Our application, LINKLET, uses the Zoom Meeting SDK to join Zoom meetings from a dedicated device.
The device itself does not have a Zoom account. Instead, it joins meetings hosted by our customers as an anonymous guest participant.
However, starting on July 7, 2026 (JST), the device suddenly became unable to join meetings as an anonymous guest participant. This issue is currently impacting our production service and our customers.
Timeline
November 2025
Zoom announced the Meeting SDK authorization changes.
We contacted Zoom Technical Support to confirm whether our application would be affected.
Zoom Support advised us that our application would not be affected by the changes and that no additional action was required.（Support Case: TS2115895）
After receiving this guidance
We continued operating our production service without making any changes to our implementation.
July 7, 2026 (JST)
Anonymous guest participants suddenly could no longer join meetings hosted by external Zoom organizations.
No changes had been made to our application before this issue occurred.
We contacted Zoom Technical Support. (Support Case: TS2377923)
During our investigation
We became aware of the “Anonymous Join Exception” request in the Marketplace.
We do not recall receiving prior guidance that this request would be required for our application.
Error
Anonymous guest participants can no longer join meetings hosted by external Zoom organizations.
The issue started on July 7, 2026 (JST), without any changes to our application.
We would like to know how to resolve this issue.
During our investigation, we became aware of the “Anonymous Join Exception” request in the Marketplace.
We do not recall receiving prior guidance that this request would be required for our application. We would appreciate it if you could also advise whether this is related to our issue.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Please submit the anonymous join exception request, including your reasoning and a detailed description of the app’s use case.
Thank you for your prompt response and for your guidance.
Before seeing your reply, we had already submitted the Anonymous Join Exception request on July 7, 2026 (JST).
Since we submitted the request before receiving your guidance, our submission did not include our application description or a detailed explanation of our use case. We would therefore like to provide that information here.
We provide a service that enables video communication through Zoom using our self-developed neck-worn wearable device, THINKLET.
For more information about the wearable device, please see:
A user with a Zoom account creates and starts a Zoom meeting.
A client application built with the Zoom Meeting SDK is installed on the THINKLET device, allowing the frontline worker wearing the device to join the meeting.
For security reasons, the THINKLET device itself does not have its own Zoom account.
Therefore, the device joins the meeting as an anonymous guest participant.
As described in our original post, we had previously contacted Zoom Support regarding the Meeting SDK authorization changes and were advised that our application would not be affected and that no additional action was required.
Because of that guidance, we were not aware that an Anonymous Join Exception request would be necessary.
This issue is currently affecting the service we provide to our customers. If possible, we would greatly appreciate it if the review of our Anonymous Join Exception request could be prioritized.
Please let us know if any further information is required.
Thank you for providing the detailed explanation here. I have reviewed your request and approved the submission. Please confirm if your app is able to join external meetings now.
If your use case cannot support implementing OAuth to obtain these tokens, an exception may be available — but whether it applies depends on your specific situation and reasoning. To have it evaluated, please submit your app with the “Request Anonymous Join Exception” toggle enabled under Features > Embed > Meeting SDK, and include a clear explanation of your use case in the provided text field.
Once an Anonymous Join Exception request has been approved, does the approval remain valid permanently?
Or is it only a temporary exception, requiring us to submit a new Anonymous Join Exception request periodically, such as when updating the Meeting SDK or releasing a new version of our application?
Our use case is a multi-tenant SaaS Learning Management System (LMS).
Each instructor connects their own Zoom account via OAuth and hosts meetings using the standard Zoom application. We do not use the Meeting SDK for hosting meetings.
Only students join the meeting through the embedded Meeting SDK in our web and mobile applications. Students are participants only and do not host, schedule, or manage meetings.
Since students do not have Zoom accounts connected to our platform and do not need to act on behalf of a Zoom user, we believe obtaining ZAK or OBF tokens for every student is not applicable to our use case.
Could you please confirm whether the Anonymous Join Exception is the appropriate solution for this scenario?
Hi Zoom team,
We are experiencing a similar issue with our Meeting SDK app when joining meetings hosted by external Zoom accounts.
We have submitted the Anonymous Join Exception request under Features → Embed → Meeting SDK. Our use case involves [briefly explain your genuine use case].