Zoom is a tool that brings people together and one of the most popular remote work and remote learning tools in the world.
From time to time, Zoom might display various error codes on the screen indicating your connection is not stable. And if your Zoom connection is unstable, you’ll experience video or audio buffering issues, and frequent disconnects.
Fix Zoom Error: Unstable Internet Connection
→ Quick Fix: This error normally appears when you’re in the middle of a video conference. Obviously, you don’t have much time to tweak your settings or look for the culprit. As a quick workaround, if you are using your camera, try turning it off.
In this manner, you can free up precious bandwidth which should preserve the audio and screen sharing quality allowing you to still actively take part in the meeting.
1. Check your network connection
The first thing to do to make sure you have a stable Internet connection is to restart or unplug your modem and router. If there are any pending router firmware updates, install them on your device.
In order to give Zoom access to your full bandwidth, check if there are other devices connected to your network and disable them. Additionally, to further speed up your connection, you can use an Ethernet cable which is known to be more stable and faster compared to a wireless connection.
If you can’t use a cable connection, make sure you’re not too far away from the Wi-Fi router. Ideally, the computer you’re using for Zoom video conferences should be only a few feet away from your router.
Alternatively, you can also switch to a different Wi-Fi channel and test to see if you notice any differences.
After following all these suggestions, check your connection and make sure you meet the bandwidth requirements (ideally, at least 2 Mbps up/down).
Note: Temporary infrastructure issues on your ISP’s side could also negatively impact your Internet connection. Get in touch in your ISP and check if there are any known infrastructure or server problems.
2. Disable bandwidth-hogging programs
If there are other programs running in the background, we recommend disabling them, especially if we’re talking about bandwidth-hogging software such as cloud sync programs, streaming tools, video-sharing programs, and so on.
If you’re using a VPN, disable it and check if you notice any improvements in terms of network stability. Some statistics suggest that using a VPN may slow down your connection by up to 30% or even 50% if you use a VPN server that’s not located in your region.
3. Disable SIP ALG and QOS
SIP ALG or Application Layer Gateway is a tool that many routers come equipped with. Its main role is to prevent router firewall issues. But sometimes, SIP ALG can cause more problems than it fixes, and disabling it is a wise decision.
To disable SIP ALG, follow these steps:
- Access your router’s admin page, and go the Advanced Tab or Advances settings.
- Then, select Setup and WAN setup.
- Locate NAT filtering, and check the option that allows you to turn off SIP ALG.
- Restart your router and check if Zoom still detects the connection is unstable.
These instructions may vary depending on your router model. On some routers, the SIP ALG feature can be found under firewall settings. For detailed instructions, go to your router manufacturer’s support page.
Other users suggested that turning off QoS (Quality of Service) may also help. As a quick reminder, QoS is a common router tool that prioritizes traffic.
4. Renew your IP address
Refreshing your IP address is another potential solution that may fix this Zoom unstable connection problem.
- Launch Command prompt with admin rights
- Enter the following commands and hit Enter after each one:
- netsh winsock reset
- netsh int ip reset
- ipconfig /release
- ipconfig /renew
- ipconfig /flushdns
- Restart your computer and launch Zoom.
5. Change DNS settings
- Go to Settings > Network & Internet
- Click on your internet connection
- Scroll down to IP settings and click on the IP assignment button
- Select Manual and enable IPv4 or IPv6 depending on your network and hardware configuration
- Enter the primary and secondary DNS your want to use:
- Google Public DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
- OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
- Cloudflare DNS: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1
- Apply the changes, restart your computer, and check if the error is gone.
Let us know which solution worked for you.
Gary Rudder says
We have one person who has a Surface Pro Laptop. About a week ago, his video and audio in Zoom meetings started freezing up very frequently. It will freeze up for 3 or 4 seconds and sometimes longer. The problem is, he is often one of our presenters. So when he needs to be presenting material, he keeps freezing up and we miss several words of what he is saying.
We have tried connecting him to his router with Ethernet, but that did not help. We have tried everything we can find. I found your article and was hopeful that one of your options would solve the problem. Since the problem just started about a week ago, I was hopeful that uninstalling the last Windows update would bring him back to a point where the problem would be gone. No joy.
The interesting thing is that all of their Android devices in the house and on the same WiFi can connect to the Zoom meetings and never freeze up. So, it is something in his Surface. I have checked his task manager, and everything is running at top performance in there. When you do a speed test on Ookla, the graph is a steady straight line, so the Internet signal is solid, fast, and steady. We are at our wit’s end here. If you can think of anything else we might be missing, please keep me in mind. Needless to say, this is very frustrating.
Thanks,
Gary Rudder