Troubleshooting
Trouble Joining the Conference
In most cases, this means that your phone company is not properly routing the call, or there is congestion somewhere in the phone network. The quickest remedy is to try dialing one of the alternate dial-in numbers listed on the website. Your Conference ID will work with any available dial-in number. Note that a busy signal is not an indication that the capacity limit for your conference bridge has been exceeded – if that occurs, callers will hear an announcement that the capacity limit has been exceeded.
If you enter the Conference ID in response to the prompt, but are re-prompted to enter the code after several seconds, that indicates the that digits are not being properly detected and transmitted by the phone network. (Our system doesn't “listen” for the audible tones; your phone company is supposed to detect those digit tones, transmit a “signal code” to our system, and remove the audible tone.) If you enter a valid Conference ID, but you receive an announcement the code is invalid, you will hear an announcement listing the digits that our system received. If some digits you pressed are missing or duplicated, that is also an indication of a network problem. These problems are often temporary, and you may be able to hang-up and re-dial, then successfully enter a valid Conference ID. If the problem persists, the best remedy is to try dialing one of the alternate dial-in numbers listed on the website. Using a different dial-in number may circumnavigate the problem, since your call will take a different route through the phone network. Your Conference ID will work with any available dial-in number.
In most cases, this occurs because the TurboBridge account has been suspended due to a payment issue, and access to the conference bridge will be blocked until the issue is resolved. Contact your account administrator to check on the billing status. The administrator can clear the suspension by updating the credit card via the Billing tab in the Account Portal.
In some cases, this announcement occurs because the account administrator has temporarily disabled the conference bridge. The administrator can re-enable the bridge via the Manage Bridges tab in the Account Portal.
An account administrator can disable Toll-Free Access to a conference bridge, usually to avoid higher per-minute charges. In this situation, callers need to dial a Toll Access Number to join the conference call, or use TurboBridge WebCall or SIP Access.
This happens when the Conference Start setting is either “when host joins” or “when host confirms”, and none of the parties has joined the call as a host. (Of course, it may be because the host simply hasn't yet arrived.) If you know the Host PIN, you can press *3, and you will hear a prompt to enter the Host PIN. If the Conference Start setting is “when host confirms”, press *3 again to start the conference.
The Conference Start setting can be modified via the Manage Bridges tab in the Account Portal or via the Settings tab in the Host Control Panel. See Default Feature Settings for more information.
To join the call as a host, enter your Conference ID and press the star key (*) instead of the pound key (#). (When you dial in, the prompt will ask you to enter the Conference ID and press the pound key.) You will then be prompted to enter the 4-digit Host PIN. If you are already in the conference (or waiting on music-on-hold), you can still promote yourself to host by pressing *3 to trigger the prompt to enter your Host PIN.
Audio Quality Issues
Echo is introduced by one or more of the parties on the conference call. Echo is supposed to be filtered out by the caller's phone or by echo cancelers in the phone network. Echo occurs because the caller's microphone is picking up the audio from the speaker, and re-transmitting it back into the conference call. Because of the normal latency in conference calls (generally between a half-second and one-second), the echo is very noticeable. Often this comes from speakerphones with poor echo cancellation or cell phones because of their shape. The first challenge is to identify the source of the echo. You can ask participants to mute their lines by pressing *6, and to un-mute by pressing *6 again when they need to speak. Or, if you are dialed in as a Host, you can press *43 on your keypad to mute all the participants (they will be told they can un-mute by pressing *6). Once you identify the source of the echo, you can ask that caller to remove speakerphone mode (if applicable), or ask him to hang up and dial back in. (Sometimes the problem is a bad echo canceler in the phone network, and redialing may get around that problem.) If the problem persists, you can press *99 on your keypad to activate our diagnostic recording feature. This allows us to individually record the incoming audio from each participant, which allows our engineers to identify the source of the echo. If you do use the *99 command, please send an email to support@turbobridge.com to alert our engineers to investigate and customer service will follow up with you. Pressing *99 will not fix the call in progress, but could identify the echo source in advance of future calls.
Echo is not created by the conferencing system, and it is very difficult to remove echo in the audio mixer. Trying to do so could introduce other problems, and would increase latency. (Latency is the delay between when you speak and when others hear you.) The best remedy is to remove the echo at its source.
Most commonly, noise and static is coming from one or more of the phone lines that is connected into the conference. Our audio mixer filters out low-volume line noise, but a caller may simply have a “bad connection”. The more callers dialed into the conference, the greater the likelihood of caller-introduced background noise or line static. If you expect more than a dozen participants, you should consider putting the conference into Presentation Mode or Question & Answer Mode, which automatically mutes all non-Hosts when they arrive.
If you encounter noise or static during a conference, ask all callers to press *6 on their keypads to mute their lines. If the noise disappears, then you know it was coming from one of the now-muted lines. (A caller can press *6 again to un-mute their line. If the noise recurs, then you've discovered its source. Ask that caller to hang up and dial back in, preferably using a different phone.) If the noise persists, contact TurboBridge Support, since there might be a connection issue between the phone network and the TurboBridge conferencing servers. If all the callers sound “garbled” or “metallic”, or if all the callers appear to be “breaking up”, that suggests potential packet loss in the connection between the phone network and the TurboBridge conferencing server.
In rare cases (about once in every 50,000 calls, though some office phone system are more susceptible to this problem), two phone lines from the same office get looped into your conference bridge. This can occur when a caller already connected into your conference presses the flash hook on an office phone to hang up from the conference, then dials back into your conference bridge. Instead of completely disconnecting the initial call, that connection is “parked” by the office phone switch pending a call transfer. When that caller subsequently hangs up at the conclusion of the conference, the office phone switch completes the call transfer, essentially forwarding the first line back into your conference bridge, creating a loop between the conference server and the office phone switch. To our system, this appears as two callers with identical Caller IDs being “active” in the conference call, even though there is no live person involved. (Eventually the conference call will time-out when the 24-hour conference limit is reached.) In this scenario, the office phone system will generate noise or tones into your conference line, making it unusable.
To verify this condition, use the Host Control Panel to see the status of your conference line. If you see two parties with identical Caller ID numbers who have been connected for long durations, most likely you have encountered this “stuck call” situation. You can click on the End Conference icon 
to disconnect the stuck lines and clear your conference bridge for the next call. If you do not have access to the Host Control Panel, you can dial into your conference bridge as a Host, then press *91 to terminate the stuck conference.
This can occur when one of the participants in the call places his line on hold to accept another call. The caller's phone system starts playing hold music into the conference call. If you have access to the Host Control Panel, you may be able to identify the source of the hold music based on the icon status in the Activity column in the Live Conference Manager and then mute that caller's line. Alternatively, you can use a Host Keypad Command, pressing *43 to mute all the lines (silencing the hold music), then instruct callers to press *6 to un-mute their lines.
A caller can incrementally increase his speaking volume by repeatedly pressing *86, or decrease his volume by pressing *87. Since you can't tell the volume that others are hearing you, the other participants will have to advise you on whether you should continue pressing *86 or *87 to achieve the appropriate volume. Alternatively, you can use the Host Control Panel to adjust any caller's volume. Click on the Caller ID displayed in the Live Conference Manager, where you will see option to increase or decrease that caller's volume.
Callers Dropped from the Conference
On average, 3% to 4% of participants dial back into conference calls after losing their phone connection. In nearly all cases, these callers are dropped by their own phone companies. (Less than one in 100,000 callers who dial in through a phone connection are dropped by the TurboBridge system.) For regular two-party phone calls, about 1% of landline calls and 3% of mobile calls are dropped prematurely. However, conference calls typically last five to six times longer than normal two-party phone calls, which leads to a higher incidence of call drops during conference calls.
If you experience frequent call drops when joining TurboBridge conferences, there may be a technical issue in the connection between your phone company and the phone company who provides the TurboBridge dial-in number. Contact us for suggestions on alternative dial-in numbers. TurboBridge maintains a diverse set of dial-in numbers from multiple phone companies, and we may be able to provide you with a more reliable dial-in number.
While you are welcome to contact us if you perceive an unacceptable rate of dropped callers, please note that TurboBridge generally cannot open trouble tickets with the caller's phone company. We can ask our phone providers to investigate call drops that may have occurred in their networks, but in most cases, only the caller can initiate a trouble ticket to investigate the source of call drops that occur “upstream” from our phone provider.
If your calls are frequently being dropped at regular intervals (typically at 15 or 30 minutes), this can indicate a firewall or timer issue, especially if you are connecting over voice-over-IP. Session-refresh timers typically set at 15 minutes, and if your firewall is not configured correctly, the refresh will fail and the voice connection will be dropped. Check with your IT department, Internet Service Provider or VoIP provider.
Each conference bridge has a configurable Conference End setting. The system default setting is to end conference calls when the last party hangs up, but this setting can be configured to automatically end calls after the last host leaves the conference. (The options are 1, 5, 15 or 30 minutes after the host leaves.) Callers remaining in the conference will hear warning announcements (at five minutes and again at 30 seconds prior to the automatic conference termination. If you encounter this situation, in most cases it occurs because the host has departed, and the conference bridge is set to automatically terminate at a specified interval
A less-common situation in which a conference call would be automatically terminated is if the maximum conference duration limit is reached. The system default duration limit is 24 hours, though this limit can be modified or removed by a TurboBridge support representative – it is not a user-configurable setting.
Other Common Issues
Yes. When you click on the trash can icon to delete a recording, you are actually only deleting the link to the recording, not the recording itself. Please contact TurboBridge to have the link restored. Make sure you provide the Conference ID along with the date and time of your conference call.
Cases of deliberate unauthorized use of TurboBridge conference bridges is extremely rare. If your conference bridge is configured for codeless entry using a custom dial-in number, somebody may have simply dialed your number by mistake. If you are using a common number sequence as your Conference ID, then you are more prone to unintentional use. It's also possible that somebody with a similar Conference ID distributed your code by mistake. There are also cases where callers simply mis-entered their Conference ID (skipping, duplicating, or transposing digits) and end up connecting into the wrong conference bridge by mistake. In most cases, these will be short-duration, one-party conference calls, once the caller recognizes the error.
If you have incurred charges due to unauthorized use, please let us know and we will issue a refund or credit for those charges.
You can use the Caller List tab in the Host Control Panel to block a caller based on the Caller ID phone number. Navigate to that tab and click on the Add button, then enter the caller's phone number and check the Block checkbox.
An administrator can log into the Account Portal, and select the Billing tab. There will be a link to remove the suspension. You may need to enter a different credit card in order to process the payment. You may call us during weekday office hours at 1-888-666-3620, and we can update the credit card information for you.
While you are welcome to contact us to request a dial-in number in a country not listed on the list of international dial-in numbers, it's likely that we do not have access to dial-in numbers in that country. There are regulatory or economic conditions that preclude TurboBridge from provisioning dial-in numbers in many countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Please see Accessing TurboBridge From Outside the USA for options when a local dial-in number is not available.
For More Assistance
For additional information on the TurboBridge, please refer to Help, How Do I...?, How It Works, or the footer links on the bottom of this page. If you can't find the information you need, please contact us and we'll be happy to assist you.