Organise a successful test with your co-hosts

One of the essential preparation steps for your event is the technical check with all the co-hosts who will take part in your live stream.

The goal is to ensure that all the co-hosts can connect smoothly, can broadcast their audio/video effectively and that, ultimately, all participants can see and hear each other well in the streaming room. Furthermore, you want to make sure that any sharing activity you want to perform such as screen sharing or presentation upload function well.

Follow the following steps to do a successful technical check:

Get a link to a streaming test room.

Decide on a time slot to perform the test run with all co-hosts.

Share the link with all the co-hosts who will take part in the live stream.

Run the test on the day and time of your scheduled check.

Get a link to a streaming test room

To test access to the streaming platform, you can either use the actual streaming links of your CareerFairy event or get a test room link. To create a test room, just visit https://careerfairy.io/streaming/test and follow the instructions. You can copy a streaming link to share will all co-hosts for the test by clicking on the Invite additional streamers button.

Decide on a time slot to perform the test run with all co-hosts

Creating a meeting through a common virtual meeting platform such as Microsoft Teams is a good idea. By having a separate meeting link on a platform that you are familiar with can help you communicate to resolve technical issues in case.

Share the link with all the co-hosts who will join the event

Share the link that you copied in the test streaming room in step 1 with all the co-hosts. You can for example share the link by email or in the chat of your same-day preliminary Microsoft Teams meeting, if you choose to have one. Please ask all co-host to take part in the test using the device (laptop) and network (wifi connection) that they would use for the actual event. Testing on different devices and network renders the test invalid.

Perform the test on CareerFairy

Have all the participants connect to the CareerFairy test streaming room through the link that you shared with them.

If you are having a parallel Microsoft Teams call as recommended in the previous steps, we advise to have all participants mute their camera and microphone in Teams before connecting to CareerFairy. Not following this step can result in CareerFairy not being able to access the camera/microphone because it is in use by Microsoft Teams.

You should schedule around 30 minutes for a streaming app test on CareerFairy in order to have sufficient time to resolve issues and walk your co-hosts through the main features of the platform, if needed.

The test is quite straightforward. Please ask co-hosts to connect through the link that you shared prior to the test and follow the steps indicated on the screen.

If all co-hosts connect successfully

If all co-hosts connect successfully, and can all see and hear each other well, then the first part of the test is already completed successfully.

Congratulations! 🎉

Please make sure to stay on the platform for at least 10 minutes to check the connection stability for that period of time. If you have issues with connection stability (intermittent disconnection, high latency, low video resolution, poor sound quality,…) refer to the section If you can connect but suffer from unstable connection.

What needs to be tested now is the usage of all material sharing features (PDF Presentation Sharing, Screen Sharing, etc..). Please make sure that, if screen sharing, your co-hosts can see your screen well. If you wish to share a video via the screen sharing feature, please read our dedicated article to sharing video via screen sharing.

If one or multiple co-hosts cannot connect:

If any issues appear during the test, no need to panic! You can take a number of measures to try and troubleshoot them. We will discuss a few common issues and the measures you should take to resolve them here:

The streaming page remains stuck on the Connecting dialog

This issue generally means that the connection with the streaming server cannot be established. If you are connecting from a corporate device (work laptop,…) and/or through a corporate network or VPN, this is probably due to security configuration in the company’s network that prevent the connection (due to the presence of a network firewall or a network proxy, for technical reference) from being established. If possible, try to apply the following measures, in order, to try and resolve the situation:

If you ARE NOT at the office: Disconnect from the VPN/Proxy of your company

If you are connecting from home, through a personal hotspot or through any other non-corporate network, you might be connected to a VPN client. If possible, disconnect from the VPN and try to connect again to CareerFairy.

If you ARE at the office: Disconnect from the corporate network

If you are connecting from the office, you might need to connect through a different, less restrictive network (unless the IT department takes specific action to authorise CareerFairy on theiwr network). Options that we recommend are using a personal hotspot network established through a smartphone or using a GUEST network that some companies offer on their premises. If any of these options are available to you, connect to these networks and try to connect again to CareerFairy.

Connect from a different browser

We recommend to use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge (latest available version) to stream on CareerFairy. If you are using either of those browsers and you have issues connecting, try to use the other one if available (it can happen that various browsers have different network permissions on a managed corporate device). After switching browsers, try again to connect to CareerFairy. If the error persists, you could try other browsers that are available to you on you device.

Connect from a different device

If the previous steps have no effect, it is most likely due to network restrictions on your device. In that case, it is generally advised to try to connect through a different device that is not subject to the same restrictions. You can try to get hold of such a device from your IT department or, if possible, use a private device for the event.

Contact your IT department

If none of the previous steps are helpful, the issue can be resolved by requesting from your IT department to unlock access to CareerFairy from your network. You can use the CareerFairy network requirement sheet as documentation for your request.

The streaming page shows an error dialog message

See above The streaming page remains stuck on the Connecting dialog and go through the same steps

The microphone or camera permissions appear to be missing

This error occurs when the camera/microphone dialog shows a permissions missing error message, preventing you from connecting to the stream. This error means that the CareerFairy app is prevented from accessing the camera/microphone either by the browser or by the operating system. If possible, try to apply the following measures, in order, to try and resolve the situation:

Make sure that you authorise careerfairy.io to access your camera and microphone within your browser

You should be prompted to do this when you first enter the streaming app from your browser. If you mistakenly blocked access to your camera/microphone for careerfairy.io, you can update the settings by following these instructions. After making sure that all browser permissions are granted, try to reconnect and see if the camera and/or microphone feeds are now available.

Check whether your browser has permissions to access the microphone and/or camera from your operating system (Windows/macOS/Linux)

If you went through step 1 and the error is still present, your browser itself might be missing the necessary permissions from your operating system to access the camera and/or microphone. In this case, you can initially try to use a different browser to check if this resolves the situation. In particular, it can be useful, if you are a Windows user, to check whether using Microsoft Edge (latest available version) makes a difference. Otherwise, you might need to go into your computer settings to give your browser permission to use your camera and/or microphone. Follow these instructions to do so:

Windows:

Give browser camera permission




Give browser microphone permission

Mac:

Give app camera permission
Give app microphone permission

After adjusting any permissions, it can be useful to restart the browser to make sure that the new permissions take effect.

The microphone or camera appear not to be working

If you do not see a permissions-related error as described above, yet either the camera and/or microphone seem to not be working (no webcam image appears in the preview dialog / no sounds gets detected from your microphone source) then there are a number of measures you can try.

Camera issues:

Make sure that the camera is not being used by any other application (Microsoft Teams, …). If it is, you can simply disable the camera in the other app and try to connect again.

Make sure that no physical cover (webcam slider,…) is covering the lens of your camera and make sure that no other hardware switch is preventing the camera from being used.

Make sure that the camera works in another app. Sometimes, the camera might not be working entirely on your devices for different reasons. If the camera is not working in any app, try contacting company IT or manufacturer support. If the camera does work in the other app, don’t forget to close the other app after testing on it.

Try restarting the computer. Sometimes, camera drivers might be reinitialised after restart and this can fix the issue.

Connect an external camera (USB webcam, …) and connect again. Try selecting the external device as camera for the stream and check to see if it works.

Microphone issues:

If you are using a Bluetooth headset as your audio device, please be aware that these can have issues working as microphones in combination with certain laptops (Windows devices are more affected by this). To resolve this, you can try connecting with your laptop’s built-in microphone or with a wired headset. Using a wired headset is our recommended choice.

Make sure that the microphone is not being used by any other application (Microsoft Teams, …). If it is, you can simply disable the microphone in the other app and try to connect again.

Make sure that the microphone works in another app. Sometimes, the microphone might not be working entirely on your devices for different reasons. If the microphone is not working in any app, try contacting company IT or manufacturer support. If the microphone does work in the other app, don’t forget to close the other app after testing on it.

Try restarting the computer. Sometimes, microphone drivers might be reinitialised after restart and this can fix the issue.

Connect an external microphone (USB headset, wired headphones with microphone…) and connect again. Try selecting the external device as microphone for the stream and check to see if it works. Wired headphones might be considered the built-in microphone by your computer.

If you can connect but suffer from unstable connection:

It is possible that a user manages to successfully connect to the streaming platform, but then suffers from issues after that. Let’s discuss how to address a few of those common issues.

The connection between users appears to be of low quality or prone to delay (high latency)

If the video and audio of several participants appear to be of low quality or suffer from delay, the quality of the internet connection is potentially too weak at this point to support the live stream. An internet connection of at least 5mbps upload and download is required to stream comfortably. Furthermore, make sure that no other network intensive application/process is currently running on your machine, since this could affect the bandwidth. You could also test an alternative network such as a personal hotspot to check whether the stream quality improves.

The connection gets interrupted on a regular basis every few minutes before being reestablished again automatically

If your connection gets interrupted regularly for no apparent reason before being reestablished again, your network might be preventing long-standing connections and interrupting them after a specific amount of time. In that case, we recommend switching to an alternative network such as a personal hotspot.

Updated on: 25/10/2022