Ignite Live Blog: Session THR4004: Microsoft Teams: Real-world Troubleshooting

[Michael Blumenthal]

On Thursday morning, November 7, 2019, at Microsoft Ignite in Orlando, Florida, @Tom Arbuthnot  shared his tips and tricks for troubleshooting Microsoft Teams.

#1 Know Microsoft Teams and Stay Up to Date

First, you need to be up to speed on Microsoft Teams as a product.  Here's the resources that Tom recommends so you can have the foundational product knowledge that you need.

• Office 365 Roadmap - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap
  
• Office 365 Message Center – Office 365 Admin center / Health / Message center
  
• Office 365 Service Health - The Service Health Dashboard (SHD) 
  
  • Now with email alerts!
    
• Office 365 IP Addresses / URLs web service & documentation - https://docs.microsoft.com/en/us/office365/enterprise/office-365-ip-web-service
  
• Known Issues List - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/known-issues
  
• Teams Blog - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/bg-p/MicrosoftTeamsBlog
  
• Teams Documentation - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-overview
  

  • Note that this documentation is generated from GitHub, so you can contribute to it.  Create a GitHub account for free and log issues or provide improvements to the content.

#2 Answer the key questions

Second, have a good list of troubleshooting questions really helps you quickly dig into whatever endpoint issues a user reports.  His list of questions includes:

1. Has this ever worked?
2. Does the problem affect all users or just one user?
3. Are the Settings and Policies assigned correctly? Remember that it can take up to 12 hours for policies to replicate, although they typically replicate in an hour.  Microsoft's service level agreement for changes that replicate is twice that 12 hour max - 24 hours, so if a change has to replicate, allow up to a full day.
   
4. Is the problem reproducible on a different web bowser?  What about if you use the browser's incognito or private mode? Does the problem occur on the mobile app too?
5. Is the problem reproducible on aanother PC or on another network?
6. Have you cleared the client cache?
   

#3 Logs

Next, Tom gave us a tour of the diagnostics available.  Since Microsoft Teams is Software as a Service, you have no access to server logs, only client logs and the tools Microsoft provides.

In terms of logging, there are three kinds of log files available:

1. Debug Logs
2. Desktop Logs
3. Media logs

You obtain the Debug Logs by using a special keystroke sequence. On Windows, it's CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+1.  On Mac it's OPTION+COMMAND+SHIFT+1.

Desktop Log files are in %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams\logs.txt on Windows and ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/logs.txt on Mac. 

Media logs require special tools to parse, which only Microsoft has.  You'll need to open a support case and submit the logs that you find in the following locations:

• Windows
  1. %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams\media-stack\*.blog
     
  2. %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams\skylib\*.blog
     
  3. %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams\media-stack\*.etl
     
• Mac
  1. ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/media-stack/*.blog
     
  2. ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/skylib/*.blog

Finally, for Teams IP Phones, the logs are in the Teams Admin Center.  The official documentation on Teams log files is at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/log-files.

#4 Tools

Besides the logs, there are a number of diagnostic tools at your disposal:

1. You can conduct a network trace.  Common tools for this are Fiddler or Charles, both proxy tools.  You can also use the Network section of your web browser developer tooling.
2. You can look at the Call Analytics (per user call reports) and Call Quality Diagnostics in the Teams admin site.
3.  You can run the Network Assessment Tool for Teams (it's also for Skype For Business). 
4.  You can review the Direct Routing Usage Reports, which include SIP codes.
5. You can run the Direct Routing SIP Tester PowerShell Script which tests:
   1. Outbound and inbound calls
   2. Simultaneous ring
      
   3. Media escalation
      
   4. Consultative transfer

In summary, once you get familiar with Microsoft Teams and its latest capabilities, you have a variety of tools at your disposal to help you troubleshoot when something goes wrong!

Watch the entire session at https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/80070 .

About The Speaker

Tom Arbuthnot

A Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Certified Master, @Tom Arbuthnot is Principal Solutions Architect at Microsoft Collaboration specialists Modality Systems. Tom stays up to date with industry developments and shares news and his opinions on his blog, Microsoft Teams Podcast and email list. He is a regular speaker at events around the world.

About the Blogger

Michael Blumenthal

@Michael Blumenthal is a Microsoft Office 365 MVP and the Office 365 Platform Lead at a large company in the insurance industry. He helps teams of business people be more productive and ensures that the organization gets value from its Office 365 investment. He co-leads the Office 365 Adoption User Group (Chicagoland Chapter) and organizes their bi-monthly meetings as well as special events. As a public speaker, he can be found speaking on business technology topics including business productivity, collaboration, knowledge and expertise management, communication and content management, cloud adoption, and Office 365.  Hear him year-round at Chicago-area technology events and user groups as well as national conferences such as Microsoft Ignite.

[Tom Arbuthnot]

Thanks for the great write up!

[Jeffrey Allen]

Great write up!