If you dismiss or block the initial mic/camera permission pop-up window, you may see a message stating that "Gather needs your permission to access your Camera/Microphone..."
The warning you will see when your browser has blocked Gather from accessing either your camera and/or microphone.
You may close this warning, but if you do not change your settings, others may not be able to see or hear you inside of Gather.
Here is how to find your browser settings and grant Gather access to your camera and Microphone.
Chrome Settings
When you first enter Gather, you will see a pop-ups asking for camera and microphone access permissions. Click "Allow" in order to provide the best experience in Gather.
The pop-up asking for your camera and microphones permission will appear on the upper left side of your browser. Click Allow to continue.
If you accidently blocked Gather from accessing your camera or microphone, you will see a camera icon in the upper right of your site address bar with a red "x" to indicate that you have denied the site access. You can click on this to change your preferences.
If you accidently blocked camera or microphone permissions, you can click the icon in the upper right to see what you have blocked and adjust your permissions.
After selecting the radio button to allow Gather access to your camera and microphone, you will need to refresh the page for the changes to go into effect.
After allowing access to your camera and microphone, you may need to refresh your page before changes will go into effect.
You can always check or change your permission settings by clicking the lock icon in the upper left of your site address bar.
Privacy and Security settings for each webpage you visit are easily accessed on the left side of your site address bar.
Firefox Settings
When you first enter Gather, you will see a pop-ups asking for camera and microphone access permissions. Click "Allow" in order to provide the best experience in Gather.
A pop-up asking for camera and microphone permissions will appear on the upper left of your screen when you first use Gather.
If you accidently blocked Gather from accessing your camera or microphone, you will see a camera and/or microphone icon in the upper left of your site address bar with a grey slash through it to indicate that you have denied the site access. You can click on this to change your preferences.
If you have denied Gather access to either your camera or microphone, it will show you icons with a grey slash through the camera and/or microphone icon.
To remove the blocked permissions and allow Gather access to your camera and microphone, click on your site privacy and security settings by clicking the lock icon on the left site of your site address bar and then clicking the "x" next to each blocked permission. Refresh your page.
Click the "X" next to each blocked permission inside of your site privacy settings located on the left side of your site address bar.
Once all permissions have been granted, you can always check or change your settings by clicking on the lock icon in the left side of your site address bar. Your site security settings should look something like this:
Site settings with both camera and microphone permissions temporarily allowed.
If you get this message instead, you need to refresh the page.
Site settings after canceling blocked permissions but not yet refreshing.
Desktop Safari (Beta)
Safari will prompt you for camera and microphone permissions when you first log into a space.
A screenshot of Safari's permissions prompt. It says "Allow "gather.town" to use your microphone? You can change this setting in Safari Websites preferences." There are three options: Allow, Never for This Website, and Don't Allow.
Safari will prompt you twice for camera and microphone permissions when you first log into a space. Click 'Allow' to permit Gather to use your microphone, and to use your camera.
If you accidentally click 'Don't Allow', refresh the page and try again.
If you accidentally click 'Never for This Website', you can change this setting in your Safari Preferences.
In Safari Preferences, open the 'Websites' tab and scroll down on the left side bar until you see 'Camera' and 'Microphone'.
Safari preferences window, with the 'Websites' tab highlighted. In the list of permissions, Microphone is selected. In the list of websites, gather.town is selected, and the drop down menu is set to 'Allow'.
Click into each one of these and find gather.town on the list of websites to the right, then set the drop down menu to 'Allow' (or 'Ask', if you wish to be prompted every time).
You might get stuck with a screen saying "Awaiting Audio and Video Permissions" if you dismiss or block the initial mic/camera permission pop-up window or if you have not previously enabled security permissions for your browser on a Macbook or Apple computer inside of your Apple Privacy and Security Settings.
To access these settings, open System Preferences and select Security and Privacy.
Open your Apple System Preferences by click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen.
From your system preferences, select and open your Security and Privacy settings.
Enable permissions for both your camera and microphone for the browser you are using.
In the menu on the left side, find and select 'Camera' and 'Microphone' and check the box on the right to enable permissions for your web browser to use your camera and microphone.
You might need to click the padlock in the bottom left corner to allow changes to your system preferences.
The biggest culprit of this error is another app capturing your camera, and preventing other apps from accessing it. This happens especially often if you are using other video calling tools like Zoom or video effects programs like OBS or Snap Camera. To fix this, double check that all of the other applications that use your camera or microphone or closed.
Additionally, check your other browser tabs to make sure there aren't other instances of Gather or another website using your camera or microphone.
If you have any extensions blocking autoplay permissions, or blocking WebRTC make sure these are disabled (These may have been installed this to prevent your IP from getting leaked).
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
Because of the nature of the server infrastructure of virtual private network (VPN), Gather is unable to properly function on some kinds of VPNs, campus networks, or corporate networks. If you're in such a situation, you can try:
- disabling your VPN
- visiting your VPN provider's support website and trying different connection options
- changing your connection to a different server or network if your VPN will allow you to do so
- asking your network administrator to unblock Gather.
To unblock gather.town on a personal or corporate firewall, please add these domains and ports as exceptions (or ask your administrator to do so):
Domains: *.gather.town
Ports: 80 and 443
Because of the nature of the server infrastructure of virtual private network (VPN), Gather is unable to properly function on some kinds of VPNs, campus networks, or corporate networks. If you're in such a situation, you can try:
- disabling your VPN
- visiting your VPN provider's support website and trying different connection options
- changing your connection to a different server or network if your VPN will allow you to do so
- asking your network administrator to unblock Gather.
To unblock gather.town on a personal or corporate firewall, please add these domains and ports as exceptions (or ask your administrator to do so):
Domains: *.gather.town
Ports: 80 and 443
If you hear a voice announcing "TRIAL MODE" or similar in your Gather space, check for any participants using audio or video programs or plugins such as OBS or 'e2esoft ivcam'.
If you hear the murmuring of voices in addition to other soft sounds, it is possible that the owner of the space you are in (or the default template of the space) has embedded ambient sounds or background sounds. These are all pre-recorded and one-way transmissions.
The only time others can hear or see you is when you can see their video box appear in your video carousel. If they have turned their camera off, you will still see a black box with their name listed and you will still be transmitting video and audio to them unless you turn off your own camera and microphone.
Gather cannot make sounds in your browser aside from the chat notification, ambient sounds or embedded videos, and will not announce whether your space is free or paid.
Our Screen Sharing feature does not have an in-built audio sharing system at this time.
If you would like to be able to share your output audio as an input, you will need to install a 3rd-party software to reroute your sound.
Alternatively, if you need to share a video with sound, you can place a video object in the space with a large activation distance using the synchronous TV settings to ensure everyone is watching the same video at the same time. You can find out more about that by clicking here.