FAQ - Web Conferencing BigBlueButton (BBB)

• BigBlueButton only works in the browser, there is (currently) no app.
• We recommend Google Chrome (or Chromium / the new Microsoft Edge Chromium) or Mozilla Firefox as browsers on all platforms. On the iPhone and iPad, Safari must be used, but splitting the screen and activating the virtual background are not possible there, just as on Android mobile devices. Microsoft Internet Explorer and older Edge versions are not supported.
• Browser extensions (e.g. ad blockers) can cause problems. Please deactivate them in case of technical difficulties.
• To be able to transfer your screen (desktop sharing), you should use Google Chrome and have a high-performance internet connection. We also recommend that moderators and presenters use a wired network (no WLAN).

Further requirements and notes:

• Requirements for event organisers: Central HRZ user account, PC/laptop with current browser (recommended: Chrome, Chromium or Firefox), webcam and headset (or loudspeaker and microphone).
• Requirements for participants: If used via Stud.IP and ILIAS, an HRZ user account is required; if invited via e-mail, no HRZ user account is required for participation, PC/laptop or smartphone/tablet with current browser (recommended: Chrome, Chromium or Firefox) as well as headset (or loudspeaker and microphone), webcam if applicable.
• Please make sure that no application tries to access the camera/microphone/headset/speaker in parallel. Please close these applications and do not operate comparable services in parallel in other browsers that access the camera/microphone/speaker/headset.
• If you want to use an iPad or another tablet with a stylus with the digital whiteboard, you can switch the whiteboard to "multi-user" and join the session with the iPad as the second user.

You will find the Meetings plugin as an optional tool on the "More" page of your event. To be able to use it, you must activate it. To do this, click on the box in front of "Meetings". It will now appear as a new item in the event header bar to the left of "More".

Click on "Meetings" and you will see an administration interface. There you have various functions at your disposal. The most important ones are:

• "Customise/Anpassen" (on the left in the sidebar): Here you can name "Meetings" differently, for example "Video Conference". This name then appears in the navigation.
• "Add room/Raum hinzufügen": Creates a new room in BigBlueButton.

To create a new video room (also called "meeting" in the following) in BigBlueButton, then click on the "New room" button.

You can find step-by-step instructions in the ILIAS learning module in the section Using the Stud.I plug-in "Meetings" .

To create a virtual meeting room in BBB using an ILIAS object, first click on 'Add new object' and then select the object 'Virtual meeting room'. Then give your virtual meeting room a meaningful title and add a description if necessary. Under the option 'Meeting type', you can select the specified option 'BigBlueButton'. To make your virtual meeting room visible, select the option 'Online'. To complete your entries, select 'Add virtual meeting room'.

You can find step-by-step instructions in the ILIAS learning module in the section Using the ILIAS plug-in "Virtual Meeting Room" .

• If you want to create a meeting room outside of one of the learning platforms, first navigate to the following page: webconf.hrz.uni-giessen.de/b/ldap_signin .
• Log in with your user ID (sXXXX or jXXXX for students and gXXXX for staff) and password.
• Select "Create room" on the overview page.
• Make the settings as desired.
• Invite participants to your session using the link.

You can find step-by-step instructions in the ILIAS learning module in the section Creating a BBB room outside a learning platform .

The following notes refer to the registration at http://webconf.hrz.uni-giessen.de/b (portal to create links for BBB meetings). Meeting rooms via Stud.IP or ILIAS can be reached via the respective Stud.IP event/ ILIAS course.

First check
(1) your user name and (2) your user password. Then try logging in again. Please note that you must log in with your university account. User names should be in the form sXXXXX or jXXXXX (for students) and gXXXXX (for staff).

If the problem persists, please contact the HRZ Helpdesk, also available by e-mail via support@hrz.uni-giessen.de . Please state your account and the topic when making enquiries.

• Is the correct browser being used?

• Attention: Only Chrome and Firefox are officially supported. Functioning in Safari or other browsers cannot be guaranteed.

• Is a correct link to the meeting entry being used?

• It can happen that a wrong link is shared by mistake, for example because you have created several rooms in BBB.
• When sending an invitation link: It is also possible that the link was not copied completely or that e-mail programmes wrap the link so that it is not copied completely in the browser.

• Other problems: Often a reload of the page, a restart of the browser as well as clearing the cache and deleting the cookies will help. Please make sure to use the latest version of the browser you are using!
• Disable VPN if it is currently in use and try connecting to the web conference again.
• Check your firewall settings if you are using a personal firewall.

Source: ILIAS learning module " Information and learning videos about BigBlueButton ".

Yes, dial-in is possible, but should only be used to connect individual participants without an internet connection or to enable participation at short notice in an emergency, e.g. if the audio connection via the browser cannot be established for technical reasons.
Dial-in to a web conference by telephone is via a telephone number in the local network. The dial-in number and PIN are displayed in the public chat area after the room has been started.

Please also note the following information:

1. Only after starting a room is it known which call number and PIN are necessary for successful dial-in. If the room/conference is closed, the dial-in data is also invalid. It is therefore not possible to send the participants the telephone dial-in data in advance.
2. For a successful dial-in, at least one other person must be present in the conference room and connected by audio via the browser.
3. If telephone participants are muted by the moderator, only the participants themselves can unmute them by pressing the number "0" on the telephone.
4. To switch to a break-out room, it is necessary to dial in again using the telephone number of the main room. The respective PIN is displayed in the public chat of the break-out room.

Often this error pattern is also associated with error message 1007.

1. Try a different web browser. We currently recommend using the Chrome or Firefox web browsers, as these currently work most reliably. Safari under OS X often reports connection or authorisation problems.
2. Check in the browser whether access to your microphone / your webcam is permitted: Click on the lock icon to the left of the address line, here you can check and grant permission if necessary.
3. Please make sure that no application tries to access the camera/microphone/headset/speaker in parallel. Please close these applications and do not operate comparable services in parallel in other browsers that access the camera/microphone/speaker/headset.
4. Switch off ad blockers and content filters in your browser.
5. Deactivate possible VPN connections and try again.
6. Check your firewall settings on the PC/laptop. This must not block the following ports: TCP/IP ports 80/443 (for HTTP/HTTPS) and UDP ports in the range 16384 - 32768 ( Further information ).
7. If the problem exists on a workstation computer in the JLU network, contact the Helpdesk of the HRZ . As a workaround, you can also connect your laptop or tablet to the "eduroam" WLAN networks - if reception is good enough - and test whether it works better via WLAN.
8. If the problem is on your private internet connection: If the problem on your devices only occurs via LAN/WLAN, but not via mobile radio (e.g. on your smartphone or on your PC/laptop via the smartphone hotspot), there may be a problem with your network configuration. In some cases, it helps to reset the router to factory settings.
9. If the problem persists, please perform the following tests:

• https://webcasts.com/webrtc/ (WebRCT test: camera, microphone, internet, ports etc.).
• https://ipv6-test.com/ (test network connectivity and speed).

Please take screenshots of the results of both tests and send them by e-mail to support. Please include your user ID and a specific description of the problem as well as the following information:

(a) Physical network connection (e.g. Ethernet, WLAN, DSL, cable connection, LTE),

(b) Virtual network connection (e.g. VPN yes/no),

(c) Operating system (e.g. Windows 10, Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 10, OS X, Android 8),

(d) web browser (e.g. Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer, Safari), and

(e) your telephone number where we can reach you.

Yes, click on the burger menu (three dots on top of each other) of the respective room in the Webconf interface (Greenlight) and select "Room settings". Here you can create a moderator code with which participants are upgraded to moderator when they enter the room. This allows them to start a room without the room creators or other moderators with a JLU account having to be present.

1. In the teaching context: If possible, use BBB via Stud.IP or ILIAS.
2. Do not share the link to the meeting/BBB room publicly, but only send it after registration (e.g. by e-mail).
3. Always provide meetings/BBB rooms with an access code. You can also change this access code after each meeting and send it out again to limit the distribution of the access code.
4. Use waiting rooms or the function that each joining of a BBB room must be confirmed in advance by the person administering the room. This can be done in the BBB settings.
5. Screen sharing is only for meeting moderation - please make sure to give these rights to selected persons only.
6. For webinars or larger events: Allow only the moderation to activate the microphone; or automatically mute the participants. To do this, left-click on the symbol of the person in the participant overview whom you want to mute. Then select "Mute participants".
7. You can remove persons from ongoing video conferences (rejoining possible) or ban them (permanent exclusion of this account). To do this, left-click on the symbol of the person you want to remove in the participant overview. Then select "Remove participant". To prevent removed participants from entering the room again, select the box with the option "Block participant" and confirm your entry.

BBB achieves Level AA of WCAG 2.0. This review and our own tests have revealed the following limitations:

• In some circumstances, there may be barriers when entering the room, e.g. due to inaccessible browser security warnings.
• The presentations and documents shown cannot be shown barrier-free via the presentation mode. They must be designed according to accessibility rules and otherwise made accessible to students.
• The "shared notes" window can be used with assistive technologies in a limited way. However, this requires small-step moderation and longer editing times, because screen readers, for example, immediately jump into editing mode and any changes are directly online. Text mark-ups can be made using the appropriate keyboard shortcuts, but the user's own and other people's formatting is not perceptible (only the text is reproduced).
• The subtitle function is only accessible to a limited extent.
• The help is not accessible.

Please also note the Quick guide of the University of Marburg for teachers with recommendations on how to reduce barriers in online courses.

You can find more information here: bigbluebutton.org/accessibility

General advice for teachers that benefits all seminar participants is summarised in the document "Reducing barriers in online courses - recommendations for teachers" .

In this case, the internet connection is probably overloaded. All participants should try to switch off the cameras. Parallel downloads and uploads should be paused.

Source: ILIAS-Lernmodul "Informationen und Lernvideos zu BigBlueButton"

1. Someone has muted themselves: This can be recognised by the fact that the microphone is displayed in red in the user overview on the left-hand side. Simply click on the microphone icon in the middle of the conference.
2. Someone has joined without a microphone. This can be recognised by the fact that a headphone symbol is displayed next to the name instead of a microphone. Here you have to log out of the meeting and select the microphone icon when joining the meeting again.
3. Someone is using Chrome or Firefox on an Apple device: In this case, please check in the browser's settings under Preferences/Privacy if the browser has permission to share the microphone.
4. Is the correct microphone selected? The browser line often shows when access to the microphone is granted, there you can also determine by clicking which microphone is to be used. For example, if someone has connected a headset to the laptop, the changeover to the new microphone does not always happen automatically.
5. Is the microphone in the system muted or very quiet? This error happens more often with Windows 10. In this case, users can go to the Windows settings (Control Panel) and look for the microphone settings in the "Sound" menu. There, one can select the correct microphone and adjust the input volume.

Source: ILIAS learning module "Information and learning videos on BigBlueButton" .

If people without a camera participate in your BBB meeting, no black tile appears as a placeholder. They are only listed in the list of participants (right side column).

1. The upload limit for a presentation is 25 MB. If you cannot compress the presentation or want to split it into several files, use screen sharing as a workaround.
2. If your presentation is smaller than 25 MB but still cannot be uploaded, this may also be due to a failed conversion. In this case, save the presentation as a PDF file and try uploading again.
3. If the file name of the presentation contains special characters, remove them before uploading.

Screen sharing is technically not suitable for presenting videos. Please use the "Share external video" function (currently possible for: Youtube, Vimeo etc.). Audio can be shared when using Chrome or Chromium as a browser. (Also usable for playing local audio files when opened with the browser).

The "screen sharing" function is not available on mobile devices with Android or iOS due to system limitations. Please use a PC or laptop instead.

1. Someone is using Chrome or Firefox on an Apple device: In this case, please check in the settings of the browser (often the three dots at the top right) under Settings/Data Protection whether the browser has permission to share the screen.
2. Check whether the moderator has allowed the participants in the room to share the screen.
3. Check whether the presenter has the function to share your screen.

Source: ILIAS learning module "Information and learning videos on BigBlueButton" .

Camera or microphone sharing suddenly stops working in BBB from one session to another.

Please delete cache and cookies of your used web browser and delete all allowed camera and microphone shares of the previously used BBB instances (e.g. g01.worker.uni-marburg...) under  privacy settings of your web browser.

If the participants of a meeting are not automatically assigned to a group room, this may be due to the following reasons:

• Participants have moderator rights.

You can recognise this by the square icons in the participant list.
The automatic assignment only works with persons who only have participant rights. This can be recognised by the round participant icons. Moderator rights completely override the function, as moderators are able to switch freely between all rooms and thus, for example, supervise group work in several rooms.

• The option "Allow participants to choose their own group room" is activated.

Make sure that this option is not enabled in the Group Rooms dialogue box. By default, this option is disabled.

• The change does not happen automatically or individual participants do not find the group room.

In order to change the room, in BBB the individual persons must first confirm a dialogue box before they are forwarded to the group room. The change itself does not happen completely automatically as it does in Webex or Zoom, but only after active consent by the participants.

The dialogue box appears after you, as the group leader, have clicked on "Create" in the group rooms dialogue box. If individual participants have not agreed here, they must register themselves in the room via the participant list.

These errors are called WebRTC errors. These errors can have different causes.

Error 1001: WebSocket disconnected / WebSocket connection disconnected - The WebSocket connection could initially be established, but then lost the connection. The reason for this may be that the Internet connection is unstable or has been lost completely. Therefore, check your internet connection or use a LAN cable.

Error 1002: Could not make a WebSocket connection - In this case, a bidirectional WebSocket connection could not be established initially. This is usually a problem with the network/internet connection and the corresponding configuration of a (personal) firewall. This is what you can do:

1. Turn off ad blockers and content filters in your browser.
2. Disable any VPN connections and try again.
3. Check your firewall settings on the PC/laptop. This must not block the following ports: TCP/IP ports 80/443 (for HTTP/HTTPS) and UDP ports in the range 16384 - 32768 (Further information).
4. If the problem exists on a workstation computer in the JLU network, contact the Helpdesk of the HRZ. As a workaround, you can also connect your laptop or tablet to the "eduroam" WLAN networks - if reception is good enough - and test whether it works better via WLAN.
5. If the problem is on your private internet connection: If the problem on your devices only occurs via LAN/WLAN, but not via mobile radio (e.g. on your smartphone or on your PC/laptop via the smartphone hotspot), there may be a problem with your network configuration. In some cases, it helps to reset the router to factory settings.
6. If the problem persists, please carry out the following tests:
- https://webcasts.com/webrtc/ (WebRCT test: camera, microphone, internet, ports, etc.).
- https://ipv6-test.com/ (network connectivity and speed test).
Please take screenshots of the results of both tests and send them by e-mail to support . Please include your user ID and a specific description of the problem as well as the following information:
(a) Physical network connection (e.g. Ethernet, WLAN, DSL, cable connection, LTE),
(b) Virtual network connection (e.g. VPN yes/no),
(c) Operating system (e.g. Windows 10, Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 10, OS X, Android 8),
(d) web browser (e.g. Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer, Safari), and (e) your telephone number where we can reach you.

Error 1003: / Browser version is not supported - The browser you are using is too old. Please update the browser or switch to a current version of Chrome or FireFox.

Error 1007: ICE negotiation failed - The browser and BBB have attempted to negotiate the ports to be used for the video conference and this negotiation has failed. Possible causes:
- NAT is blocking the connection
- The firewall is blocking the UDP connection/ports.
Problem solution: See error 1002

Error 1020: Media cloud not reach the server / Camera/screen sharing failed - The error occurs when you try to share your webcam or screen in BigBlueButton. The error states that your browser could not establish a video connection to the conference. This is what you can do:

- Current information for users of Apple devices: If you use an Apple device (Mac / iPad / iPhone / ...), please update your device to the latest version. Apple has installed a bug in all iOS versions up to 14.2, or on Mac OS in Safari up to version 14.0.1, which prevents a video connection (webcam / screenshare) from being established. As a result, you will see error 1020. As of iOS version 14.3 or Safari version 14.0.2, this error has been fixed. This is how you carry out an update: Open the Settings app and go to "General" on the left and then "Software update" on the right.
Due to this Apple error, it is possible that even updated devices still have the wrong settings saved. This means that even current devices do not seem to work. However, this can be easily remedied:

a) Please restart your device and see if this helps.
b) Otherwise, please delete your saved website data. This can be done as follows: Open Settings, select Safari on the left, then scroll down to "Clear history and website data" on the right. Please note, however, that this will delete website data such as passwords stored on your device. You may have to enter them again.

- Update your browser
It sounds trivial, but we observe that new browsers behave much more stable when connecting than older versions. One example of many is Google Chrome, in which older versions seem to have problems when internet connections provide IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time (DualStack operation). This is now the case with more and more internet connections.
- Try to connect to the videoconference server via another internet access. If in doubt, you can try to provide a hotspot with your mobile phone and use it to connect your PC to the Internet.
- If changing the Internet connection does not work, try a different browser. Chrome or Firefox in their latest versions are ideal for BigBlueButton.

Since the ILIAS object "Virtual meeting room" has not been available for a long time, it may not yet be displayed in courses that were created before the integration.

You will find step-by-step instructions in the ILIAS learning module in the section "Creating the Virtual Meeting Room plug-in in "old" ILIAS courses" .

A waiting room can be set up, for example, to admit students one at a time to a virtual consultation. They are in a queue before being admitted.
If you have set the default setting "Approval by the moderator before the room can be entered" via webconf or "Participation must be confirmed by the moderator" in Stud.IP under data protection settings. a queue is created during the use of the room and you can admit the waiting participants. This can be done in order of appearance or by name.

As soon as the first person enters the waiting room, you will see the waiting room above the list of participants and you can open it. There you have the possibility to set an individual notification for the page that the waiting people see. This individual message will be displayed for new waiting people after a few seconds. Before that, there is the standard text "Please wait until a moderator releases your participation in the conference.".
Information on how to set up a consultation with a queue or waiting room can be found on the Philipps Universität Marburg website: Counselling at a Distance - Planning and Conducting Consultation Hours .

• In Stud.IP: Click on the cogwheel symbol in the room overview, there you can make "privacy settings" in the room configuration. Here you can assign moderation rights, among other things.
• In ILIAS: If you make people administrators of your ILIAS course/group, they automatically have moderation rights for all rooms in the course/group.
• In the Webconf interface (Greenlight): Click on the burger menu (three dots on top of each other) of the respective room and select "Manage access". Here you can share rooms with other people, but they must have logged into the Webconf interface once beforehand.

Click on the icon with the three dots at the top right, select "Open settings" and set the option "Display webcams page by page" to "OFF". Please note that this requires a correspondingly fast internet connection and, above all, a powerful computer (recommendation: use up to a maximum of 25 cameras).

With version 2.4. of BigBlueButton, webcams can be freely arranged for presentation so that space can be used optimally and flexibly. With a click on the top right of the menu (three dots), "Open settings" can be selected. In the "Application" tab, the basic layout of the BBB user interface can be changed.

Four basic layouts are available in "Layout mode":

• The user-defined layout.
• The automatic layout
• The "Presentation in the centre" layout
• The "Video in the centre" layout

Facilitators can set this layout for themselves (red box) or for all participants (green box). The participants themselves have the possibility to change to another basic layout at any time.

BigBlueButton (BBB) is an OpenSource software. The development of BBB is organized by a core developer team from the developer community (see also BigBlueButton Development Process ).
20 German universities have joined forces through the ZKI association to coordinate academic needs for BBB. Through crowdfunding, development capacity for the needs of German universities is being created at Blindside Networks Inc. Much has already been incorporated into the current version 2.4. The following document gives an overview: https://zenodo.org/record/5905309
Among other things, it is also noted there that work is being done on an iOS app that will enable screen sharing.
You can also find out about the latest BBB developments on the What's new? page. Currently, new versions are released after about 6 months. The next update to version 2.5 is expected to be during the semester break between SoSe 22 and WiSe 22/23.
The JLU uses the BBB installation of the Philipps-Universität Marburg. The University of Marburg is involved in the above-mentioned crowdfunding initiative of the ZKI association, so that we can also pass on functional enhancements and changes via the University of Marburg. These will then be evaluated and prioritized in the consortium of 20 universities as described above.
Please report your change and extension requests via the e-mail address
bbb

The webcams are not initially displayed mirrored (this is how webcams can also be used as document cameras, for example). However, the view can be changed to "mirrored": click on its name in the lower left corner of the webcam image and select "Mirror".

Click on the name of the person in the lower left corner of the webcam image and select "Zoom in" (possible with three or more shared webcams).

• Audio: Select "No" at the end of the echo test, you can then select another audio source. (If you are already connected, click on the audio icon and select another source).
• Webcam: Disconnect the webcam and connect again, you can then select another webcam from the drop-down list. With the webcam activated, click on the webcam icon to activate a second camera.

If you only want to use the hardware echo and noise suppression of e.g. your lavallier microphone, you can switch off the BBB filters: Burger menu top right -> Audio Filters for Microphone: OFF. Attention, this can lead to a very strong degradation of the sound quality, so the default setting is always ON.

• Chat: Select "Save" in the chat options on the right, you can save a text document.
• Whiteboard: A backup can only be made via a screenshot.
• Shared notes: Click on the donwload button on the right and export to target format of your choice.

When the camera is activated in BBB, a dialogue appears in which, among other things, the quality of the video transmission can be selected. Virtual backgrounds are also available for selection. This function is currently not supported by all browsers.
You cannot (currently) add your own virtual backgrounds directly in BBB. Alternatively, you can use third-party programmes such as OBS Studio or Snap Camera (instructions) to create your own virtual backgrounds.

Instructions on how to share audio files in BBB can be found on the pages of Philipps Universität Marburg .

If you share access with another user, the room is also stored on the user's start page and can also be started there by the user. However, the room settings cannot be changed by the person. Please note that it is not possible to access recordings, as this function is currently not available.

Yes, this is possible in principle. If an iPad is used, it must be added to the session as an additional second user, as direct sharing of the screen on it is not possible due to the system. After the whiteboard has been switched to "multi-user" by the moderator, it can be used from the iPad.