Reasons for an echo or feedback:
- Echo occurs if input output audio devices are placed close together. Someone's computer speakers are too close to their microphone or their audio is too loud.
- Being in the virtual room twice. If you hear an echo and notice that someone is in the room twice, that may be the cause.
- Having multiple people in the same physical office or room in the same virtual room (sound from the speaker on one computer enters the microphone of the other computer).
- If playing a YouTube Video without muting yourself, in your YouTube browser, click on the Settings icon (upper right). Then go to the General tab, scroll to Audio and choose whether the sound is muted when browsing YouTube or only playing a specific video.
Prevention:
- Wear a headset or ear buds.
- If you or someone else is in the room twice; remove them, exit or close any extra windows or tabs.
- Refresh the page.
- Move your microphone away from your speakers.
- Mute or turn off the microphone of the person who is causing it or mute yourself if you are the cause. Mute others when they are not speaking.
- Have the person who is causing it turn down their computer's volume.
- If multiple people are on multiple computers in one physical location, have them go in separate rooms or turn off or mute all the computers but one.
- Mute yourself when you play a YouTube video.
- Buy or use an external microphone. Built-in mics quality can vary.
- Turn off webcams. This will allow more bandwidth for audio.