Live captions not working in Teams (Potentially widespread issue?)

[LewisJFC]

Hi all, hope you can help.

I work for a local council in the UK's IT department and we were looking into why a particular user couldn't get live captions to work in Teams meetings/calls. 

All of the options are enabled to get them to work, but in teams calls, it just shows the area at the bottom of the call window where the captions should appear, but no words come up.

We updated the user's computer, and reinstalled the Teams app. We have tested this on the Teams app, as well as the browser version of Teams, on multiple computers, with different people, to the same result. The live captions simply aren't working.

The user also mentioned their sister who works for another council is also having the same issue.

Could this issue with live captions not working be widespread?

[#2]

Having the same issue here in the US - cc's was working fine up until this week, and it's the same meetings with the same people, so not an issue with new permissions from external accts

[#3]

@annacox 

I'm having the same problem as well, in Canada. Captions has been increasingly unreliable starting a week or two ago, and now it's not working at all. I'm profoundly deaf and need it to be able to do my job. Following for more answers from Microsoft.

[#4]

Thanks for your reply. The user I was corresponding with who needed these mentioned that, just like yourself, that the captions had been becoming more and more unreliable until today, when they stopped completely.

[#5]

Same here in the Netherlands. Live captioning has been borderline unusable since last week with some lags, but this week it has completely transformed into a chocolate teapot with the first sentences of hello and good morning appearing in the 8th minute of the call. This holds the same for the transcription functionality. Tried all the testings: getting called, dialing out, joins a meeting, trying the same on iPhone, asking my colleague to try on theirs - still the same. 

[#6]

This was updated in the Microsoft Admin Message Center last week. May be what's causing the issue even though it says it won't affect anything for 60 days-
Message Summary
Updated January 14, 2022: We have updated the content below to provide additional clarity. Thank you for your patience.

Today, we are excited to announce Microsoft Teams Premium. Built on the familiar, all-in-one collaboration experience of Microsoft Teams, this new offering makes every meeting from 1:1s to large meetings, to virtual appointments to webinars more personalized, intelligent, and protected. Unlike the disconnected experience and costs of multiple point products or add-ons, with Teams Premium you get everything you need for just one low price.

As part of the Teams Premium announcement, these existing features will move to Teams Premium, and will be still open for everyone for a grace period of time:

Live translation of captions – available to all until 60 days after Teams Premium General availability.
Custom together mode scenes - available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.
Timeline markers in Teams meetings recordings (join/leave meetings)- available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.
Virtual Appointments - available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.
SMS notifications
Organizational analytics in Admin Center
Scheduled queue view
Teams Premium will be generally available in February.

Message Summary
Updated January 14, 2022: We have updated the content below to provide additional clarity. Thank you for your patience.

Today, we are excited to announce Microsoft Teams Premium. Built on the familiar, all-in-one collaboration experience of Microsoft Teams, this new offering makes every meeting from 1:1s to large meetings, to virtual appointments to webinars more personalized, intelligent, and protected. Unlike the disconnected experience and costs of multiple point products or add-ons, with Teams Premium you get everything you need for just one low price.

As part of the Teams Premium announcement, these existing features will move to Teams Premium, and will be still open for everyone for a grace period of time:

Live translation of captions – available to all until 60 days after Teams Premium General availability.
Custom together mode scenes - available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.
Timeline markers in Teams meetings recordings (join/leave meetings)- available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.
Virtual Appointments - available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.
SMS notifications
Organizational analytics in Admin Center
Scheduled queue view
Teams Premium will be generally available in February.
Learn more about Teams Premium here: Introducing Microsoft Teams Premium, the better way to meet.

[#7]

@LewisJFC 

I am in Ontario, Canada as well and I am having the same issue too and it is incredibly frustrating. I am partially deaf and actually need the captions to work. For the last week, it has been incredibly buggy but it isn't working today at all (Jan 18 2023. 11.19 am) 

Is there an update or fix coming up any time soon? 

[#8]

@Carol DeMuth thanks , that explains it. Shame on Microsoft for putting accessibility behind a paywall.

[#9]

Captions are NOT behind a paywall according to that post from Carol - it's the translation of captions that will be.

[#10]

Any update....I am in the UK and same issue. It is a big issue for people that need them like me, as severely deaf.
If it was caused by an update, would telling my IT to roll back the settings to before 2 weeks ago help?

[#11]

I just confirmed through a test that starting Live captions in the Teams app on a mobile device that joins a Teams meeting enables everyone in the meeting to start Live captions on PC. This works for both enterprise and personal accounts that join the meeting on a mobile device and activate Live captions.

[#12]

I would have whoever manages your Teams Admin Center to do a ticket with Microsoft. There may have been a change to the default policy for meetings. My settings show that transcription is enabled, but defaults to off, but allows the user to override - meaning you can turn them on within the meeting by going to your meeting settings.

[#13]

Changing it in my settings doesn't help. I'll ask my company's IT for support. Thanks.

[#14]

One of our admins just indicated that Microsoft has confirmed that the mobile device workaround I mention above works. Microsoft said the issue has to do with an upgrade they put in that cause a sharp increase in resource utilization. In order to fix it, Microsoft had to turn off captions for desktop and are working on a resolution in order to turn the function back on.

[#15]

@bigbee I tried it just now and it works. Thank you!

[#16]

@AdamB-T 

I have the same problem today... how to solve?

[#17]

TEMPORARY SOLUTION (thanks to @bigbee) :

Starting Live captions in the Teams app on a mobile device that joins a Teams meeting enables everyone in the meeting to start Live captions on PC. This works for both enterprise and personal accounts that join the meeting on a mobile device and activate Live captions.

[#18]

Same problem here in Bay Area, California. I switched to my TEAMS mobile app for my meetings (added the device) in addition to joining from the desktop app as the temporary solution also reported by @bigbee. I am deaf and rely heavily on TEAMS captions. Hope this issue is resolved soon!

[#19]

Same issue exactly here in UK but also tried it on 3 different computers with 3 different account names and different ISPs so definitely a Microsoft issue. Same frustration. Sympathize with everyone

[#20]

Our company's captions have also went down, business wide. It started slowing down a couple of days ago and by yesterday afternoon they stopped completely. They are still not working today. I think Teams may be having an update, I dont appreciate that they havent sent a warning or apology about the issue. I rely on captions to communicate so it's put me in a really difficult situation @LewisJFC