Mac Teams Client - Main Teams window stops displaying after a few days

[RichBaldry]

I have been running Teams client on my Mac for over a year now, through various updates and versions both of the Teams client and of MacOS. I'm currently on MacOS 10.14.6 and Microsoft Teams Version 1.3.00.4460.

What I see regularly is that the main Teams window just stops being accessible. Usually I have it running all the time in the regular display mode - not full screen - and can alt-tab switch between Teams and other apps as normal. Then, after a while, I suddenly find that when I alt-tab to Teams, the app window no longer appears. The menubar shows the Teams menu, and I can go through the menu OK, but most options have no effect. 'About Microsoft Teams' does nothing. Window > Bring All to Front does nothing. Window > Minimize does nothing, etc. The Help options mostly work, but that's about all.

The only solution is to Quit Microsoft Teams and restart the app.

It's a real pain. I frequently end up missing messages because of this. 

Has anyone else encountered this issue?

[#2]

Just wanted to add this happens with Teams version 1.4.00.4971 on 10.15.7 catalina. Was running maybe a couple hours, nowhere near a full day, when the window just disappeared. The teams app is still supposedly running, but you can't do anything and menu items like Window->Bring all to Front are all greyed out

[#3]

Still happening with Teams version 1.4.00.11161 on macOS Big Sur version 11.4 (20F71). And with every other version of Teams for Mac I have used for more than a year. Hoping the native notification functionality mentioned a couple comments earlier will fix this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/microsoft-365/roadmap?searchterms=66743&OCID=usoc_TWITTER_MicrosoftT...

[#4]

I'm another annoyed user. If I close the main chat window I have to quit and restart the app. This should be easy to fix if MSFT would have someone spend an hour on this problem.

[#5]

@RichBaldry 

Same issue.

I'm running macOS BigSur 11.6 on a 2019 MacBook Pro, and the Teams window disappears on me multiple times a week. I'm currently running Microsoft Teams version 1.4.00.22368.

As others have stated, (seemingly) randomly, when I go to switch back to Teams, the window is gone, but the application is still running. The only way to get the window back is to quit and restart the application.

Having just switched to this laptop, I was previously experiencing this issue on an older version of macOS on an older (2015) MacBook Pro.

[#6]

@RichBaldry 

I have this same issue. It's been consistent across many versions of the Mac Teams client, and across many versions of macOS. The Teams window disappears a couple of times a week, and the only fix is to quit and restart Teams.

It's a PITA, and I can't believe this is still an issue after three years or so of using Teams. Crazy.

[#7]

@ChristopherFox 

You don't have to wait a few days. Just launch Teams then close the window from the Window menu.

Now the only way to get a window back is to quit teams.

I don't know if Microsoft monitors this forum but if they do the the steps to reproduce the defect are as I just described.

I too am shocked that their QA has not caught and logged this very clear bug.

[#8]

@LOUPR625  Manually closing the window quits the Teams app. It does not replicate the issue. 

QA probably does not catch it through its normal process as you need to leave the application running for a while, and even then it's intermittent.

[#9]

It replicates on my machine under macOS 11.6 (20G165) and it reproduced under the previous MacOS as well. If you close the chat window in the app, how do you get a new window?

[#10]

@LOUPR625 

Not being able to create a new main window from the Window menu is a separate issue. We're talking about the main window disappearing on its own... not a consequence of having accidentally (or intentionally) closing it.

The main window occasionally just disappears. That should never happen, regardless of whether or not there's a way to easily instantiate a new main window.

[#11]

I have the same issue (and have had it for years with previous versions on different computers). Is there no fix for this? This alone is a reason to prefer slack (or pretty much any other messaging app)!.

[#12]

Just for the records. Actually this issue disappeared a while ago.

Currently running:

Mac OS X 11.6.1

Teams: Version 1.4.00.29478

[#13]

@ohm200xOh interesting. I'm running the same Teams version, but on Monterey 12.0.1 and it's happened probably 3-5 times this week already. I only started using this laptop on Saturday and hadn't used Teams in probably 18 months before that.

[#14]

No this issue didn't "disappear". It still exists, and is still just as annoying as ever.
I've experienced it across multiple versions of macOS and multiple versions of Teams. Currently on macOS 12.0.1 and Teams 1.4.00.29478. Just had the window disappear on me yesterday.

[#15]

This issue still exists in the versions mentioned.  I tried a month or so ago to switch to Mac OS X native notifications, hoping that it would remove the need for this buggy Teams Notification process.... however it does not.  Same behavior, just with different notification delivery mechanism.

[#16]

@gregeva and all:

please  download and share the Diagnostics logs when it happens again.  You can download it right after they have to restart Teams. Here's how to do it:

Press (Command+Option+SHFT+1) in client to download logs. Note, be sure to use the 1 on top of keyboard and not 1 from number pad as that maps to a different key. Logs will be available in Downloads folder

[#17]

@ChristopherFox 

Sorry,

I was maybe to imprecise. But for me it disappeared a while ago.

Meanwhile I am at MacOS 11.6.2 (20G314). Switching to 12.xx in the new year.

Also Mac OS allows to run different software packages and people have various hardware flying around which could influence this.

Merry Christmas / holiday seasons to you. Good start into 2022. :fireworks:

[#18]

I can confirm that MS Teams (version 1.5.00.21551) for Mac OS (11.6.8) continues to exhibit this issue on 08/24/22.

- Steve

@RichBaldry 

[#19]

Probably not really connected to your issue. BUT from time to time the calling window run on my laptop screen and not the main one. That's a weird situation as my laptop screen is dimmed or closed, but team windows constantly is running on that one. Not saying it is the solution for RichBaldy issue instead just wanted to share this observation, as someone might be in very similar situation..

[#20]

@RichBaldry 

It's clear that the Teams client doesn't play nicely. A good solution to this is to use a lesser-known feature of macOS which is, instead of simply command-tabbing to the Teams icon and letting go of the keys, alt-tab to the icon and then press the cursor up arrow. This shows all the windows of the chosen application and you can use cursor left/right to select the "lost" window.

[#21]

This cursor/arrow suggestion does not work, it simply states "No windows available", the window is literally gone. If you cmd-tab to Teams and then click the Window menu item, all options are greyed out. I've noticed over the past two and a half years that we've been forced to use Teams instead of Slack that quite often when you attempt to cmd-tab to the applications, the window does not gain focus so I have to use four-finger swipe to get to the hosting desktop. Then, the second stage of this is the root of this thread, there is no actual window to give focus to and cmd-q, re-launch is your only recourse. Most, if not all MS apps don't obey or use the native macOS capabilities such as the window manager. I have hope that MS is evolving however, when they introduced macOS-native notifications in Teams last year my jaw dropped figuring a certain firery land down under (not Oz) had frozen over. Apple appears to be trying to move to more of an iOS-style walled garden and MS will have to get onboard eventually. Either that or Apple will roll over in an attempt to grab more of the business user market share, we know that Pages and Numbers aren't taking over anytime soon.