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Room Connection Issues

If you are having trouble loading livestreams or connecting to other participants in a Louper room, this might be related to network or firewall issues. Read on to check for connection issues and for possible solutions.

tip

In the first instance, check that your internet connection is working and refresh the room page. Make sure that you are using a stable connection via wifi or ethernet and reduce or stop other activities on your network that may be consuming a lot of bandwidth, like file uploads or downloads, other video calls or video streaming.

Using the Connection Tester to check for network issues​

Louper contains a built-in connection tester. To access it, click the 'More' button in the Louper room you are having connection issues with and select 'Connection Tester'. Then click 'Start Test'. Each check will report whether it was successful or not.

The Connection Tester is designed to check that your device can access Louper's servers. This is useful for checking access or firewall issues, but it won't check for connection speed or stability issues.

Louper Connection Tester

Connection speed and quality​

For participants, we recommend an internet connection speed of at least 8mbps down and 4mbps up. For standard streams, these speeds allow enough headroom for other light network activites on the same network.

For streamers, please refer to this page to learn more.

Connection speed is imporant, but so is connection stability. Connections that are susceptible to interference or dropouts will result in a diminshed experience. We recommend a hardwired ethernet connection for best results.

Calculate exact speed (bandwidth) requirements

The default bitrate setting for streams is ~2.5mbps. If the stream being sent to your room is of a higher bitrate, then to view the stream you will need a download speed that is idealy 25% higher than the stream's bitrate.

For video participants, the bandwidth requirement is ~600kbps per participant.

For voice-only participants, the bandwidth requirement is ~100kbps per participant.

To publish your own webcam video and microphone audio (regardless of number of participants in a room), the bandwidth requirement is ~600kbps for video and ~100kbps for audio.

For example, to view a 5mbps stream in a room with 6 video participants, the required download speed would be: (5mbps x 1.25) + (6 x 0.6mbps) + (1 x 0.7mbps) = 10.55mbps.

Enable "Force TCP" Option​

On suboptimal internet connections with high packet loss or issues with UDP connections, enabling "Force TCP" in your room's settings may help with video or audio dropouts.

To enable Force TCP:

  • Open Room Settings
  • Select the Streams tab
  • Turn on the Force TCP toggle
  • Click Save changes
note

The Force TCP setting will only take effect when a new participant joins the room. Participants who are already in the room when this setting is turned on or off will not be affected until they refresh the room page, or leave and rejoin the room.

Firewall​

If errors are reported when running the connection tester but your internet connection is functioning for other websites or services, this may be due to firewall settings on your network or device. Please refer to Firewall access rules for details on domains and ports required to access Louper.

Bypass firewall​

If possible, either allow all traffic to the device being used to access Louper, or turn off the firewall entirely to test.

Try using a different network or device​

If available, use a different network and / or device to access Louper. If the problem persists, please contact Louper support.