Echo Issues

When a participant joins a conference using speakers instead of headphones for output, the audio played through the speakers is captured by the participants microphone. As a result, another participant on the call will hear their own voice echoed back. The Dolby.io Communications APIs platform includes processing that identifies this echo signal and removes it from the audio sent into the conference. Please note that this concept is distinct from audio degradation that occurs when there is reverberation in the room, which is sometimes also referred to as echo. When the echo scenario changes, for example through device or volume changes, the echo processing may take a few seconds to adapt to the new scenario. When participants talk over each other, often referred to as "double-talk", the quality of the captured signal may be reduced, depending on the loudness of playback.

Troubleshooting echo issues can be difficult. However, a general principle is that the person who cannot hear the problem is the one injecting echo back into the conference.

Note: If you are experiencing echo issues, we recommend using the Chrome browser, as echo cancellation performs most reliably on the Chrome browser on both Windows and macOS.

When investigating issues with echo:

  • Use headphones or a headset to connect to the conference
  • Ensure that the speaker output level is not too high
  • Move the microphone away from the speakers to reduce the level of echo
  • Consider using the same audio device for both input and output
  • Ensure that the participant is not sitting nearby another participant connected to the same conference
  • Check whether the CPU usage is hitting maximum
  • Check if the application is playing back audio independently of the Dolby.io SDK (e.g. through an audio or video element). If so, the Dolby echo processing will be unable to remove the audio from the microphone. When adding a video element to a page, ensure that the "muted" attribute is set to "true".
  • If getUserMedia is called on a microphone, ensure that the track is stopped afterwards
  • Ensure that the echo cancellation MediaTrackConstraint is not inadvertently set to false

If further assistance is required, please contact the Dolby support team to report an audio issue.