Zoom Trouble

[Joseph K]

Today I had about twenty minutes of a guitar lesson via Zoom, before the audio started distorting and slowing down with white noise.

Any ideas what might have caused this? My theory (which I hope is true) is that my laptop simply acts up when it's not continually plugged in; I think this is the case because ever since I experienced it spontaneously switching itself off even though the battery appeared not to be empty, I now keep it plugged in for the duration that I use it.

But - I had unplugged it because I wanted the laptop in a particular place for the lesson. I'll have to see if the cable is long enough.

But I would welcome people's suggestions.

[Dave2002]

That seems plausible, but may not be the reason. We have noticed problems with video and Skype, and sometimes the video is very blurry, while other times it is quite acceptable. That could be due to other network traffic, particularly at weekends, when many other people are trying to use these systems.

How long does your laptop go on a charge before needing to be plugged back in?

We also noticed that sometimes stopping a session and then restarting works to clear problems, but it's not guranteed.

[MrGongGong]

I've been doing lots on online playing etc

Zoom is a bit flaky, but if you sign on to the browser you can tweak the audio settings a bit ... get it in stereo etc
I would turn off (in the advanced audio preferences) the background noise suppression (I think there are two different ones)
and (the most significant improvement) is to avoid WIFI ... I bought a 15 metre flat CAT5 lead

Much much better than Zoom for audio and latency etc is this

https://www.jamkazam.com

(Skype audio is also better than Zoom in my experience)

There are lots of guides about like this

https://networkphil.com/2020/03/23/optimize-zoom-audio-settings-for-a-remote-music-lesson/

[Joseph K]

Actually - I probably shouldn't have said 'Zoom Trouble' because we tried on Skype but experienced the same problem - also after logging out then back in a few times on Zoom. So it's really an issue with my laptop.

Thanks for the replies. Dave - I haven't actually timed it to see how long my laptop stays on unplugged, but like I say, it does seem to need it to be plugged in continually...

[Dave2002]

My laptop sometimes seems to be generating white noise, but it's actually just the fans kicking in to cool the processor down. Listening on headphones one doesn't notice, as it's not in the audio chain.

[Joseph K]

Good news: we tried again today, with my laptop plugged in for the duration and it all went swimmingly.