Chat button missing in a Teams Meeting?

[Mike Boehm]

Howdy,

We had a Teams Meeting with around 150 people and a bunch of people didn't have the Chat button to click in the action bar to open the side panel.  I had the issue and accidentally left the meeting and went back in and then I had the button.  After the meeting was over, lots of people reported they didn't have the chat button so they couldn't submit questions to the meeting.

Does anyone know if this is a known issue or why it might have happened and if there's a way to make it not happen again?  🙂

Thanks.

[#2]

@Mike Boehm Having the exact same issue in our tenant as well. We have been suggesting people to leave and re join and that has been fixing the issue. Not sure what the cause is though.

[#3]

@Mike Boehm we had the same issue last week with around 60 people 😞 Unfortunately without any solutions yet. But workaround by exit and rejoin the meeting seems to work.

[#4]

@Mike Boehmwe are also having this issue...both internal and external meeting participants.

[#5]

@Mike Boehm did you ever get an answer as to why this happens? Even leaving the meeting and coming back in didn't work for some people. Users were very frustrated.

[#6]

@Lucia_DowntonNope.  Today we had a different issue where I saw the button but it was grayed out and told me I wasn't a part of the team or something like that.  Had to go out and back in and then it started working again.

[#7]

We have learned that chat is only available to the first 100 people to join the meeting. If people leave and rejoin this is why sometimes they get the chat appear because they have moved from attendee 120 to attendee 95.
If a chat is linked to a Team or channel - only the members get the chat.
If it's a stand alone Teams meeting then everyone invited can see and post in the chat.

[#8]

@HannahH2020  I experienced this today with people in my meeting. We had 228 people and just a few complained that their chat button was unavailable. next time I'll suggest that they leave and rejoin next time but it's not a great solution really. maybe this is one for Microsoft to look at.

[#9]

@Mike Boehm Were you originally invited to the meeting that this occurred in? (grayed out chat button) or did you get the link copied and sent to you. I've noticed this consistently happening when I am not invited to a meeting but rather sent a link to join instead. Unsure if bug or feature. 

@HannahH2020 That kind of stinks. I feel that if full functionality is only available to the first 100 people, then Teams meetings should be advertised to support 100 people, not 250 (currently). Seems a little misleading if that is the case. Hopefully this will be resolved with the upcoming attendance increase.  

[#10]

@HannahH2020 

We're trying to run training sessions with an external organisation. We've had the disappearing or dimmed-out chat button before and it comes up with a message telling people that they need to be members of the team. So this time we went through all the palaver of making the guests part of the appropriate team. The button is still absent or dimmed-out for the guests.

[#11]

@NeilHoskins 

We have also been running sessions with external people and we've found that the experience is very limited for those who don't have a Microsoft Teams account.

The only aspects we can rely on is audio and visual. 

Some features are only available to those with the desktop application. This includes the 'raise hand' feature, background blur and adding background images.

Chat in Teams is something we thought would be accessible to everyone, but like you we've had users telling us it's not in their menu bar! We assume this is a limitation of the device they are using or the browser application. 

Teams is currently available for free so if users do 'sign up' they will have better features.

Do note that the external users email address will show to others inside Teams, we've had to be very careful of this due to the nature of our work and general data protection regulations.

[#12]

@Mike Boehm  and others

We are experiencing the same issue....with and without external users, meetings of all sizes.  I wish there was some outline of why it occurs and how to rectify.  The solution of leaving and returning doesn't always work.

[#13]

Our solution came from our client, who had encountered the problem before. Simply avoid having the meeting within a channel. So when you arrange the meeting in the Teams calendar, do not add a channel. 

[#14]

@NeilHoskinsLDnH 

Correct but then you get a message that only members of the channel can access chat....however, I am speaking about "no Chat" at all...and it is a meeting invite from outlook without channel.

[#15]

we've the same problem ... Multiple users can not see the chat icon

But they should have the necessary rights to see the Chat button via Setup policy

App setup policies / global -> pinned Apps:

- Activity

- Chat

- Teams

- Calendar

- Calling

- Files

Does anybody has an idea? 

[#16]

@DominikA9522 

We've had a chat go AWOL in a 3-man meeting today. Trying to open chat for a meeting in Teams (via calendar) says it does not exist (well duh...) and a file uploaded to share vanished. Can't find the chat in Teams app under chats, either.

[#17]

@HannahH2020 Was there a specific reference article that mentioned the 100 person limit?

[#18]

Hi, I believe this has since been upgraded and now the limit is 300 attendees in a Teams meeting and they will all have access to chat. 

You can find the limits here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/limits-specifications-teams (check out the section on 'Meetings and calls')

[#19]

Thank you @HannahH2020  - I currently have a user whose Chat button randomly disappears in meetings, and all of them are much smaller than 100 people. Of course the person it is happening to it my CIO, so I have that going for me ...

[#20 · Accepted solution]

Annoying for you! @4BobRandall A couple of things i'd suggest...

1) Get them to download the Teams desktop app if they are using the web app. There should be a download button bottom left of the app.

2) Upgrade to the new Teams meeting features - select profile pic and choose settings and tick the box for 'turn on new meeting experience' it requires restarting Teams so right click the teams icon and 'quit' then reopen Teams.