Zoom Video Communications (formerly called just Zoom Communications) has issued Zoom Workplace 6.5 with expanded device limits and improved presence status notification. The videoconferencing/communication app increases the default device type limit to five for new paid customers and admins, allows custom managed key encryption to apply to additional Zoom data types (including assets originating from Microsoft Teams and Google Meet sessions accessed through Zoom), adds support for automatically changing presence status to Away based on screen lock or screen saver, enables meeting hosts to generate meeting agendas and capture live notes with the help of AI Companion, enhances emoji reactions with collaborative effects and custom designs, improves language detection and specification capabilities for captions and transcripts, adds the ability to rename voice recordings, and resolves an issue with Clips recordings receiving audio on all channels. (Free, 149.5 MB, release notes, macOS 10.13+)
Zoom keeps to get worse and worse with every upgrade. One problem both my wife and I have had is that it uses one-time passcodes that never arrive or can’t be found before they expire. Spam filters often block the codes, and even if you know how to recover the passcode from the spam filter, it takes too long to recover them so they don’t work. If you have multiple apps or tabs on the screen, the passcodes that do arrive may be hidden behind something else. In addition, after my wife’s old laptop died, she has not been able to get Zoom to run on the new one, and all she can use is her phone, which is not adequate for group meetings or many presentations.
Anyone have any ideas of how to get around these problems?
Tip: occasional or casual users of Zoom do not have to install the Zoom client. Zoom will run in most web browsers with no downloads or installations needed.
Simply follow the conference link sent out by the meeting’s host. Then wait until a “Join in browser” link appears in the browser window. If Zoom automatically downloads a software installer, avoid clicking on the installer and move it to the Trash.
Sometimes the “Join in browser” link doesn’t appear automatically. If so, try clicking on the Join Meeting button (yes, even though you haven’t installed the Zoom software).
The only requirement is that the host needs to have the join-in-browser option enabled. In my experience, very few hosts turn the option off.
Looking through some recent invitations, some to embed a Passcode and Meeting number, others don’t. The most recent Zoom I attended (from AAAS, the publisher of Science magazine) did not have anything password or passcode embedded in it. Others do include a six-digit passcode. To be honest, I would not have known to look for embedded passcode in the invitation. I know I have seen at least two different Zoom invitation formats, one that’s maybe a couple hundred characters of gobbledygook, the other shorter and including a much shorter set of about 50 characters followed by one line of the characters followed by two separate lines identified by a Meeting number and a six-digit Passcode. I could send you samples if you want, but I don’t know if they on the public discussion.
It may be that you’re primarily getting public Zoom meeting invitations where they’re keeping the trolls out by sharing the passcode separately. Nearly everything I do is small groups where the URLs aren’t shared publicly.
Thanks. I think you got it – the last Zoom was a public forum, so they probably shared the passcode separately. I discovered my wife was having password problems, but most of her Zooms are small groups, so there is something else going on. Perhaps it’s the way one-time passcodes are sent to emails or other devices and you can’t find where they went. In any case, I have found the Zoom Workspace a big step backward in usability.