Problem with guest users

[KakaaBalli]

I am using Microsoft Teams to conduct online classes. Therefore, I have created a class of my students. I have set up the privacy option so that only I can present.

In my class team, when I go to Manage Team, the number of Members and guests shown is not the same as the number of people shown in the list below this number. For example, it shows 65 people whereas only 61 people were listed. During the meeting session, I noticed a name being repeated twice. However, under one of these two same names word 'Guest' was written. However, I did not invite any guests. After the meeting, I removed the member with duplicate name. As a result, the problem was resolved. That is, now Members and guests shows exactly the same number of people as are there in the list. Note that my class is created using email addresses of my organization. No external email address is added in the team. I don't have admin access to the enterprise admin center, and probably guest access is allowed. Yet, I did not invite any guests.

Though I resolved the problem somehow temporarily, I don't understand the basic issue. Moreover, I would like the team member back to my team which may recreate the issue.

So, can anyone explain, what could actually be the problem? What measures and precautions should I take so that it does not happen in future.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

[#2]

Double check you added the person's proper account. They can have the same name in the list and be a guest and if you don't pay attention you could select it. When adding by full e-mail it should not pickup the guest account.

Type in their name, see if you see 2 entries. if you do that's probably what might have happen. It's possible someone else could have added the guest as well? Possibly through a join link or other invites as another owner or if you enable it other members can invite. Also others could have been invited to the Team via SharePoint or Planner task etc. as well from other users if it's enabled. Since these are also created with the Team and anyone added to those will add them to the Team as well.

[#3]

@Chris WebbThank you for your helpful reply. I am the only owner of the team, and the team members can only send a request to owner to add members as the team is configured as a class. Moreover, during a meeting, I configure myself as the only presenter, so the class students are attendees only. I added all the members through the organization email address. No external email addresses have been used.

No members were marked as guest when I created the team. The problem occurred only during a class session, when one student appeared to have duplicate presence. After the meeting, the number showing Members and guests was larger than the actual number in the list of people. I removed the student who had duplicate name during the meeting session, and this fixed the problem. So, it appears, that, that particular user caused the number to increase beyond what it should have been. Possibly hidden guests, bots or something?

Thank you in advance for your time and help.

[#4]

In the meeting they could have joined with another account, but your saying that they appeared in the Member roster when managing the Team itself? This should be the case, you might need to check the audit logs in security and compliance center for Team additions and see if you can't find the account. It's possible it could be a rendering bug or something as well, but it shouldn't add members there if that's where you are talking about.

[#5]

@Chris WebbYou are probably right. It seems to be a bug which is perhaps being exploited. The same problem appeared yet again in my meeting today. It was another student. There was excessive noise and distortion during the meeting. I saw a student whose mic was unmuted, so removed him. This solved the distortion and noise problem. Later, again in the roaster, the number of Members and guests was larger than the list in the roaster. So, I removed the suspect student from the team. This has again fixed the problem.

Thank you for your help.

[#6]

Yeah if you are going by the list in the meeting this is Probably why. Some of the students my be using the link to the meeting and be in a personal teams tenant or different login etc. when they join since they don’t have to be in the Team to join a meeting. This most likely explains the discrepancy.