2c-b108-d5b8702a54a8

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/teams-kills-all-connections/6b9dd383-df31-4bec-957a-41ee478eab3e

Does anyone have any idea what could be going wrong? Any solutions? Any more info needed from me about my setup?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-07-01T17:46:05+00:00

    I seem to have found a solution!

    I had the same problem, with the disconnection of all devices from the router when running MS Teams conferencing. I tried different solutions as above, but finally worked on router level: I changed the automatic channel to a channel with no interference (with radar application on the router). I have had a couple of conferences today, with no disconnection. Hope this works for you too.   

    @Bobaskh,

    I think that's not exactly the same scenario as what's been described here - issues described here have more to do with a RealTek Ethernet device, possibly found in a USB or Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C dock, and not so much the router disconnecting.

    For instance, my laptop is connected via Ethernet to an unmanaged switch, and the switch to the router. If I use the Ethernet cable going to/from my laptop and switch with the dock, Ethernet will disconnect in a Teams meeting. If I use the cable with the built-in Ethernet port on my laptop, everything's fine.. Other devices on my network are unaffected. That's more along the lines of the scenario (sans switch) that others are running into.

    It sounds like your situation has a broader scope, in that all devices connected to your router are disconnected.

    I see. So the switch is not connected to any wireless devices? I had the impression that even one wireless connection might be picked up by Teams and that is why the whole connection drops. 

    We have 2 laptops with one router, but the same thing happened to us. We both got disconnected every time we were connected to Teams conference, not necessarily at the same time. Either one connected, connection would be lost. The only difference in today's conferencing was that I connected one of the laptops directly through a RealTek Ethernet and changed the channels, and we didn't get any disconnection. Just a thought to give you more details and pick up your brains, so might get an idea to deal with this. If irrelevant, I apologize.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-08T18:56:07+00:00

    I seem to have found a solution!

    I had the same problem, with the disconnection of all devices from the router when running MS Teams conferencing. I tried different solutions as above, but finally worked on router level: I changed the automatic channel to a channel with no interference (with radar application on the router). I have had a couple of conferences today, with no disconnection. Hope this works for you too.   

    It worked for me. Thanks a lot!

    I had no interference however fixing it to a specific channel had done the trick.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-10T19:02:13+00:00

    I seem to have found a solution!

    I had the same problem, with the disconnection of all devices from the router when running MS Teams conferencing. I tried different solutions as above, but finally worked on router level: I changed the automatic channel to a channel with no interference (with radar application on the router). I have had a couple of conferences today, with no disconnection. Hope this works for you too.   

    It worked for me. Thanks a lot!

    I had no interference however fixing it to a specific channel had done the trick.

    Glad it worked for you too!

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-20T17:57:57+00:00

    Over the past month and a half I have continued to work with Microsoft by providing packet captures, Teams logs, screen recordings, etc... So far they have not been able to isolate the issue. However, Lenovo has just released a new firmware for the USB-C Gen 2 dock. This update has updated multiple components in the dock including the USB hubs. I installed the new firmware this morning and had a Teams meeting shortly afterwards. I did not experience the issue during our meeting. This doesn't necessarily mean it is fixed as I have had a couple of meetings prior that didn't have the issue. I will continue to evaluate each day and see how it goes. One key thing that I did notice is that prior to the update, my Ethernet network connection was always displaying the name of my Wireless SSID in the bottom taskbar as if I was connected to Wi-Fi. That was even with the Wi-Fi disabled.... It now says connected to "Network" as it should. I am hoping this may have been the issue and the update has corrected it. Those who are using the Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 docks, I would suggest checking to see if a hardware specific firmware update is available for your model. Below is a screenshot of what the firmware versions were and what they are now. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any release notes from Lenovo about the update.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-20T18:13:03+00:00

    @matt hull, Great update. My fingers are crossed this is the solution.

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