New Teams - Guest Group Chat Conversation Issue (RESOLVED)

[Patricia_S-E]

Please Note: As of March 2024, this issue has been fixed in the latest update from Microsoft.

I've run into an issue in New Teams that affects the ability of guest accounts to create private chats involving multiple participants.

The Issue:
As a guest account in a Microsoft Teams environment, I have noticed a problem when attempting to initiate group chats in New Teams. It appears that while I can seemingly create a group chat, inviting two or more participants, I am unable to send any messages within this conversation. The system continually displays a "Failed to send" error message whenever I try to send a message.
What's also perplexing is that this group chat does not show up for the invited participants either. To them, it appears as if the chat conversation was never initiated, leaving them unaware of any attempt to establish a group chat with them. This issue seriously impedes the collaborative potential of guest accounts within Microsoft Teams.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Log in to Microsoft Teams as a guest account.
2. Create a new chat.
3. Add two or more participants to the chat. (See here for instructions on initiating a Group chat).
4. Attempt to send a message.
5. Observe the "Failed to send" error message.

Expected Behavior:
Guest accounts should be able to create group chats with two or more participants and send messages without encountering errors. The group chat should be visible and functional for all participants involved. This is how it has worked in Microsoft Teams up until I started using New Teams.

If you have encountered this issue or have any insights into potential solutions, please feel free to share your experiences and suggestions in this thread.

[#2]

Hello@Patricia_S-E 

welcome to the Microsoft community, my name is Recep I'll be happy to help you today.

I understand that you want Guest accounts to be able to create private group chats with two or more participants and send messages without encountering errors.

Based on the Microsoft document below, By default, any team owner or team member can create a private channel. Guests can't create them. The ability to create private channels can be managed at the team level and at the organization level. 

Reference article: IT Admins - Private channels in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

For product feedback, kindly use this link to drop your feedback about this product: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/ad198462-1c1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472


Also, providing you with the Microsoft Office 365 Roadmap Link so that you keep yourselves equipped with the newer features and functionalities - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=

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[#3]

@Deleted 

Thanks very much for your response. Unfortunately, it's not channels or private channels that I'm having problems with. It's chat (i.e. See "Group chat" in this article First things to know about chats in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Support).

It's appropriate that channels and private channels can only be created by a Team Owner or Member and not a Guest. What's a problem with New Teams is that Guests can't start a Group Chat. It doesn't appear to be a deliberate feature. It appears to be a glitch. No dialog pops up saying anything about how Guests don't have the ability to start a Group Chat. It just doesn't work. 

It still works in the original Microsoft Teams app, just not in New Teams.

[#4]

We are facing the same issue.
As a workaround it is also possible to create the chat with the web version of Teams.
Once it is fully created (first message exchanged) it can be used in New Teams without issues.

Edit: spelling

[#5]

@Patricia_S-E Looks like they have fixed this issue in the New Teams. Not sure if they fixed it in todays (3/11/2024) update or the prior one. But I started noticing it today.

[#6]

@koolvish Yes, looks like it was fixed in the prior update. I was able to create a group chat as a guest last week.