Forum Discussion
Blur Background on Mac OS
I am using a Macbook Pro to work remotely. The blur background feature is helpful, but it appears to be absent in Teams for Mac. I noticed the blur feature support page says it's not available on Linux yet but does not mention Mac.
I was quite sure they said Mac support was coming at last or the previous year MS Ignite conference. Am I missing something?
I've tried with my internal Macbook camera and an external logitech, neither of which seem to work. I have also downloaded the latest release of Teams for Mac.
If this is supposed to be available, what am I missing?
Thanks!
Both of my macs reported in "machdep.cpu.features" only AVX1.0. I executed this command
sysctl - a | grep avx
On one mac (blur disabled) I got
hw.optional.avx1_0: 1
hw.optional.avx2_0: 0On another mac (blur enabled) I got
hw.optional.avx1_0: 1
hw.optional.avx2_0: 1
- Honestly, I think it's the AVX1.0 hardware limitation. I was given a new macbook air, and it works fine. The mid-2012 macbook just didn't have the specs MS wanted and they disabled it.
While I would have preferred to not have to run a terminal command to figure this out, I believe I know why this isn't working.
My Macbook Pro does not support AVX 2.0.
sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features
machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX EST TM2 SSSE3 CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE TSCTMR AVX1.0 RDRAND F16C
Let me know if you think this is not the case.
doug4772 That's weird. I used to have the background blur option avaiable on my iMac teams app, but it's gone now. I checked the terminal command line and do not show AVX2.0 either.
manoelguedes I see the same thing on my 2013 Macbook Air.
The blur feature in Teams was present and worked a couple weeks ago but it disappeared after an update.
Looks like Microsoft chose to disable it if you only have AVX1.0.
Both of my macs reported in "machdep.cpu.features" only AVX1.0. I executed this command
sysctl - a | grep avx
On one mac (blur disabled) I got
hw.optional.avx1_0: 1
hw.optional.avx2_0: 0On another mac (blur enabled) I got
hw.optional.avx1_0: 1
hw.optional.avx2_0: 1Grandswiss Thanks for further confirmation that AVX2.0 is the discriminator.
Now if only we can get someone at Microsoft to discuss why they changed the code to require it when blur worked fine on AVX1.0 devices on the previous version of Teams.
doug4772 I got the same result on my MacBook Pro (i5 2018) too. Odd, as AVX2 dates back several years. Turns out there's another command to show extended instruction sets:
sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.leaf7_features machdep.cpu.leaf7_features: RDWRFSGS TSC_THREAD_OFFSET SGX BMI1 AVX2 SMEP BMI2 ERMS INVPCID FPU_CSDS MPX RDSEED ADX SMAP CLFSOPT IPT MDCLEAR TSXFA IBRS STIBP L1DF SSBD
doug4772 Same issue on a Macbook Air M1 Big Sur end-2020. All the buttons are here, but when the Background effects side bar opens, it's empty, so I cannot choose anything!
Reading this thread, I found a user suggesting to use Ctrl-Shift-P on PC. I tried the equivalent on Mac, Cmd-Shift-P: it works!
- Right, but my point is the blur is missing from the ellipsis and this is on a Mac.
- Laurie Pottmeyer
Microsoft
Just incase - did you check the hardware requirements? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/hardware-requirements-for-the-teams-app
If everything looks good there, try to update your Teams app. Sometimes that has worked for people who didn't see it.
- The optional Blur my background video effect requires a processor with Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2) support, supported on most late 2013 Mac devices and later. See Hardware decoder and encoder driver recommendations for a list of unsupported decoders and encoders.
- Joining a meeting using proximity detection in a Microsoft Teams Room is not available on Mac OS.
- Doug and I likely have similar vintage (early 2013) macbooks that do not support AVX2.
The output of `sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features` is identical to what he posted earlier.
I reinstalled Teams on 4/16 without any change.
The strange thing is that the background blur used to work and now it does not.
If it never worked then I could accept the reason being the lack of AVX2.0 support. Laurie Pottmeyer I have the blur feature and it works, but none of the other backgrounds work. When I click on one of them, it just spins, hangs and never changes. Anyone know why this is?
As Grandswiss noted, the command sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features is not sufficient to check a given Mac's ability to support AVX 2.0. That command returns only "AVX1.0", even if the CPU supports AVX 2.0. You must use sysctl - a | grep avx and look at the hw.optional.avx2_0 line to see if it's supported or not.
The question is why AVX 2.0 is even needed...Zoom and many other developers do this on a wide range of machines without limiting it to newer processors, and MS previously support Background Blur on these AVX 1.0 machines (like previous-generation Mac Pros). Smells like lazy developers.....
At the very least, MS should still support Background Blur on AVX 1.0 machines, and leave the fancier background images to AVX 2.0, even though I don't see that as necessary.
I'm hoping that MS did this to quickly get their fancier background processing out the door to better compete with Zoom, and that they'll eventually add AVX 1.0 machines back into the mix in a subsequent version as they get more time.
Hi there, late 2014 MBA here without AVX2.0.
I can't see the options on-screen but if I press Shift+Cmd+P during a call my background gets blurred.
Hope it helps.
nachotronics it helps a lot, actually. Thanks, it works!
Kudos to the Teams development group for doing the right thing. I tested the new version on my Mac Pro (2013), and I can now see the menu item, and all the background effects work like a charm with the processor's AVX 1.0 extensions.
MontyPyspockwhat version do you use? I have 1.3.00.9271 (5.5.2020). Does not seem to work on my MBP, mid2012.
I have a 2020 MacBook Pro, which I assume has enough graphic processing power to do anything Microsoft would want to throw at it.
If I log out of Teams then join someone else's Teams call as a guest, I have the background blur slider switch available, and it works fine.
If I log into my university email account and join some else's Teams call as a registered user, the background blur option is not available.
For what it's worth.
