"Poor network quality" error reported by Microsoft Teams

Zen internet Full Fibre 100mbps (speedtest reports 90-100mbps upload and download)
Fritzbox 7530 running 8.02
PC connected via TP-Link AV1200 powerlines

Bit of a strange problem, my Internet connection seems fine and I've had no issues recently apart from...

I regularly attend Microsoft Teams meetings and sometimes I need to share my screen. This usually
works okay but occasionally Microsoft Teams reports a "Poor network quality" error and a few times it
has dropped the connection (this only happens if I'm screen sharing).

I've tried looking on the Microsoft website to see if there's any options to reduce the amount of bandwidth
it needs (I'm guessing 100mbps should be more than enough?) but this doesn't seem possible so maybe
there's something wrong with the Zen Internet connection or Fritzbox or home network?

I've just been reading the thread about dropout problems with FritzIOS v8.0 so could it be that?

The first thing you need to do is test without the powerline adaptors, anything else is skirting around the edges.

Hi,

If you're using Teams (personally I prefer Zoom but I understand why businesses use Teams) then you should try to get as fast a connection as you can afford. 100Mmbps is the very minimum I would want to use for Teams. Maybe you could talk to your company to see if they might be willing to pay a portion of your internet costs if you're using it for business purposes.

HTH,

In reply to a post by mking90031:

If you're using Teams (personally I prefer Zoom but I understand why businesses use Teams) then you should try to get as fast a connection as you can afford. 100Mmbps is the very minimum I would want to use for Teams. Maybe you could talk to your company to see if they might be willing to pay a portion of your internet costs if you're using it for business purposes.

Thanks Mark, I think the next step up is 500mbps but I don't fancy paying the extra if the problem turns out to be something on the Fritzbox or LAN. Unfortunately, my employer refuse to pay for any internet costs.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

The first thing you need to do is test without the powerline adaptors, anything else is skirting around the edges.

The only way around that would be to use wifi which I think would be considerably slower. It's something I can try later in the week though.

If you can possibly run a temporary Ethernet cable, however awkward that would be, it would immediately resolve the question of powerline/wifi being inadequate. Then you can decide on what's next.

In reply to a post by cjn:

If you can possibly run a temporary Ethernet cable, however awkward that would be, it would immediately resolve the question of powerline/wifi being inadequate. Then you can decide on what's next.

The Fritzbox is on the ground floor at the front of the house and the PC is on the first floor at the back of the house. I don't have an ethernet cable long enough.

The Teams error only pops up occasionally and only when I screen share. I've tried countless pings and speedtests without ever seeing any problems.

I couldn't find any way to reduce the Teams screen sharing bandwidth so maybe it is maxing out the 100mbps connection?

In reply to a post by mking90031:

If you're using Teams (personally I prefer Zoom but I understand why businesses use Teams) then you should try to get as fast a connection as you can afford. 100Mmbps is the very minimum I would want to use for Teams. Maybe you could talk to your company to see if they might be willing to pay a portion of your internet costs if you're using it for business purposes.

A data point with Zoom: 2 or 3 years ago Mrs Scale and I did a Zoom call with friends. We had 30M wireless at the time, symmetric I believe. I put all 4 of our Zoom capable devices on to the call, without a problem.

One of the outcomes of the pandemic was that the A [asymmetric] in ADSL was stressed by Working From Home, in that the upload became a limiting factor.

If you remember 625 line TV, that had a bandwidth of 6MHz - or was it 5.5MHz, which corresponds roughly with 6Mb/s. so my experiment with 4 Zoom channels upload was probably taking 24 Mb/s or less. OK, we can argue about whether a Zoom channel is equivalent to a 625line TV channel [probably, it takes less]

The upshot of this is that, for both Zoom and Teams, you look at the upstream capability and 10Mb/s is probably adequate, per channel. If Teams or Zoom are not working adequately on a link with 20Mb/s upstream, this indicates looking at other factors than the raw speed, such as latency on the ISP connection or in house issues such as powerline connectors.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

The upshot of this is that, for both Zoom and Teams, you look at the upstream capability and 10Mb/s is probably adequate, per channel. If Teams or Zoom are not working adequately on a link with 20Mb/s upstream, this indicates looking at other factors than the raw speed

The OP stated in their first post that they have 100Mbps up and down so as you say that in theory should be enough

In reply to a post by Fmrl:

The only way around that would be to use wifi which I think would be considerably slower. It's something I can try later in the week though.

For the purpose of diagnosing the issue you're probably better to temporary move the PC to where it can connect directly to the router for the next Teams meeting where you will share your screen.

I've found some support documentation on the Microsoft website so I'm going to have a look at that during my next meeting later on in the week.

I tried setting up a test call with just me on it but I think Teams is clever enough not to waste bandwidth on a screen share if there's no one else on the call.

Apologies if this is a bit obvious but are you connecting to work over a vpn?
Also 100/100mbps is vastly more than the minimum required (assuming nothing else in your household is eating bandwidth); I'm on an 80/20 FTTC connection and never have issues with Teams.

As noted the powerline Ethernet adapter link can be problematic. They can introduce random delays and lagginess due to electrical interference and the nature of their operation.

Think of the data connection over that link as a quite a “dirty” channel - this will be most noticeable in realtime comms such as video calls, where the random delays can result in some bad distortion etc.

It may not be the culprit, but it would the first thing I would eliminate in any reconfiguration / testing.

If you didn't have 150 posts I'd swear this was the output of GenAI. You do not need anywhere close to 100Mbps for Teams and the fix for this issue is not going to be the OP upgrading their service.

If the issue is only apparent when screen sharing, take a look at your CPU usage during those sessions. What spec is your computer?

Edited by jpm (Tue 27-May-25 19:11:18)

In reply to a post by jpm:

If you didn't have 150 posts I'd swear this was the output of GenAI. You do not need anywhere close to 100Mbps for Teams and the fix for this issue is not going to be the OP upgrading their service.

If the issue is only apparent when screen sharing, take a look at your CPU usage during those sessions. What spec is your computer?

Only when I'm screen sharing and only occasionally. I was in a meeting earlier and my screen sharing was fine. No issues at all so I'm a bit stumped at the moment.

Hi,

When you do have an issue, are there any other devices that might be using your connection? Maybe someone else doing Teams / Zoom in the house? Video chatting on their phone, per chance??

HTH,

In reply to a post by mking90031:

When you do have an issue, are there any other devices that might be using your connection? Maybe someone else doing Teams / Zoom in the house? Video chatting on their phone, per chance??

No, nothing else using the network during the day.

I'll keep investigating.

Easiest thing would be to order a network cable of the length required to go from your router to your PC and run that for a few days to rule your Powerline adapters out. A 30m cable is £14 delivered:

https://www.kenable.co.uk/en/networking/network-patc...

Sorry I'm lost. How do you have 100/100? I thought zen was 100/20 on full fibre? Still shouldn't be a problem but I'm a bit confused here. Is this a city fibre tier?

What upload speed tests are you seeing? Does it get any better with your video off?

Also, what are the specs of this PC? It might be the computer is too slow to encode the video and Teams thinks it's a network issue when it isn't.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Sorry I'm lost. How do you have 100/100? I thought zen was 100/20 on full fibre? Still shouldn't be a problem but I'm a bit confused here. Is this a city fibre tier?

I'm guessing that it is.

My understanding is that CityFibre provision one of to services to ISPs: 100/100 or 900/900.

I am on Zen via CF, contracted as 300 symmetrical, but whilst I get the full 300 down, my upload speed is just over 900 as Zen only seem to cap the download speed.

.

Edited by MK65 (Thu 29-May-25 04:51:25)

In reply to a post by Fmrl:

I'll keep investigating.

I've known people who have spent years saying they are investigating an ongoing issue rather than eliminating the possible causes. There are only so many causes of this issue so best list all the possible causes then order them via resolution cost or another metric that best suits you and then start working through them (e.g try connecting the PC directly to router) so you can discount them. If you talk to half a dozen people they will all have different opinions on whats causing it so you won't get a definitive answer so you have to start being practical to get a resolution

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Sorry I'm lost. How do you have 100/100? I thought zen was 100/20 on full fibre? Still shouldn't be a problem but I'm a bit confused here. Is this a city fibre tier?

What upload speed tests are you seeing? Does it get any better with your video off?

Also, what are the specs of this PC? It might be the computer is too slow to encode the video and Teams thinks it's a network issue when it isn't.

Zen Full Fibre 100mbps download and 100mbps upload (i've just ran a speed test and I'm getting 102/146)

PC is a Microsoft Surface (Snapdragon CPU I think) running Windows 11

In reply to a post by Fmrl:

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Sorry I'm lost. How do you have 100/100? I thought zen was 100/20 on full fibre? Still shouldn't be a problem but I'm a bit confused here. Is this a city fibre tier?

What upload speed tests are you seeing? Does it get any better with your video off?

Also, what are the specs of this PC? It might be the computer is too slow to encode the video and Teams thinks it's a network issue when it isn't.

Zen Full Fibre 100mbps download and 100mbps upload (i've just ran a speed test and I'm getting 102/146)

PC is a Microsoft Surface (Snapdragon CPU I think) running Windows 11

Presumably WiFi connected rather than cabled ethernet? Then running over a powerline ethernet link back to the router?

If so this is basically not a recipe for success. I mean it's going to work but the performance *can* be wildly variable as both WiFi and powerline aren't guaranteed throughput and latency, as alluded to above.

Your best bet as noted in several posts is a direct cabled connection from the client machine back to the router - although that may be impractical, but would rule out other issues in your local network.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Presumably WiFi connected rather than cabled ethernet? Then running over a powerline ethernet link back to the router?

If so this is basically not a recipe for success. I mean it's going to work but the performance *can* be wildly variable as both WiFi and powerline aren't guaranteed throughput and latency, as alluded to above.

Your best bet as noted in several posts is a direct cabled connection from the client machine back to the router - although that may be impractical, but would rule out other issues in your local network.

No Wifi, just AV1200s running at around 500mbps.

Wait if this is a laptop why haven't you just picked it up and moved it?

Take the powerline out of the equation. Run directly into the router from the laptop and run the same series of tests etc with teams calls to see if you can replicate.

The reported speed of the powerline adapters isn't necessarily consistent, and they do suffer from variability of the medium (the actual power circuits in your house) - so can introduce random latency, which will be evident as artefacts/distortion etc on your calls.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Wait if this is a laptop why haven't you just picked it up and moved it?

Hehe. Is it a laptop? Is it a Surface all-in-one (with a real Ethernet port)?

Apparently no WiFi too - so I'm flummoxed 🤣

In reply to a post by jpm:

Wait if this is a laptop why haven't you just picked it up and moved it?

It's connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse via a docking station.

The Surface is a terrible machine to use.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by jpm:

Wait if this is a laptop why haven't you just picked it up and moved it?

Hehe. Is it a laptop? Is it a Surface all-in-one (with a real Ethernet port)?

Apparently no WiFi too - so I'm flummoxed 🤣

The ethernet port is on the docking station. It has wifi but I don't use this.

Is it not possible to take the laptop + dock and park it temporarily near the router so you can directly connect it?

In reply to a post by Fmrl:

In reply to a post by jpm:

Wait if this is a laptop why haven't you just picked it up and moved it?

It's connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse via a docking station.

Be honest are you really looking for a resolution to this issue as I am doubting you are.

I'm out, you're not interested in fixing this

In reply to a post by jpm:

I'm out, you're not interested in fixing this

I think I will join you as I have lost count of the good suggestions the OP has received but they have pooh-pooed them all off and claiming they are still investigating.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

The upshot of this is that, for both Zoom and Teams, you look at the upstream capability and 10Mb/s is probably adequate, per channel. If Teams or Zoom are not working adequately on a link with 20Mb/s upstream, this indicates looking at other factors than the raw speed, such as latency on the ISP connection or in house issues such as powerline connectors.

I don't think many people appreciate that power-line adapters, on the actual power line interface are NOT full duplex devices. They are only half duplex.

So in a situation where there is a concurrent demand, in realtime, without laginess and artefacts - like I dunno a multiple person teams or Zoom call with screen sharing thrown in 😅. then these wondrous devices, may struggle. That's before we consider any other electrical noise, garbage etc on the line.

It's like networking with modern moderately high-bandwidth apps but reverting to half-century old CSMA/CD half duplex ethernet technology on rusty fencing wire.

I think I've sufficiently made my point now in this thread wand will likewise gracefully bow out.

Good luck OP.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Fmrl:

In reply to a post by jpm:

Wait if this is a laptop why haven't you just picked it up and moved it?

It's connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse via a docking station.

Be honest are you really looking for a resolution to this issue as I am doubting you are.

Strange thing to say, if I wasn't bothered about finding a fix then I wouldn't have started the thread.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I'm out, you're not interested in fixing this

Okay, thanks anyway.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by jpm:

I'm out, you're not interested in fixing this

I think I will join you as I have lost count of the good suggestions the OP has received but they have pooh-pooed them all off and claiming they are still investigating.

Okay, thanks anyway.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I don't think many people appreciate that power-line adapters, on the actual power line interface are NOT full duplex devices. They are only half duplex.

So in a situation where there is a concurrent demand, in realtime, without laginess and artefacts - like I dunno a multiple person teams or Zoom call with screen sharing thrown in 😅. then these wondrous devices, may struggle. That's before we consider any other electrical noise, garbage etc on the line.

It's like networking with modern moderately high-bandwidth apps but reverting to half-century old CSMA/CD half duplex ethernet technology on rusty fencing wire.

I think I've sufficiently made my point now in this thread wand will likewise gracefully bow out.

Good luck OP.

I do understand the limitations of powerlines, I've had them for about 10 years now and I've been using Teams for at least 5 and never had any issues. This problem has only started happening in the last couple of months and only affects Teams screen sharing so I've been investigating what's changed recently, namely...

Fritzbox updating from 7.59 to 8.00 and then to 8.02 - the reason why I started the thread (looks like this has been a waste of time)
Windows 11 updates
Teams updates

I'll continue to investigate.

The logical way to problem solve this is to go back to a minimal setup that removes any extraneous elements. That is what we’ve all been trying to say…

Connecting directly to the router eliminates a major cause of these issues - your internal network.

If the issue persists then you know the problem definitely is either the ISP connection itself (including router) or your laptop. From there it’s possible to further eliminate one potential cause from the other, by a process of logical elimination.

Just saying your “investigating” is meaningless without context of what you’re doing / have done. And we all go around in circles.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The logical way to problem solve this is to go back to a minimal setup that removes any extraneous elements. That is what we’ve all been trying to say…

Connecting directly to the router eliminates a major cause of these issues - your internal network.

If the issue persists then you know the problem definitely is either the ISP connection itself (including router) or your laptop. From there it’s possible to further eliminate one potential cause from the other, by a process of logical elimination.

Just saying your “investigating” is meaningless without context of what you’re doing / have done. And we all go around in circles.

At the moment I'm focusing on the docking station as it's a universal type connected via USB-C. I've noticed since one of the WIndows updates a while back that it sometimes loses sync with the monitor so that might indicate a communication problem on USB (so nothing to do with the Fritzbox or LAN).

I've also been running packet loss tests on the Surface PC, a Windows 10 laptop connected to the Fritzbox, and a Lubuntu desktop via homeplugs. No indication of any problems so far.

I've not ruled out the homeplugs so I'll try connecting direct to the Fritzbox at some point.

To eliminate the dock, try another simple 1Gbps USB-C Ethernet adapter direct into the router. They’re a couple of quid on places like Amazon. Worth having for trouble shooting and/or spares.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

To eliminate the dock, try another simple 1Gbps USB-C Ethernet adapter direct into the router. They’re a couple of quid on places like Amazon. Worth having for trouble shooting and/or spares.

Thanks. I've also raised a ticket with our IT department so they can investigate too.

I'm also going to setup wifi on the laptop to see if that has the same problem.

You can also eliminate the Fritzbox (in testing) by placing a direct connection from the Surface to the CityFibre ONT by setting up a VLAN ID on whichever Ethernet adapter (via the dock or separate USB-C adapter).

If your still experiencing issues at that point then swap the Surface for another client device and re-test.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

You can also eliminate the Fritzbox (in testing) by placing a direct connection from the Surface to the CityFibre ONT by setting up a VLAN ID on whichever Ethernet adapter (via the dock or separate USB-C adapter).

If your still experiencing issues at that point then swap the Surface for another client device and re-test.

I didn't know you could do that. Is the vlan id all that's needed to establish a connection?

Set the VLAN ID and regular PPPoE client setup and you should be good to go. Your machine will be directly visible on the internet so be careful.

Edited by Pheasant (Fri 30-May-25 12:34:07)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Set the VLAN ID and regular DHCP client setup and you should be good to go. Your machine will be directly visible on the internet so be careful.

I've hit a bit of a snag as the device manager is locked down and it doesn't seem possible to change the adaptor settings anyway.

Do you have another machine /client device that you can test with that's not locked down? Otherwise it's over to your IT support people.

In the first instance, simply connecting directly to the Fritzbox should disprove any suspicion on your internal network, cabling, power-line adapters etc.

Docks can be problematic too. So if you can try a USB-C ethernet adapter without the dock in play, would be helpful.

Edit - for my post quoted above, it's actually a PPPoE client rather than DHCP for Zen if setting a direct client connection to the ONT (with VLAN ID of 911). My bad.

Edited by Pheasant (Fri 30-May-25 13:13:48)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Do you have another machine /client device that you can test with that's not locked down? Otherwise it's over to your IT support people.

In the first instance, simply connecting directly to the Fritzbox should disprove any suspicion on your internal network, cabling, power-line adapters etc.

Docks can be problematic too. So if you can try a USB-C ethernet adapter without the dock in play, would be helpful.

Edit - for my post quoted above, it's actually a PPPoE client rather than DHCP for Zen if setting a direct client connection to the ONT (with VLAN ID of 911). My bad.

The other PCs won't have Teams installed. I've been trying to guess the bandwidth needed for a Teams screen share and then run packet loss tests but so far no issues reported so it could be Teams itself that's a bit too sensitive.

Have you run a loaded latency / buffer bloat test on your setup?

https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Have you run a loaded latency / buffer bloat test on your setup?

https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat

I've been using https://packetlosstest.com/

I just ran bufferbloat and it returned a "C" (up to 200ms latency increase)

That's not great.

Connect machine directly to the router and re-test if you can

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

That's not great.

Connect machine directly to the router and re-test if you can

Tried running it again and got a B - is this something that can be fixed on the Fritzbox or does it need replacing with a different router?

Support replied to my ticket and said there's been a lot of issues with docking stations recently so that seems to be the cause... I asked them if I should replace the docking station with a more expensive one or start using wifi instead. Waiting for their response but it's possibly not a Fritzbox problem after all.

If you have to reclaim / expense it a cheap USB-C Ethernet adapter is a next day thing from Amazon. Will prove or disprove if it’s the dock.

Still think you should try connecting direct to the Frtizbox with no powerline adapters in the link…as a systematic approach 😉

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

If you have to reclaim / expense it a cheap USB-C Ethernet adapter is a next day thing from Amazon. Will prove or disprove if it’s the dock.

Still think you should try connecting direct to the Frtizbox with no powerline adapters in the link…as a systematic approach 😉

After configuring a wifi connection I spent an hour on a Teams call with Support earlier and my screen share didn't have any problems at all so it *might* be fixed. I'll be doing some more testing next week.

I'll connect one of my old PCs laptops direct to the router over the weekend too but this won't have Teams installed so won't be able to test much on it.

Also, I wasn't sure about some of the statistics from the bufferbloat test - there's more latency on the upload (which is higher than the download) and I think this might skew the figures.

Sure. If your WiFi is doing the job / decently strong enough where you need to use it, then happy days.

Did you do the same latency / bufferbloat test when on WiFi and how did it compare to the wired connection?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Did you do the same latency / bufferbloat test when on WiFi and how did it compare to the wired connection?

I did and the result was pretty bad but I think that's to be expected with wifi anyway.