Forum Discussion
Background effects in teams not working unless signed in
If I sign into Teams using my personal account, background effects work fine. However work policy doesn't allow me to sign into my work account from my home pc, so I access meetings as guest not signed into teams. When not signed in, the option to blur background is available but doesn't work.
How can I get background effects to work in teams when not signed in and accessing meetings as a guest?
- I also experienced the same issue in my macbook air 2017.. is there any way to solve it 😞
- Me too. Same issue.
Same issue here. Lost hours debugging this before coming to this conclusion. I can't join my customer's Teams meeting while being signed in because I get the "Your sign-in was successful but does no meet the criteria to access this resource." error.
- ThereseSolimeno
Microsoft
Hi Garethb83 I know that some features are limited for guests (which the engineering team is working on) but nowhere in our internal documentation can I find a reference to the background options not working. ChristianBergstrom , can you help here? Thank you.
Thanks ThereseSolimeno
Other members in my team have the same issue so I don't think its isolated to me. I also uninstalled Teams, restarted and reinstalled and got the same. Background effects button is there and I can 'turn it on' but blur doesn't do anything and there are no backgrounds to choose from. As soon as I login though, all my backgrounds are there to select and blur works as expected.
I've attached an screenshot of teams as guest and then after I login.
- Yes I can agree. This is from my point of view a issue. I think also a guest should blur the background without complicated login/logout hacks.
- ThereseSolimeno ChristianBergstrom Is this a bug in teams or intended behaviour?
- We have the same issue. Blur works when logged in as Personal, but when accessing client meetings as Guest, no option to blur background. I've spent ages trying to figure out what is going on, uninstalling and reinstalling Teams a few times etc! But have come to the conclusion it is due to joining the meeting as Guest which we have to do as we are not part of their organisation.
- Same here. This used to work but background effects no longer work. This is kind of bad situation as not all users are MS users but still invited to meetings.
I hope you resolve this soon otherwise I know of several companies looking to go back and make zoom or webex their enterprise standard. We just can't ask our customers, who aren't MS365 users, to use a sub-par product with limitations to communicate with us. It makes our organizations look bad. Nobody else seems to have this limitation. - I have this same issue as well.
- Any solution for the issue?
Because of this issue, I hate when people invite me for a meeting at teams, imagine working from home, and joining the meeting with your home as the background instead of the company logo.This works for me now as a guest via the web app or the windows app. Has been working for a month or so. Wonder why doesn't work for everyone?
- Hasn't worked across 4 different PCs on different accounts for nearly the last year.
This is very frustrating. Don't have this problem with Google meet, zoom, WebEx. In fact Microsoft teams is the only one that doesn't work.
UPDATE: July 1st 2022
All, it should come as no surprise that this issues persists a year later from post. Today I was a guest in a Teams meeting for a job interview. The blur option was the only option available to me in the background function. Note: no upload option was available and I'm running the application installed on my PC, not thru a browser window only.
At first, I thought the background issue was being driven by a setting of the Teams Meeting hosting company. A family member ran a test meeting with me so I could get my background options updated sort of as a dry run. As you would guess, blur and nothing else.
However, after meeting with two different firms on Teams as a guest, I'm starting to think this is systemic. I don't believe that the meeting hosting company is choosing to push this onto its meeting attendees. Its a bug!
To me, this is a huge disadvantage to Microsoft as a meeting software. If I can't control the background beyond blur I may no longer be willing to interview with "MS Teams" utilizing companies. This will eventually lead to firms dumping MS Teams if enough of us reject it as a viable meeting software. I get that MS Teams is part of Microsoft and they command of the Office environment with their suite of products. However, blurring does not truly hide a background entirely. You certainly can make out details over time with the blur function.
That said, I don't know how to get on the band wagon or rally the troops to drive Microsoft to make this fix available ASAP. Perhaps its a video on YouTube ranting on the issue and showing it to the world. If enough of us complain, they will change.
I'm open to suggestions folks. If its calling MS Customer Service, I'm up for that. If its hammering them on social media sites, they are a tech company and should be expecting it. Get off your B#tt Microsoft, enough is enough.
Chris
Anhertec Solutions
- Hi Garethb83! I am having the same issues when I am invited for interviews on Teams. The only selection available to me is BLUR. However, when I am on my personal Teams I have all the selections available and able to add backgrounds. I am surprised to why it disappears when the meeting invite is from an outside source? I hope you were able to get answers as I am waiting. Terrible thing to go on an interview with just a blurred background.
