When the AI Note Taker has joined a Zoom call but is waiting for permission to record, its video will show the image below.
Once the host approves its recording request, the video will change to the usual background and recording will start. Only once it starts recording will it send the chat message that it is recording and who requested the recording.
If for some reason the bot is not able to record, it will send a chat message explaining why and leave the call. The details about those messages and how to resolve them going forward will be explained in this article below.
Host denied recording permission request
When the Fellow Note Taker is invited to record a Zoom call, the host will see a popup message asking them to allow the Fellow Note Taker to record.
If the meeting host clicked Deny in the recording permission popup, you will receive an error message as seen in the image below.
In order to resolve this, you will need to invite the Fellow Note Taker again and this time have the meeting host to allow it.
Record to computer files is disabled by the host or by an admin
As the meeting host if you do not have Record to computer files enabled, you will receive an error message in the chat as seen in the image below.
To resolve this, as the meeting host you will need to enable Record to computer files in your Zoom account following the steps below:
Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
Navigate to Settings and to the Recording tab
Enable Record to computer files and External meeting participants
Optionally enable Auto approve their permission requests.
If you are unable to enable any of these settings or they are greyed out, contact your Zoom administrator.
If you are a Zoom administrator you can enable these settings on behalf of all users in your Zoom workspace by navigating to Account Management then Account Settings and then clicking on the Recording tab.
Record to computer files permission requests are disabled
If the “Hosts can give meeting participants permission to record locally” option is disabled in user/group/account settings, you will get an error message saying that the Fellow Note Taker is not able to record this meeting because this option is disabled, and will ask you to make sure that it is enabled.
To enable this option, select the option "Hosts can give meeting participants permission to record locally" in the Recording tab where you enabled local recording to allow meeting participants to record locally as well.
Meeting requires sign-in
If you see the below error message in Fellow, this would mean that the Zoom meeting requires the attendees to be signed into a Zoom account to be able to access the meeting.
Our note-taker bot cannot sign in, so you will need to turn off the requirement of being signed in. You can visit the Zoom help docs here to help walk you through this.
You will also need to make sure that it is turned off on a meeting level if it is turned on there. You can do it on a meeting level by opening up the settings for a particular meeting and going to Meeting Security like in the image below, and uncheck the Only authenticated users can join: Sign in to Zoom option.
Host using Zoom web client and not the desktop app
The Zoom web client does not support the recording permission prompt. If the host is using the Zoom web client, you will get a message in the chat, as seen in the image below.
To resolve this, the host should join using the Zoom desktop app or install our Zoom app to integrate Fellow with Zoom. Once the integration is set up, the note taker will start joining your Zoom calls automatically without being asked to let it. If you already have the Zoom app, you may just need to update it in Fellow to get this functionality. You can do this from your User settings in the Apps & integrations page.
If you have Zoom connected and you're still running into this error, it may be that you have E2EE (end-to-end encryption) enabled on your Zoom workspace. To get fellow to work, you will need to turn E2EE off for the meetings you want to record. This Zoom article here shows that this can be done at the account, group, or user level in Zoom.
Recording permission requests are disabled in the meeting
If the meeting host has either already denied a recording request in the meeting and checked off the box to save that setting for the rest of the meeting,
Or disabled the “Request recording permission” option in the Security menu within the call,
You will receive the following error message in the chat:
To resolve this, open the security menu and enable the “Request Recording Permission” option, then invite the Fellow Note Taker again.
Other errors
You may also run into other minor uncommon errors that are no mentioned above. In those case, you will get a message in the chat like in the image below.
In this case, you can try inviting the Fellow Note Taker again and it should help resolve the issue for you!