Google wifi (Mesh) - zoom/Teams misery

[Jaybeee]

I've been having issues with streaming video on my system for a while. My broadband is pretty good - 50Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Upload and download speeds are excellent for files, but whenever I make either a zoom or teams call, it judders and breaks up.

So here is how I have my system set up -> Internet - Router - Gigabit ethernet to Google Wifi - Gigabit ethernet to home wired Lan. The goodle Wifi is acting as DHCP server to the home network (and I have two further Google Wifi mesh units). This allows my devices to connect to the internet and to all my attached devices such as my NAS or printer via wifi or Lan and that part works a treat.

My main PC is a very highly specked beast, but behaves very badly with streaming video when connected to the lan or to wifi, in fact it's all but unusable. I have recently started using Starlink also, and if I unplug the lan connection and purely use the Starlink the problem disappears and that's how I now operate, but like many I'm still waiting for a Starlink ethernet port to integrate into my network and I'd rather not ditch the mesh system unless I have to.

What am I doing wrong? The DHCP server on my other router is on also, but Google Wifi won't connect when it isn't, and if I don't daisy-chain the Lan connections, anything connected to the wifi network can't see the Lan attached devices.

BTW I have nest cameras and plenty of other Google home devices also on the network, but it doesn't seem to make any difference if I switch them off...

[Juzdu · Accepted solution]

I had a similar problem with my Nest wifi a while back. If both my wife and I were trying to have Zoom meetings at the same time the performance was awful. Strangely I ended up finding there's a setting in the wifi settings to prioritise video conferencing traffic, which was switched on.  I turned it off and the problem went away.  So yeah, the exact opposite of what it's meant to do!

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9541371?hl=en-AU

Have a look at the above and use that to turn preferred activities off and see if it helps?

[Jaybeee]

Thanks, I have found the setting and de-selected it. I'll report back after a few meetings next week!

[rexi98]

Hi Jaybeee

How have you gone changing the setting?

I've been having this issue for years, and the only thing that fixed it was "prioritising" my PC on the network via the GHome app... that's worked for 2 years up until today. Now that no longer works.

My only workaround is to tether from my phone.

Joke huh?

I'd be keen to see if turning off your prioritised video conferenceing worked for you - it doesn't for me unfortunately.

Cheers

Scott

[Jaybeee]

I have had a Teams meeting and a Zoom meeting since de-selecting the prioritise video setting, and both calls were perfect! Would like to have a few more before declaring it fixed, but so far so good.

I certainly feel your pain - I did a reboot of my internet too, don't know whether that helped.

[rexi98]

Hey, thanks for this - appreciated. I'll do another full reset of everything with the setting off, and see how it goes 🙂

thanks again, 

[rexi98]

Ok, so an update - it's working ok now! Thanks.

Here's a suite of steps:

- Preferred activities OFF (Wifi > Settings > Preferred activities > Both unticked) <--- why off? no idea.

- NO Prioritized devices on network

- Restart Wifi network from app (Wifi > Settings > scroll to bottom)

- Power off restart Modem and all Google Nest units - power back on 1 by 1 starting with Modem, Primary Wifi unit

- Restart computer

And it works... 

[Jeff]

Thanks for the update and for sharing what worked for you, rexi98. I'm happy to hear it's working for you.

And yes, preferred activities are an odd beast. For some people, they need to have a preferred activity in place to ensure good performance, for others preferred activities are actually a hindrance. Definitely experiment with the setting to see if it impacts things for you in a positive way.

Thanks.

[Jeff]

Hey, everyone.
It looks like we've slowed down here. We'll be closing up the thread unless anyone else has any input or needs anything else. If so, just let me know and we can keep this open a bit longer.
Thanks.

[Jaybeee]

Everything is confirmed working again from my end, thanks again @Juzdu ! Good to close.

[Jeff]

Perfect, I'll go ahead and close it up. Thanks for letting me know, Jaybeee. And big thanks to Juzdu for the input and help. If anybody needs anything else, please feel free to open up a new thread.

Thanks.