Google Meet Mystery

[drepouille]

[Not sure if Webcasting is the correct forum for this.]

I broadcast Sacrament meeting using a Google G Suite account and Google Meet. All participants are muted with video off, so this is effectively a one-way stream.

One family has a Cox.net account, an iPhone, and an iPad. They were able to view the stream without problems for the first two Sundays. But starting on the third Sunday, when they tried to connect to the Google Meeting, all they saw was a spinner.

Today, their eldest son visited them, and suggested they create a Google account. Once they did that, they were able to join a test meeting I set up. I just don't understand why they had to do that. I am pretty sure other members of my ward connect just fine without a Google account.

[sbradshaw]

Based on this article, it looks like a Google account is not needed if the person who set up the meeting is a G Suite user:
https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9303069
However, the user has to ask to join each time (they can't join automatically).

Additionally, according to the last section on the linked page, users without a Google account can't join using a mobile device. It's not clear if that means they can't join using the Google Meet app, or if they can't join at all on the mobile device, for example if they try to join in the web browser.

[lajackson]

But starting on the third Sunday, when they tried to connect to the Google Meeting, all they saw was a spinner.

Is it possible that the spinner would have gone away once they were allowed into the meeting by the host? Bad interface, for sure, but that may have been what was happening.

[drepouille]

The first week they saw the spinner, I thought I had simply missed the pop-up that asked me to admit them to the meeting. The second week, they tried repeatedly, and I never saw a pop-up message to admit them. The following day, after they had created a Google account, they were able to breeze right in to the meeting I had opened as a test.