Re: Connectivity issues last Tuesday

Heather,

I haven't been attending the meeting lately but as a Jitsi user and admin, I think I can offer some insight.

First, this issue is very rare and only effected a single browser. That's key to understand here- it was not the fault of Jitsi yet they did respond quickly (within a day or two) and AFAIK this hasn't happened before.

Secondly, to your question about mitigation against this, the answers Manu presented are correct, and I can offer a few more:

a) Users using a dial-in phone bridge would not be effected. I don't recall if this meeting has a dial-in but if not, it's fairly straightforward to set up.

b) Users can simply switch to another browser, such as Firefox, which wasn't effected.

c) Jitsi offers a standalone application (which is actually just a bundled web browser application) which I don't believe was impacted. This application is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.

This situation with Jitsi is actually far better than what some video providers do (Google and Zoom) where they require that participants use their own mandated software stack. In this case, Jitsi does offer such a stack in the form of its application, but does not mandate it.

It is frurstrating and also effected me and my own Jitsi instance, but ultimately this is a rare situation outside of the control of anyone on this list.

- Serge

On Saturday, October 17, 2020 06:02 PM UTC, Heather Vescent <heathervescent@gmail.com> wrote:
 Thank you for troubleshooting and identifying a path forward Manu. You are truly dedicated! Is there any way to estimate the number and frequency of this kind of fatal issue? It's clear we won't have a stable version of Jitsi since its functionality is interdependent with other systems not under their control.  Is there a way for us to manage/reduce this situation in the future? -Heather On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 2:57 PM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:TL;DR: Some of you had connectivity issues when connecting to Jitsi last
Tuesday. The issue was the latest auto-update for Google Chrome 86.

The latest version of Google Chrome 86 changed the way WebRTC (used to
do audio/video in the browser) works and pushed it out to everyone that
has auto-update turned on. The latest update contains a security feature
that wasn't intended to affect WebRTC, but it does, and it's a feature
that Jitsi depended on. The Jitsi developers worked through the weekend
and there is now a software fix that requires a Jitsi upgrade in order
for Google Chrome to work again.

In other words, the community server didn't go down -- the latest Google
Chrome broke backward compatibility (welcome to the new browser
monoculture, everyone!). There are a few fixes we're looking into. In
the meantime, here are some alternatives:

* Use Firefox
* Use Edge (version prior to Chromium Engine 86 - before Oct 6th)
* Use Chromium (prior to 86)
* Use Google Chrome (prior to Chromium Engine 86)
* Dial in via phone and use IRC

We're going to do a controlled upgrade to the community Jitsi system in
an attempt to become compatible with the latest version of Google
Chrome. No ETA on when the upgrade will be done as we need to make sure
the upgrade doesn't break anything.

For those that want to read through the gory details:

https://community.jitsi.org/t/jitsi-meet-not-working-on-chrome-86/81475

https://community.jitsi.org/t/help-stops-work-with-new-chrome-version-86-0-4240-75/80715

-- manu

PS: There is a slim chance that there were connectivity issues to the
east coast data center as well, but not enough data to be certain. The
more probable cause is the Google Chrome issue above.

--
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Veres One Decentralized Identifier Blockchain Launches
https://tinyurl.com/veres-one-launches

   --Heather VescentCo-Chair, Credentials Community Group @W3CPresident, The Purple Tornado, IncAuthor, The Secret of Spies (Available Oct 2020)Author, The Cyber Attack Survival Manual (revised, Dec 2020)Author, A Comprehensive Guide to Self Sovereign Identity @heathervescent | Film Futures | Medium | LinkedIn | Future of Security Updates