Waiting room turned off in profile but participants are being put in a waiting room. Why?

[criche]

In my online Zoom account, under settings, I have "Waiting Room" turned off. However, when I set up a meeting (it doesn't matter if it is a scheduled meeting or a "start meeting" where I then send an invite link to people) people are put in a waiting room. We're just trying out zoom for a new business, so apparently, I don't have access to either phone or chat support, so I'm hoping this community can help.

Thoughts on how to fix this? Success is simply that when people join a meeting, they get right in without having to wait in a room and be admitted, regardless of if it is a scheduled meeting or a start now-type meeting.

Thanks for any help.

[Bort]

It could be that you have Waiting Room disabled as the new default, but that does not affect already scheduled meeting, which includes your PMI. Please check your settings to see if you have either Use Personal Meeting ID (PMI) when scheduling a meeting or Use Personal Meeting ID (PMI) when starting an instant meeting enabled. If that is the case, you need to edit your PMI's settings directly and disable waiting room there. Your PMI's settings can be accessed on the Meetings page under the Personal Room tab. 

[criche]

Hello Bort, you nailed it. I went into the Meetings section, clicked on the "Personal Room" tab, and then clicked edit and it was checked there. Not exactly intuitive. Very helpful.

Product suggestion: If the "global" setting for Waiting Room on someone's "Settings" tab is changed, it would be really helpful to have a dialogue pop with an option to apply to personal meeting rooms. I had no idea that Edit options for my PMI even existed, let alone knew to look there. Now I get it, but before, as a newbie, not intuitive.

Thanks for the helpful and quick response Bort.

[rossini1]

I am having the same problem and I have gone to my personal meeting ID settings and the "Waiting Room" is checked under security. My issue is, I am unable to edit (the edit button is greyed out and won't let me edit the settings) to turn off security. Can you advise as to how to fix this?

[Bort]

Do you have any other security options enabled? I believe Zoom requires at least one option enabled, such as a passcode, before you can disable Waiting Room. 

[rossini1]

I've enabled Passcode for meetings and it still doesn't allow me to edit to turn off waiting room.

[Bort]

Can you check your Settings page to see if Waiting Room is enabled and locked, as this could explain why you cannot disable it? 

[rossini1]

This is the first thing in settings:

So the question is, what setting do I need to enable to get rid of the waiting room.

[Bort]

So in your case, you will need to go to the Account Settings page to disable that same setting, which should allow allow you to adjust the settings in your meetings. This article has more info on that process: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360059665892-Requiring-meetings-to-have-one-security-optio...

[rossini1]

I have done that and I also now have it set to allow anyone in that is authenticated as my one required security feature. The mystery now deepens. I have have mirrored my settings with a colleague who is using a Mac and I am on a PC. When I try to join their meetings now, I can enter at anytime regardless if they are present while my identical settings on my PC don't allow anyone in if I am not present as host.

So this appears to be different behavior on the Mac machine vs. the PC machine with what looks to be identical settings. Any ideas based on this?

[Bort]

Very odd. Not sure why that would be the case. If you'd like to further investigate, I can get you in contact with Zoom Support for further troubleshooting. 

[rossini1]

I would appreciate that as I tried all day yesterday and it was impossible to reach a human in support. I even tried paying for Premium Support and they make that impossible as well. If you can connect me that would be great.

[Bort]

I've opened a Support ticket for you and they will be reaching out soon. The support ticket is #13684535. 

Certainly let us know what you find out! 

[rossini1]

Thanks so much. I will definitely provide an update. Fingers crossed!

[rossini1]

Bort, THANK YOU. We have finally gotten the elusive problem solved. It is beyond an awful user interface on the PC issue. On the PC, when you go to your personal room settings, pretty obscure at the bottom of the settings page is a line that says "Options" and then next to it is a SHOW button. Why it doesn't just SHOW these additional handful of options by default is the issue. When you expand that, it allows you to check a box for "allow anyone to join anytime".

This needs to be front and center on the settings page and not buried like it is. Hopefully they heed my advice. Thanks so much for all your help.

[Bort]

Great to hear!

Those options were formerly always shown, but I think it recently changed as there were so many options, it made the window to schedule a normal, quick meeting very long to scroll through. That feedback will certainly be passed along. 

[Blotriet]

Hi Bort, I am having the same issue with my bosses zoom account. Waiting room is disabled in all the places mentione din this chat but everyone still goes into the waiting room.  I have tried contacting support but just get the chatbot. Can you please assist?

[LiyaL2023]

Please help! I'm having the same problem since I'm using Mac too. Even after I checked off at the two places, the host still needed to open the room. 

[othmano]

Still doesn't work. I think this is a pretty serious bug that Zoom should address asap. 

All my settings are turned off for the waiting room (for both personal and non-personal meeting rooms), yet participants are still unable to join before the host. More seriously, I need to be signed in to the correct account to launch the meeting. 

This is a huge problem.