Timing out after 40 minutes

[Susan614]

I hold weekly office hours in Zoom, ranging from 60 to 90 minutes. They are drop-in sessions. Today two students dropped in right at the start, talked with me for about 5 minutes, and then exited. There were 55 minutes left in the session. But because of this feature, the session automatically ended after 40 minutes and I wasn't able to re-start the session. The result is that if any students wanted to join me toward the end of the session, they can't.

This is a ridiculous feature. Please fix it.

[ExpertswhoJohn · Accepted solution]

The free version of Zoom is limited to 40 minutes.

The person that STARTS THE MEETING is the one to which this is applied.

So, if you want a longer meeting, you need to pay for the service.

If you have a free version, then your meeting can last only 40 minutes.

If a user with a paid version starts the meeting, then they can go longer than 40 minutes.

Anyone joining with a free account can stay as long as the meeting lasts.

All the best 

John

[Susan614]

The service is paid for through my university. It's not a free account. The 40-minute time-out rule is not limited to only free accounts.

According to Zoom, the 40 minute time-out for "inactivity" only applies if someone else joins the meeting at the start and then leaves. If I started a meeting and no one joined, the meeting would stay open for 24 hours, even though in that instance there would be no activity at all!

Thus, the purpose of the 40-minute time out policy doesn't even make any sense.

[ExpertswhoJohn]

If this was allowed, then people could have meetings whenever they liked and as long as they like, I am afraid it would allow complete abuse, and therefore, I can not see if it is happening.