In the last month or two, when we send a MimoCall link to people we wish to record (Apple Big Sur 11.6.1 and Mimolive 5.11 (29401), those individuals are having a hard time connecting. What usually happens is that the person cuts and pastes the mimocall URL into their browser (we recommend that they use Chrome). At that point, they see a round circle in the middle of their screen with the word “Connecting.” However, for most people, it never connects. The only way for them to connect is to click on the very faint link at the bottom of the screen that says “Click to use the legacy mimoCall version.” Can you tell us why people are no longer able to connect immediately? This is a new problem and a significant impediment to looking professional with clients.
We’ve also had another new problem. On several occasions, the mimocaller can see the program output on their screen (and we can see their face/image in the program output), but they cannot see themselves in their small personal screen. They see only a black 16x9 screen. This problem happens even if they reconnect and have properly selected their camera in the video settings. What might be causing this?
Elissa,
I experienced that too. Between Catalina and Monterey, Apple changed partially announced-but also partially unannounced-functions and features of macOS, also in Safari. I did a research on changes by Apple, and it’s weird. Since Catalina, I feel abused by Apple as an Alpha-Tester for their OS. Some things work for Apple Silicon and are broken on intel, others vice versa. It seems to be that their transition is very bumpy. It’s a hell for us users and a huger hell for developers. I’m sure that Boinx works on workarounds for Apple’s mess ups. And I hope that this tragedy will come to an end soon. For all of us.
Hello, old friend! I was hoping you might pop in with an answer. Given the Apple issues you’ve described, what’s our best approach? We are dealing with some important clients and their interviewees that we bring in via Mimo and we need to avoid a bad experience for them. Both Barbara (co-founder of company) and I are on Intel iMacs on Big Sur. For various compatibility reasons with other projects/editors, we have not wanted to move to move to Monterey, but would if it would help thsi priority situation. We really need to have clients/interviewees not have an experience that trips them up and where they have to click to use a legacy edition. What version of MacOS and Mimo on our Intel Macs (iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020), would work best? By the way, I just saw a slight update to Big Sur 11.6.4 (20G417) and did that. We’ll see if that will change the situation, but look forward to any advise you and @Oliver_Boinx have for producing a smooth Mimocall connection experience for our clients under current conditions.
You could try to downgrade mimoLive to version 5.8.1. I think there is “just” the legacy option for mimoCalls, so it could workaround the additional click for the moment.
If you use API-endpoint /cycleThroughVariantsBackwards (was inteoduced in 5.11 I think) this could be an issue. Otherwise it can be a solution for the moment. You can run multiple versions of mimoLive on the same computer. Right-click your document and choose open with… there should be the “history” of available installations. If it is not there, please pick it from here:
The thing is, that from BigSur on, everything gets crazy (for all developers and users worldwide). But this could work for the moment.
If you can, use (and stay on) Catalina.
Client computers: (Idea)
You could use a thunderbolt/usb3-SSD, installing macOS Catalina on it. You could boot from this drive, instead of the drive which is used by the client.
Thanks again for the quick response! I am going to work and consult with others to try to understand what you wrote better. It does appear that I am on Mimolive 6.0b8(29531), so your idea of managing a downgrade to 5.8.1 sounds like a potential solution–if we can do it. Indeed, things had been working great till we renewed our licenses for Mimo and it automatically upgraded. We will work on this idea and let you know how it pans out. I think it’s too late to go back to Catalina (for other reasons as well - we share editing files with some editors and all are on Big Sur), but I now see you’ve posted something about having an external installation of Catalina. Will look into that if the 5.8.1 plan doesn’t work.
We don’t have access to client computers as our interviewees are all over the county and sometimes abroad, so I think that last point wouldn’t work–unless I am not getting what you are saying. (Please let me know - I’m not as tech savvy, though making my best effort!) Appreciate your efforts in this community, as always. Boinx is lucky to have you helping users out. We have benefited so much from your posts and responses!!! Thank you.
You’re welcome. I thought, you want to use a client’s computer for broadcasts. I have no idea how I came on this. Sorry for the confusion. Good to know, it’s “just” the access to mimoCall (client side). BTW, I started a stream on Youtube: It’s called “Teach me English!”, the format where I constantly try to get better… Maybe that’s why.
Hi, there. Would Mimo 5.9 work similarly to 5.8.1, possibly? I can open a file with 5.9 per the method you mentioned (see screenshot of my options), but earlier ones without numbers in parentheses
do not open as they are expired betas and such. I did not have 5.8.1 on my computer and when I did download it, my Mac will not allow me to open it per the second screenshot
Is there any way to get the Mac to allow me to open 5.8.1? Thank you for any thoughts on these questions (when you have time!). Elissa
Can you share your YouTube stream URL?
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@MiniMattersEL Sorry for the troubles. This can happen when people have used the mimoCall client before and it should be resolved by reloading the page. Can you please test this?
The window that shows the “local view” is created entirely on the callers computer. Not sure what could cause this to fail, but usually it has to do with local permissions. Can you please find out the Chrome version the people who have this problem are using?
Oliver, Hi. We are having the trouble with new clients and interviewees (eek!) who have never used Mimo before this. Did you mean to say “when people have NEVER used the mimoCall client before?” If so, we will advise them to refresh the page when it happens. But if you did mean “when people have used the mimoCall client before,” these are people new to Mimo, so this might not work. Can you confirm if you forgot the word “NEVER” in your response?
In fact, we would like to avoid the initial problems of not connecting and the refresh need or need to have them click to the legacy version to connect, as we have some VIP interviews coming up. Is there any way to get our Macs to allow us to use 10.8.1 if Johannes is right that that will get us back to where things were working so well for us? And thank you, by the way, for responding personally. I understand that your developers must be working hard to handle all these changes.
At settings under “security tab”, you can choose “open anyways”, after double clicking the app. But when a simple refresh will solve your troubles, great!
This is the link to the channel:
@Oliver_Boinx: good to know. And there is no reset after a reboot?
I can confirm that I was able to download and open files in 5.8.1 using this technique. Thank you, Johannes! We’ll test if we will be back to normal on the next interviews.
Just had this very situation happen with a mimoCall guest during tech for a live-stream tomorrow. Caller was on a PC, and had just downloaded Chrome today because he only had Firefox. Tried to connect and got the spinning “connecting…” circle and never connected. Interestingly, on my end it showed that we were connected. The window with the graph that opens when you click on the mimoCall gear showed that sound and picture were being sent, but were not being received.
I had my guest look for and click on the “legacy mimoCall” prompt and he joined the call with sound and picture immediately. I had a similar situation in January with a guest, and hadn’t been aware of the “legacy mimoCall” option at the time.
What would cause someone using Chrome on Windows to have this problem?
I guess different WebRTC implementations of the “new version” of the standard. All are cooking with gas, but finally it’s an individual soup. I think this is comparable to dialects in spoken languages. Sometimes there are mistakes (bugs) and sometimes other expressions for the same thing.
Sorry for the confusion. Good to know, it’s “just” the access to mimoCall (client side). BTW, I started a stream on Youtube: It’s called “Teach me English!”, the format where I constantly try to get better… 
