Understanding Network Issues

Natter relies on real-time audio and video communication. Unlike traditional websites, real-time communication can be more sensitive to network conditions, routing decisions, and security policies.

Network-related issues may present themselves in different ways, including poor call quality, difficulty joining sessions, intermittent connectivity, or features working differently between environments.

If available, reviewing your Natter Tech Check results can often provide additional insight into the nature of the issue.

Common Symptoms

Network-related issues may present as:

Audio cutting in and out
Frozen or degraded video quality
Unexpected disconnections
Long connection times when joining sessions
Difficulty accessing audio or video despite permissions being granted
Natter working successfully in one location but not another

The same symptom can have multiple causes, which is why comparing environments and network conditions is often helpful when troubleshooting.

Organisational Network Configuration

Most organisations complete network validation and, where required, allowlisting activities as part of their Natter onboarding process.

In the majority of cases, this ensures users can access Natter without requiring any additional configuration.

However, organisations often operate across multiple offices, regions, VPN gateways, and network environments. As a result, it is possible for some users to experience different behaviour depending on where they are connecting from.

Examples may include:

Users connecting from different geographic regions
Remote workers using alternative VPN gateways
Guest participants
Newly onboarded teams or business units
Users accessing Natter for the first time within an organisation

If you believe your environment may not have been included in earlier testing or onboarding activities, Natter can work directly with your organisation to help identify and resolve any network-related restrictions.

Natter Works at Home But Not in the Office

One of the most common patterns we see is Natter working successfully from a home network but experiencing issues when accessed from a corporate office, client site, or VPN-connected environment.

When this occurs, the issue is often related to the network itself rather than the device or browser being used.

Potential causes include:

Firewall restrictions
VPN routing policies
Proxy servers
Security inspection tools
Enterprise network policies

Even when Natter has been successfully deployed within an organisation, differences between offices, regions, VPN routes, or security policies can occasionally result in inconsistent behaviour between users.

Comparing the environments where Natter works successfully against those where issues occur is often the most effective next step. In many cases, your IT or Networking team can help identify differences in routing, security controls, or network policies that may be contributing to the behaviour.

VPN Considerations

VPNs are commonly used to improve security and provide access to internal company resources. Depending on how a VPN is configured, it may also introduce additional routing, filtering, or inspection of network traffic.

In some environments, this can affect audio, video, or connectivity performance within Natter.

If permitted by your organisation, testing both with and without the VPN enabled can help determine whether it is contributing to the issue. If the experience changes significantly when connecting through a VPN, this information can be valuable when working with your IT team.

Public & Guest Networks

Public Wi-Fi networks such as those found in hotels, airports, conference centres, and guest networks may apply restrictions to real-time communication services.

If you experience issues while using a public network, testing from an alternative connection such as a personal hotspot can help determine whether network restrictions are involved.

Improving Connection Stability

If you are experiencing poor audio or video quality, there are several simple steps that can help improve connection stability.

Where possible:

Move closer to your Wi-Fi router
Use a wired Ethernet connection
Pause large downloads or uploads
Close bandwidth-intensive applications
Reduce the number of devices actively using the same network connection

These actions can help reduce congestion and improve the consistency of your connection during a Natter session.

The Tech Check Takes a Long Time to Complete

The Natter Tech Check should normally complete within a few minutes.

If the test takes significantly longer than expected, stalls during connectivity testing, or fails to complete entirely, this can sometimes indicate that elements of the test are being delayed or restricted by the local network environment.

Examples may include: