Issues with JW Library app and Zoom

[PaulvH]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this community and so I'm not sure this is the right forum to bring this up. I'm responsible for the hybrid meetings coordination (media, audio, zoom, etc.) and so I have a keen interest to make each meeting go smooth with as little interruptions as possible. Occasionally it occurs that when we share video over zoom, the JW library app drops connection with the second screen, which is connected to our TV monitors in the hall. When that happens to only remedy is to restart the JW library app. I haven't figured out yet how this can happen. Is this a known bug or feature in JW library app? Is it due to memory limitations of the sharing PC (which in our case is a laptop with 8GB of memory)? Could it be related to a bad internet connection of the zoom host?

I'm looking for advice on how I can best prevent this from happening. Thanks so much for your help.

 

Your brother,

--Paul

[Ludwika]

Welcome to the community Paul! 🥰

[Dages]

1 hour ago, PaulvH said:

Is it due to memory limitations of the sharing PC (which in our case is a laptop with 8GB of memory)? Could it be related to a bad internet connection of the zoom host?

8Gb should be ok. What about your connection?

 

Welcome !

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Dages

[PaulvH]

Media laptop has a wired internet connection. That said, we download all media before the meeting starts. The zoom host is sometimes hosting from his home. Often they use their home lan wifi connection to do the hosting.

[Qapla]

Is your setup at the KH installed and setup and procedures exactly as the instructions from the Branch outline? Some have found that not following those setup directions has caused issues.

 

If the one hosting is doing so from home, that could change things as they may not have their home setup as the directions indicate.

 

 

[PaulvH]

Thanks John for your helpful response. Everything was installed according the instructions from the branch office. But it's always good to verify once again. Thank you!

[GWings]

On 6/16/2022 at 12:15 PM, Dages said:

8Gb should be ok. What about your connection?

 

Welcome !

 

I wouldn't just assume that. At our kingdom hall we have 4 monitors hooked up to the computer, one of which is a 4K@60hz screen. Playing a video, running zoom and sharing your screen can be quiet some load.

 

@PaulvH Maybe someone within your congregation has a higher performing computer which you can use to test once or twice? You can also open the task manager to monitor CPU and RAM usage to see if that's the issue.

 

I really dont think a poor internet connection would cause JW Library to crash. Especially not if you already downloaded the videos in advance.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by GWings

[howudodat]

This is not a problem with memory, cpu, or internet speed.  None of those will cause JW library to stop using the 2nd monitor.

We have a beefy computer at our hall, and I have a very capable setup that we use for Pio School.  From time to time the interaction between zoom grabbing a screen and JWL grabbing the same screen causes conflicts.  30 years I have been writing software, about half of that time for windows.  I can tell you that the problem is caused by window handles getting locked exclusive by one of the apps and not getting released properly (or some similar conflict).  Which one, I haven't had the time to figure that out.

 

There is no solution at the moment.  The best thing to do is:

1. follow the setup instructions to a letter, this will minimize issues.  It's import to do this to the letter.  After doing this, please re-read #1 again before proceeding to #2
2. use alt-tab to switch between zoom and JWL 2nd screen
3. if it happens, stay in JWL go to settings switch off use 2nd screen, switch it back on (fixes the problem about 30% of the time)
4. restart JWL (fixes the problem an extra 5% of the time)
5. Pray a bunch more

I'm hoping to find some time to troubleshoot this more in the coming weeks.  Sadly time is very limited

[Qapla]

[howudodat]

I dont have the time to type up any type of instructions / guide other than some quick notes, but I have found at least one cause of zoom nightmare.  The problem is squarely in the court of zoom but there is an easy workaround.

 

1. read the instructions from the branch and make sure all settings are set per the instructions
2. go back and repeat #1, do this at least 3 times 😁  I know this is harped on a lot, but cannot be emphasized enough
3. When sharing a screen in zoom, zoom will minimize the main window and just paint a small control bar  (maybe someone can post a copy of that bar for reference)
   1. Make sure this bar is NOT on the same screen as the 2nd monitor (or screen you want to share)
   2. if it is, drag it to the main monitor and leave it there, stop sharing restart zoom
   3. Happy screen sharing

Windows sometimes re-arranges monitors depending on what is turned on when the PC turns on, so be familiar with how to quick re-layout the screens.  Once the zoom bar thinks it needs to be on the 2nd screen (for whatever reason it decides that) it will seriously break JW Library's ability to take exclusive control of the 2nd monitor.

 

Tested this yesterday morning before PSS started and was able to reproduce then fix then reproduce then fix the problem.  Now back to PSS

[PaulvH]

Thanks friend for all your good advice. I'm sure to follow up on your recommendations. I'm out of the country right now but I'll follow up as soon as possible. Thanks.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G981B met Tapatalk

[PaulvH]

Hi everyone, here a little status update on what's been going on with the earlier reported problem between JWLib app and zoom.

 

Sadly, the problem is still there. I'm still struggling to find out what the trigger is for this behavior. It seems to occur pretty randomly.

 

Last "Life and ministry" meeting, I made sure to keep all zoom windows on the main screen, no moving around and not maximized. After playing the intro song successfully, I lost connection with the second screen (the stage monitors) again when trying to play the demonstration video and I had to revert to VLC (I created a fallback just in case).

Following a summary of the steps I take:

1. I have all media on the screen by clicking the "Show media" button.
2. I click the video to play. The video appears on the stage monitors. As soon as it starts playing I press the "Pause" button. Instead of showing the year text the stage monitors now show a completely black screen.
3. Subsequently, I go to the zoom meeting to click the "Share" button.
4. In the window that appears I click the JWlib app. The video window appears with the typical orange colored frame around it, which is the way zoom indicates what part of the screen it will share. In this case the second screen.
5. Then, I press the play button. The video starts to play both on the stage monitors and the zoom meeting.

We've chosen this approach to make sure the zoom participants don't miss out on the first part of the video. Most of the time this approach works just fine but in some cases while sharing the JWLib video in zoom, it loses connection with the second monitor. The year text will simply reappear on the stage monitors. If I continue to press "Play", the zoom participants will see the video, but the people in the hall won't see anything on the stage monitors.

 

As said I'm still trying to figure out what causes it. It's not that I've accidentally moved the zoom window to the second screen. I've made sure not to do that. I noticed though that if I open the Zoom share window too soon and select the JWlib video to play, it sometimes happens that while waiting for the speaker to okay playing the video during that wait time the JWLib year text reappears on the screen. I've no clue why it does that but it just happens. From the earlier responses to the issue it seems that zoom is the culprit in that it takes control over the second screen. Anyways, when that happens I know I'm in trouble and the only way out is to restart JWlib app and start over with sharing.

Is there anyone out there who has been confronted with a similar situation? I still need to go down the branch office instructions to ascertain that we haven't missed out on an important setting. That said, most of the time this approach works just fine so I doubt anything is wrong with the settings.

 

Thanks, --Paul

[howudodat]

it happened to me while hosting pioneer school and was reproducible anytime any zoom window was not correctly placed (that includes the sharing window and the minimum control bar that is visible while sharing).  You also might make sure that "show zoom controls" is set to always visible 

[PaulvH]

The sharing window always shows up on the main screen and is fully controlled of the main screen. I'll make sure to verify the "show zoom controls always visible" setting.

Thx.

[Squidly]

I hope this thread isnt dead. 
this looks exactly similar to an issue we are having. Howudothat seems to be on to something. Confused about his statement to ‘stop sharing and restart zoom’. Thats tough to do during a meeting unless i dont understand what you mean by restart zoom. 
i too have been able to duplicate, but not by same means as indicated above. Both at hall and home with different zoom  accounts i can recreate zoom losing the ability to display JWL 2nd screen. I just display media, share screen (2nd display), all normal at this point at hall and for friends at home, but if i ever ‘unmute and then mute’ an individual on the participant list, i initiate the failure. This will be seen as i stop sharing screen, at this moment the 2nd display monitor stops/hides the media. You can still close the media on display 1, but year text does not display(desktop is displayed only on display 2). Now you can hover over JWL on taskbar and reopen the 2nd display year text and all looks good in the hall, but click on the display 1 zoom window to do anything with zoom and you immediately loose year text on display 2. A total shut down of zoom app is the only remedy ive found. Actually if you task manage and end task for zoom it will give you at least 1 reset of zoom without killing connection to participants and give full control of display 2 back to JWL. Restarting JWL never fixes issue. Looking for least distracting way to have zoom not stomp on JWL. I never have this issue if i dont use home participants when media is displayed on display 2 and screen shared.   I have also noticed admitting participants when having media displayed on display 2 while sharing screen also causes this failure. 
hope this restarts this thread. 

[Karlo Esteban]

Hi Brother John, If I understand your problem correctly this instruction should help. 

 

Our workaround for this problem is instead of screen sharing the 2nd Display, we screen share the 2nd window of JW Library.

 

Steps:

1. Launch JW Library

.

 

2. Double click the second monitor that shows the year text. This will cause the 2nd window of Jw Library to exit full screen mode. Then click the maximize button, this will fit the JW Library's 2nd window to 2nd Display. Your screen should look like the picture below. (As you can see, the control buttons shows up top)

 

3. In zoom, Click sharescreen then choose JW Library's 2nd window instead of Screen 2 (2nd Display).

 

With this method, you can still work on the paticipants list (Admitting or mutting) while screen sharing without loosing Jw Library's 2nd window on the 2nd display. The only downside with this is that the audience at the hall can see the control button on jw library's 2nd window.