Breakout rooms troubleshooting guide for Microsoft Teams

My Teams meeting does not have breakout rooms. Why is this? 

Organizers of scheduled private meetings, Meet Now meetings, scheduled channel meetings, or channel Meet Now meetings can see Breakout rooms in their meeting controls. A supported Teams client for Windows or macOS must also be used to join the meeting.

For participants joining breakout room sessions from Linux, web, iOS, iPadOS, Android (including Chromebook), and VDI clients, the breakout room function is currently enabled, which means conference participants from these sources are able to move into breakout rooms, but they are not able to manage them as well.

Breakout rooms will not appear in your meeting control panel if the following conditions exist:

• This meeting is not organized by you or you have not been assigned as the breakout room manager.
• The meeting has been canceled.
• Channel meeting thread has been deleted.
• Meetings were organized in private or shared channels.
• The client you are using is not supported.
• By using your admin portal, you can disable breakout rooms.

It was not possible to move some meeting participants to the right breakout rooms. Is there anything I need to do? 

Breakout rooms are not available to certain types of meeting participants:

• The participants joined from devices that are not supported, such as desktop phones or PSTN/CVIs.
• Call me back option was selected by participants who joined.
• Participants who are not part of the meeting at the moment.
• Users of older versions of Teams that are still using an older version of Teams.

You may want to re-assign participants to breakout rooms if you are still experiencing problems moving them to breakout rooms at the end of the meeting. Check out this page for more information.

By hovering over the participant’s name until More options appear next to the participant’s name and selecting Ask to join in the meeting control, the meeting organizer can also try assigning a participant who failed to attend a breakout room. A room will be selected for the participant.

Moving participants with open rooms is subject to a few limitations:

• Participants cannot be moved to another breakout room if they are not in the breakout room.
• In the main meeting, participants who are moved from an open to a closed room will be seated.

The closing of all breakout rooms results in an error message. How should I proceed? 

The room that failed to close can be closed by right-clicking the room and selecting Close room.

My breakout rooms didn’t open. Why? 

Rooms that are empty won’t open. You cannot open a breakout room if no one joins it on the timer.

I had a timer set in my breakout room, but it closed before the time had expired?  

All attendees will be automatically closed if they leave before the timer expires.

For the main meeting, how do I control lobby settings? 

Change participant settings for Teams meetings to control whether meeting participants must enter the lobby.

When you select End meeting in the main meeting, do all breakout rooms that are active close? 

You cannot close a meeting by selecting End meeting. Select Close rooms from Breakout rooms to close breakout rooms. When the status of a room changes to Closed, you know the room has been successfully closed.

How many meeting participants can be accommodated in a breakout room? 

Meetings with up to 300 participants can be held in breakout rooms. Breakout rooms may be disabled in the meeting controls in the following scenarios:

• Breakout rooms will still be disabled in the meeting controls even if more than 300 participants join a meeting.
• Breakout rooms, when organized by a meeting organizer when less than 300 participants are present, are automatically locked at 300 people. Until all breakout rooms have been closed, deleted, and the meeting has been restarted, no more than 300 participants can join the meeting.

Will breakout rooms expire? 

It is important to note that breakout rooms expire after 60 days if they haven’t been used (as with any other meeting). The list of rooms does not show expired breakout rooms. Although expired breakout rooms cannot be recovered, organizers can manage other rooms (if present). Alternatively, they can create new breakout rooms (numbering will follow incrementally) or replace all existing breakout rooms.

When selecting breakout room managers, what limitations are known to meeting organizers? 

Assigning breakout room managers has the following limitations:

• Breakout room managers can only be selected from within your organization.
• Only invited presenters are able to be selected as breakout room managers.
• The number of breakout room managers is limited to 10.
• A person who joins as an attendee and is promoted from the roster cannot become a breakout room manager.
• Managers of breakout rooms can move freely between rooms, but they cannot be assigned to specific rooms.

Is it possible to create breakout rooms in advance of a meeting and assign participants to them before the meeting begins? 

The following limitations apply to meeting organizers who create breakout rooms and assign participants before the meeting:

Roles:

• Participants and breakout rooms can only be pre-assigned by meeting organizers.

Experiences before meetings are available:

• All breakout rooms need to be closed before meeting organizers can access pre-meetings. Organizers or breakout room managers must join the active meeting in order to manage breakout rooms after the meeting starts.

Assignment of participants:

• For pre-assignment, only people from approved organizations are eligible.
• There are only 2 types of participants who are available for pre-assignment: invited participants and those assigned in previous sessions.
• If the meeting has more than 300 attendees, pre-assignment is not possible.
• After breakout rooms have already been opened and pre-assigned participants join the main meeting late, they will not be automatically transferred to those rooms.
• The breakout rooms won’t be opened to pre-assigned participants joining the main meeting using unsupported devices.

Creation and configuration of rooms:

• By accessing the breakout room tab, which becomes available after breakout rooms are created, breakout room managers can be appointed prior to the meeting.
• Before the meeting starts, organizers have 60 days to pre-create rooms. Rooms created before 60 days will expire after that time.

When I have a problem with a breakout room, how do I report it? 

Select Help > Give Feedback in Teams to share your feedback on breakout rooms. Additionally, you can ask questions in the Microsoft Tech Community and Microsoft Answers. These steps will allow you to export log files from both the meeting organizer’s and the meeting participant’s computers, which will allow you to troubleshoot another issue with Microsoft Support.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do Teams control breakout rooms?