Connecting to BigBlueButton

Problem

When learners connect to the BigBlueButton video conferencing system, they need to connect to certain ports for their audio, video and screen sharing to work. With more and more users taking courses from home, it's hard to control their networking environment.

Solution

Prior to joining a BigBlueButton session, you should ask your learners to run the test found at https://www.webrtc-experiment.com. If any of the tests fail, it's possible that one of the services (e.g. audio, video and/or screen sharing) will fail. When running the "Microphone" test, the user should be speaking into their microphone. Even if the microphone is connected, if the user is silent during this test, the test will report a failure because it cannot hear the user.

If you are an IT Administrator at your organization and your users are trying to connect to BigBlueButton from within your network, please note the following:

  • For TCP ports, users must be able to connect to the BigBlueButton server on port 80/443 (HTTP/HTTPS).

  • For UDP ports, users must be able to connect on a port within the range 16384-32767 for WebRTC-based audio

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