How to restrict other meeting IDs, or get into locked-out meetings without host?

[gmachen]

We have separate recurring, scheduled meetings on every day of the week, at different times of the day, all with different meeting IDs.

Anybody with a meeting ID & password can join a meeting, without host or waiting room, and THAT'S THE WAY WE WANT IT. But, of course, only one meeting can be held at the same time from the server.

After a year & and a half of the covid without problems, suddenly last week we began having problems with somebody else already being in a meeting during ours scheduled for a certain time — perhaps for personal conversations, we dunno, doesn't matter — which blocks us from our scheduled meeting until they get off.

How do we restrict a given meeting ID held every week at a certain day & time, and block any other meeting ID for that hour? Even if it abruptly kicks-off any other meeting ID in progress.

[gmachen]

The plot thickens! A Zoom manager colleague has weighed-in, quoted below. Is there some setting that can override or work-around somebody's use of Claim Host in a prior meeting, then abandoned it? Surely there must be a way around this booby trap!

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This issue is very likely due to use/misuse of the “Claim Host” feature and not a “hijacking” issue.  It’s only been reported to me on one other occasion and that was nearly a year ago. Then it seemed to be due to someone using “Claim Host” and then either leaving the meeting before everyone else did or leaving the meeting while they were still the active host.  What you are describing is very likely a “host” problem and not a “hijack” problem.  FYI It is not necessary for anyone to “Claim Host” in order to have a successful meeting.  If someone does “Claim Host” and then opens breakout rooms or does other host-specific functions and then leaves the meeting before backing out of the “Claim Host” features they have used it can and has rendered the meeting inaccessible for a period of time when others try to log in at a later date.

Please use the “Claim Host” feature sparingly and judiciously or not at all.  If a meeting needs to be deleted and then re-established there is no way to disseminate the meeting id to everyone who has attended the meeting in the past and not everyone will check the website before trying to attend in the future.  Also, if a meeting is re-established, it may not be able to use the same meeting passcode as all the other meetings thereby making it extremely difficult for newcomers to join.

Please use “Claim Host” sparingly and judiciously or not at all and I think that will take care of the access problem you have described.

[Bort]

As long as you are the host (or Alt-host), you should be able to try starting the 2nd meeting, get the warning that one already is running, and should be able to end that 1st meeting from that window. It will not give the option if you are not the host, so I would try that. Beyond that, you can adjust the Join before setting, so that the meeting can only be started 5 minutes before the scheduled start time. 

[gmachen]

Thanks for the reply!

So am I to understand that the only way to get into a meeting that everybody else has been locked-out of — because whoever might have temporarily been made host last time did a Leave Meeting instead of an End Meeting — is for the official host or alt-host to be around to login to avail themself a special screen that can open the meeting to everyone?

Well, like I said in the original post, all of our meetings are set up so that anyone with the meeting ID & password should be able to get in, because the host-of-record or alt-host aren't always present every week. Is there some compelling reason or use-case for the last person out of a given meeting not automatically by default doing a full end-meeting as a matter of course? This is nuts! Most of the people who come to our meetings are barely able to login, much less be expected to know the difference between "leave meeting" and "end meeting." We're talking about a bunch of 80-year-old grandmas here!

Is there no setting to make the next meeting fully accessible after the last person, host or not, has left the prior one by whatever means?!

(And I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing how adjusting the Join Before setting so that the meeting can only be started five minutes before the scheduled start time will let our participants get into a locked-out meeting when the host isn't there; am I missing something?)

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Edit: Wait a minute; how is the locked-out login screen going to know whether the person is a host or alt-host? All I saw when I was locked out was a screen preventing me from entering the meeting, with a little blurb that the meeting was being hosted by someone else, and I saw no place to enter a host key or anything.... And besides, to repeat, the meeting was supposed to be set up for anyone able to join with just the meeting ID & password.

[gmachen]

Bump.... Has anyone ever personally been confronted with this locked-out screen when trying to login, and how did you get in if you were a host? Did you see a field to enter your host key?

When this happened twice last week with two separate meeting IDs, everybody just kept repeatedly trying to join, and after about 10 minutes, it seemed to clear up all by itself, and somebody managed to get in, but they didn't know whether they were a host or not. I wonder, what's up with that?