School Cloud - Parents Evening with Chrome 85.0.4183.121

[Max_Power]

Is anyone able to test for me please whether they can do a parents evening by School Cloud with a front facing camera on a device with the newly available Chrome on Windows 85.0.4183.121 released 2020-09-21

 

Had nothing but problems with our first parents evening of the year, and the only resolution was to quickly make available FireFox at the 11th hour.

 

Sadly some parents had the same issue so I don't think the issue was device orientated, but the new version of Chrome.

 

When clicking start appointment only the rear camera was visible and it was strangely mirrored. The front camera was simply not selectable, despite changing privacy settings, resetting Chrome, uninstalling the cameras as an admin and reinstalling, changing drivers etc.

Launching the Camera App and other software proved the front facing camera was working its just parents evening page couldn't detect it.

 

Anyone able to check, or advise if they've had the same issue since the latest version of Chrome was released?

Cheers

[armadillo]

Hi, we had our first parents evening using Schoolcloud website and it was a disaster; some teachers managed to connect and others coujldn't, it kept saying reconnectuing to qjuite a few of the teachers. Is yours now working? If so what diod you have to add to your iunter filtering in terms of URLs to whtelist etc. Their support came out with a massive list of IP addresses apparently we needed to whitelist., Although I asked from the beginning if there were any URLs or IP which needed whitelisting and they've sent me a couple and there was no mention of anything else.

 

Your advice is much appreciated. Thais in advance.

[TechMonkey]

I'll try and dig out the URLs I added to our Bypass Auth list. That caused some problems for one teacher but otherwise worked fine.

 

global.vss.twilio.com was definitely one.

Edited October 1, 2020 by TechMonkey

[armadillo]

I'll try and dig out the URLs I added to our Bypass Auth list. That caused some problems for one teacher but otherwise worked fine.

 

global.vss.twilio.com was definitely one.

 

Thanks for this, I think I have already added to the exception destination and also to "https not to inspect".

 

Thanks

[SchoolCloudSystems]

Is anyone able to test for me please whether they can do a parents evening by School Cloud with a front facing camera on a device with the newly available Chrome on Windows 85.0.4183.121 released 2020-09-21

 

Had nothing but problems with our first parents evening of the year, and the only resolution was to quickly make available FireFox at the 11th hour.

 

We're on-hand to help with this, and rest assured, we're doing all that we can to ensure virtual parents' evenings are a success.

 

May I ask if you're using Microsoft Surface devices? They have a known issue whereby the front camera isn't detected as a front camera by browsers and defaults to the rear camera. Firefox specifically patched support into their browser. A quick search online reveals many results about the same issue.

 

Shortly we'll be releasing an update to be able to change the camera used to workaround this issue.

[SchoolCloudSystems]

Hi, we had our first parents evening using Schoolcloud website and it was a disaster; some teachers managed to connect and others coujldn't, it kept saying reconnectuing to qjuite a few of the teachers. Is yours now working? If so what diod you have to add to your iunter filtering in terms of URLs to whtelist etc. Their support came out with a massive list of IP addresses apparently we needed to whitelist., Although I asked from the beginning if there were any URLs or IP which needed whitelisting and they've sent me a couple and there was no mention of anything else.

 

When we launched Video Appointments back in March, everyone was working from home where no restrictive school web-filters/firewalls were in place.

 

Now we're finding some schools are having teachers connect to Video Appointments from within the school network, and it seems some web-filters/firewalls are blocking the connection.

 

We recognise this isn't good if teachers cannot connect to video calls, and are doing what we can to ensure schools are now aware of this ahead of using Video Appointments.

 

As of today, whenever an administrator enables Video Appointments on a parents' evening, they will be shown a message to advise them to check with their IT Team if they plan on having teachers connect to Video Appointments from within the school network. They are asked to share this new guide with their IT Team. Additionally, if any teacher is blocked from accessing Video Appointments, they will now be shown a friendly message explaining this is the case.

 

We're now looking into what else we can do to ensure this doesn't happen to others, although we hope now giving a "heads-up" to every school activating Video Appointments will go a long way.

[chu017]

 

Microsoft Surface devices? They have a known issue whereby the front camera isn't detected as a front camera by browsers and defaults to the rear camera. Firefox specifically patched support into their browser. A quick search online reveals many results about the same issue.

 

Shortly we'll be releasing an update to be able to change the camera used to workaround this issue.

 

Please can you expand on "Shortly"

hours days weeks longer?

 

Assuming you have the fix in Dev can you apply it to some tenants?

I have a week to get this working and install another browser is not as simple a solution as you might like and working in Chrome and or Edge Chromium would be much prefered.

[chu017]

in testing we think this is related to graphics drivers and S pro firmware versions. which in turn is linked to windows version.

[SchoolCloudSystems]

Please can you expand on "Shortly"

hours days weeks longer?

 

Assuming you have the fix in Dev can you apply it to some tenants?

I have a week to get this working and install another browser is not as simple a solution as you might like and working in Chrome and or Edge Chromium would be much prefered.

 

This won't be in place within a week. Our best estimate at this time is by the end of October.

[chu017]

We believe this is tied to the graphics driver of the S Pro, this is tied to Firmware version and so to Windows version.

 

Our "fix" to a 4 year old problem is the below Powershell.

 

Get-PnpDevice | ?{$_.friendlyname -match 'Rear'} | Disable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false

 

Get-PnpDevice | ?{$_.friendlyname -match 'IR Camera'} | Disable-PnpDevice -Confirm:$false

 

Deployed from SCCM.

[chu017]

This won't be in place within a week. Our best estimate at this time is by the end of October.

 

Is this now in place?

[SchoolCloudSystems]

Is this now in place?

 

Not yet, however it's being tested and we expect to launch it this week or next week.

[chu017]

Not yet, however it's being tested and we expect to launch it this week or next week.

 

Can it be rolled out to a specific schools account?

our next parents evening is 9th November

[SchoolCloudSystems]

Can it be rolled out to a specific schools account?

our next parents evening is 9th November

 

This is not possible - it'll be available to everyone once it's ready. We are doing our utmost to have this available as soon as possible.

[chu017]

This is not possible - it'll be available to everyone once it's ready. We are doing our utmost to have this available as soon as possible.

 

Can you give a more detailed indication of it being in place before the 9th?

[SchoolCloudSystems]

Can you give a more detailed indication of it being in place before the 9th?

 

I'm afraid not - we're aiming for this week or next week and that's the most up to date information available.

I'd recommend having a plan-B ready - using Firefox or disabling the rear camera on Surface devices.

[DaveTheTech]

SchoolCloudSystemsIs there any news on this update? Has it been released?

[SchoolCloudSystems]

SchoolCloudSystemsIs there any news on this update? Has it been released?

 

Yes, you can now change the camera/microphone/speakers upon connecting to the video call.

[smithson83]

@SchoolCloudSystems any news on when the servers will be back up?

[SchoolCloudSystems]

@SchoolCloudSystems any news on when the servers will be back up?

 

Fully resolved by 5:04pm today for teachers accessing the system. Access was restored for parents at 4:36pm. We continue to monitor and investigate into the root cause.