As usage surged over the last few months, the Web SDK has faced a number of reliability issues, bugs, and security changes that impacted usage and experience. We would like to take this post as an opportunity to address those issues earnestly and detail the path forward.
As developers ourselves, we understand the importance of reliability, smooth versioning, and the pain of unplanned breaking changes. We also know we can be more proactive with our direct communication. If you haven’t already done so, make sure you add your email to the Developer Contact information to the “Information” page of your JWT App. Find more information on our Stay Up To Date docs.
Black Screen in 1.7.8 - Resolved
With the release of 1.7.8, a number of users and developers reported an unexpected black screen rather than their video appearing. This affected versions 1.7.8 and 1.7.9.
Main thread: Possible Bug with video streaming
This issue was difficult to reproduce universally, so while bug fixes were released in 1.7.9, some users did continue to see intermittent black screens on join. After further testing and direct help from community developers to reproduce, we identified the issue was caused by a throttling of user role assignment during join. If the user role returned too quickly or out of order, the active video component was not mounted.
With the release of 1.7.10 we’re confident this issue has been fixed. If you have any reports of users facing this issue, please do let us know.
reCAPTCHA in 1.7.9 - Opt out available
In version 1.7.9, the Web SDK added support for the Zoom Web Client’s inclusion of reCAPTCHA in the user join process. We hear you - this added an inconvenient additional step for your end users.
Main thread: SDK 1.7.9 - Recaptcha feature documentation
This decision was made to ensure that any user joining via the web client is an intended participant, and we stand by that goal. We’ve implemented a new identification strategy on the Web SDK join process to better understand when reCAPTCHA does need to be triggered. Our goal is for you to provide the most frictionless join process possible, but there may be some scenarios where an end user is prompted by verification.
Currently we’re not releasing what these exact conditions are, but most end users will not see a reCAPTCHA check.
Opting out of reCAPTCHA
If you would like to opt out of reCAPTCHA, fill out this form and reCAPTCHA will be removed from all meetings held on your account (this is tracked via API Key). Please note this is not a full guarantee we will approve removing it for your account, and we may ask additional questions.
Note: This post will be updated with any on-going issues facing the Web SDK. The two issues above are not meant to be an exhaustive list.
As of 07/15/20 there are also some reports of audio quality issues we are working to resolve. I’ll update this post with full information.
Upcoming changes & improvements
As we come out of our 90-day feature freeze and security prioritization, we’re dedicating our engineering effort to releasing a number of long-awaited improvements to the Web SDK. Check out our Developer Roadmap for additional releases; however, there are a few high-priority items we know you’re looking for which we’re working hard to release:
- Webinar Hosting (1.8.0; end of July): Webinar Hosts and Panelists will be able to join a webinar.
- Webinar Registration (1.8.0; end of July): SDK join methods will support joining webinar participants from registration links.
- 720p Video (short-term roadmap): Increasing video quality is a high-priority improvement; however, this improvement will come when we can guarantee a high standard of in-meeting quality and reduced CPU usage.
- Gallery View (short-term roadmap): Allowing for multiple high-quality video feeds is a resource-intensive operation within a browser, thus it is not yet available - but we’re working to optimize and release this in the short-term.
The future of the Zoom Web SDK
The Web SDK was initially designed to allow you to put the Zoom web client into your own web app. It was not designed to be building new video products. That’s probably understandable if you’ve tried to do this. Customizing, embedding, and wrangling the SDK into unique video products can - and will - be improved.
As we become a tool on which the entire world connects, we’re committed to be the easiest platform for you to build new apps which do the same. We’re dedicating resources and engineering effort to improving tools, libraries, and your developer experience. In this thread, I invite you to tell us what you want and show us what we can improve.
We don’t take your frustration lightly, and apologize for any bad experience caused by unexpected issues with the Web SDK. As we grow, we’ll continuing to learn and improve. Let’s build together.
– The Zoom Developer Relations Team
As a plug, if you want to join a diverse, energized team dedicated to connecting the world, we’d love to have you join us: http://zoom.us/careers