Apple Keynote and Webex Meetings are not getting along

[mcoble]

I recently discovered that Webex Meetings performs poorly when I have Apple Keynote open on my MacBook Pro.

When Keynote is open, Webex Meetings sessions stutter, my video feed and audio is poor, video from other participants times out and is poor. If I close Keynote—voila!—the issue goes away and Webex runs smoothly. Note that this occurs simply because the Apple Keynote and Webex Meetings applications are open at the same time on my Mac. I'm not sharing Keynote, presenting with it, or anything like that. It's just running.

I've rebooted and I've verified that both Apple Keynote and Webex Meetings are updated to the latest versions.

My workaround in the meantime when I need to present is exporting the Apple Keynote presentation to a PDF. Not always ideal.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Any solutions?

Apple Keynote v10.3.8

Webex Meetings v40.12.5.14

MacOS v10.15.7

[Hauke]

Hey everyone, I just noticed that the problem does not occur anymore – at least on my systems. I tested both on macOS Big Sur 11.2.1 (MacBook Air 2017) as well as macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (MacBook Pro mid 2012) with Keynote 10.3.9 and Webex Meetings 42.2.4.15. Despite those being two rather low performance systems, the connection is up again and everything working smoothly with camera switched on and Keynote running (and even sharing a presentation).

I'm not quite sure, whether this is due to a recent Webex update or the latest macOS updates, but it works again. I hope you all will experience the same after updating!

[mcoble]

Awesome! Thanks for letting us know!

I've not tried Keynote and Webex together again yet, but I have seen some macOS and Webex updates, so I'll give it a try soon.

[yrtsgfdgrd89631]

i have also the same problem in my apple device i am facing so much difficulties regarding this issue can someone guide me which is the best way to connect these both bcz my whole fragrance project is stopped due to this.

[bhunt]

I am having almost precisely the same experience and like you, it took a while to figure out the conflict was with Keynote. Like you, I did not have a problem prior to some time in Fall. 

I believe there is probably some other contributing factor because a lot of my colleagues use Keynote and I think w/o issue. I am going to experiment next week with running on a different computer. The one I'm currently using is a 2017 generation MacBook Pro w/16gb RAM and 3.1ghz processor. I also have a very healthy internet/wifi connection (~500mbs down/300 up) so that should not be a factor. 

Hoping for a solution soon...

[mcoble]

Sorry it's happening to you too, but nice to know there are others out there with this issue, as that means there are more of us striving to find the fix!

Like you, I have colleagues who use Keynote and Webex together just fine. It's odd.

This week, i discovered that it may have something to do with the MacBook's camera. I forgot I had Keynote running, joined a Webex with camera off, and it performed OK at first. Moments later, I turned the camera on in Webex and... Boom! Spinning, hanging, stuttering Webex. Quit Keynote and Webex is fine.

So maybe Keynote and Webex are fighting over the camera somehow?

My end is 2017 MacBook Pro, 3.1GHz dual core i5, 8GB memory. Bandwidth here is healthy too—450 down/25 up—so I don't think that's an issue.

Thanks for sharing your story.

MC

[Hauke]

That's what I tried to express earlier

It works perfectly fine for me if I either use Keynote without camera video or use camera video without Keynote running. 

[Hauke]

Hi @mcoble, thanks for bringing up this issue. I've been having the same problem for some months now. 

Here, it's not possible to share my FaceTime camera when Keynote is running without stutters. It would only work, if I either disabled my camera or closed Keynote (which is annoying because it wouldn't allow me to do proper presentations and teaching via Webex). Keynote without video but only with audio would work, though.

It took me some time to realize that both Webex and Keynote running would cause the problem. I haven't experienced this with other conferencing and screen sharing tools and at least before July (perhaps even before mid October) everything worked well even with Webex.
I couldn't find any report on this, let alone a solution to the problem. So I'm glad you shared this here.

My current configuration:

macOS 11.1 on MacBookAir 2017
Keynote 10.3.8
Webex Meetings 40.12.5.14

[mcoble]

Thanks for sharing your experience with this. While I'm sorry it's not working for you either, it's reassuring in a way to know that I'm not the only one experiencing this issue.

For me, it started sometime in late fall 2020. Earlier in the year, I presented with Keynote in Webex meetings all the time with no issues.

Now I'm having to export my Keynote presentations to PowerPoint or PDF and make sure Keynote is not running prior to joining Webex meetings. This isn't always ideal, depending on the material I'm presenting.

Even if Keynote is just running with no presentation open, Webex stutters, hangs, spins, audio drops, etc. Close Keynote and voila! Webex runs smoothly. It's weird.

[Hauke]

Same here.

@mcoble wrote:

For me, it started sometime in late fall 2020. Earlier in the year, I presented with Keynote in Webex meetings all the time with no issues.

We use Webex at our university and it definitely worked well in spring and summer for me. I'm not quite sure about the fall semester, but if I remember correctly, I think it stopped working after only a few sessions, so maybe around mid October/early November.