Troubleshooting a failed meeting

The bot did not join the meeting

• Stuck in the lobby — the organiser must admit the bot from the Teams lobby. See Getting the bot admitted below.
• “Bot at capacity” — the bot records a limited number of meetings at the same time. If all its slots are taken when the meeting starts and none frees up in the following minutes, the meeting is marked “Bot at capacity”. For an important meeting that overlaps others, start the recording from the browser.
• Invalid or expired link — check that the meeting link is a valid Teams link (starting with https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/). Regenerate it from the calendar if necessary.
• Private meeting of another organisation — if you are invited to an external meeting, the host must allow anonymous guests. Otherwise, invite a Scribe address provided in Settings → Bot instead.

Getting the bot admitted

In a meeting organised by a third party (client, partner, another organisation), the Scribe bot is an external participant: Teams places it in the lobby and only the organiser (or a co-organiser) can let it in.

• During the meeting — the organiser opens the participant list, finds “Scribe (Recording)” (or the name chosen for the bot) under “Waiting in lobby” and clicks Admit.
• Time limit — the bot waits for up to 10 minutes after the scheduled start time, then gives up. After 2 minutes of waiting, you receive an email so that you can prompt the organiser.
• Let the organiser know in advance — a note in the invitation or the chat is enough, and it fulfils your obligation to inform participants of the recording.

For the bot to join without anyone having to admit it, the organiser can change the meeting options:

1. In Teams or Outlook, open the meeting and then Meeting options.
2. For Who can bypass the lobby?, choose Everyone (required if the bot joins as an anonymous guest) or People in my org, trusted orgs, and guests to let colleagues and guests in directly.
3. Click Save. The setting applies to this meeting (and to the whole series if it is recurring).

Some organisations enforce the lobby through a policy set by their Teams administrator: in that case, admitting the bot manually is the only option. For your own meetings, the same setting avoids any waiting.

The transcript is empty or very short

• The bot was admitted but muted — check that it was not muted in Teams.
• The meeting lasted less than 30 seconds — Scribe does not produce a report below this threshold.
• No active microphone — if all participants were muted, or in the room without a Teams microphone, there is nothing to transcribe.

You can regenerate a summary (without re-transcribing) using the report's “Re-summarise” button if the transcript is correct but the summary is disappointing.