Host user sometimes joins as participant randomly in Web SDK

[TeKer]

Hi,

I’m using the Zoom Web SDK to join/start meetings and I’m seeing a strange behavior where a user who should be the host sometimes joins as a participant instead — and it happens randomly.
(zoom/meetingsdk: “^3.13.2”)

According to the docs:

role: 0 specifies participant, 1 specifies host.

Here’s an example of the data I send before generating the JWT token:

{
  meetingNumber: "12132526369",
  role: 0,
  zoomPassword: "1234",
  userName: "John Doe",
  userEmail: "john.doe@example.com"
}

{
  meetingNumber: "12132526369",
  role: 1,
  zoomPassword: "1234",
  userName: "Dr. Smith",
  userEmail: "dr.smith@example.com"
}

This data is passed to my Zoom auth route to generate the JWT token exactly as the docs describe.

Zoom Auth Route:

try {
    const iat = Math.round(new Date().getTime() / 1000) - 30;
    const exp = iat + 60 * 60 * 2;

    const oHeader = { alg: "HS256", typ: "JWT" };

    const oPayload = {
      sdkKey: clientId,
      appKey: clientId,
      mn: meetingNumber,
      role: role,
      iat: iat,
      exp: exp,
      tokenExp: iat + 60 * 60 * 2,
    };

    console.log(oPayload, "oPayload");

    const sHeader = JSON.stringify(oHeader);
    const sPayload = JSON.stringify(oPayload);
    const signature = KJUR.jws.JWS.sign(
      "HS256",
      sHeader,
      sPayload,
      clientSecret
    );

    return NextResponse.json({
      signature,
    });
} catch (err) {
    return NextResponse.json({ err });
}

With the generated JWT, the meeting is joined via:

content.js (simplified snippet):

const startMeeting = () => {
    document.getElementById("zmmtg-root").style.display = "block";

    setLoading(false);

    ZoomMtg.init({
        leaveUrl: currentDomainData.origin,
        patchJsMedia: true,
        success: (success) => {
            console.log(success);

            ZoomMtg.join({
                signature,
                sdkKey,
                meetingNumber,
                passWord,
                userName,
                userEmail,
                tk: "",
                zak: "",
                success: (success) => {
                    console.log(success);
                },
                error: (error) => {
                    console.log(error);
                },
            });
        },
        error: (error) => {
            console.log(error);
        },
    });
};

The implementation works most of the time, but randomly, the user that should be the host (role 1) joins as a participant instead.

Has anyone seen this before or knows what might cause Zoom to ignore the role: 1 in the JWT payload? Could it be related to ZAK tokens, meeting state, or host already being in the meeting?

Thanks in advance.