FaceTime hanging with warning triangle on WiFi

[raymond7]

Recently I bought an iPhone 13. I use it a lot to video call with my girlfriend who lives in another country. She has an iPhone 11.
I noticed when we are facetiming, that her video is freezing on my screen during the facetime video call. She says she sees me crisp and clear and smooth without any freezing on her phone, but unfortunately on my screen she keeps freezing, but I am still able to hear her and talk to her.

As soon as I turn off my wifi and use data, I can see her without freezing. If I turn my WiFi on again during the facetime call she will start freezing again on my phone. I have no clue what causes this...

When we are video calling through whatsapp video (WiFi) call there are no problems. So it seems to be something in FaceTime.

Anyone else also has this problem? Perhaps related to iPhone 13 only? I'm not sure

 

[Dormammu]

I’ve had this happen a couple times on my iPhone 11 Pro. Unsure on the causes. Frustrating when it does happen though.

 

[raymond7]

I’ve had this happen a couple times on my iPhone 11 Pro. Unsure on the causes. Frustrating when it does happen though.

So it went away by itself?

 

[ant the ninja]

I am noticing this too. We have two iPhone 13 pros in the house when we FaceTime people they always complain that all they can see if the triangle with a question mark in it. This didn’t start until we got the 13 pros. My internet speed is over 200mbps so it can’t be my wifi.

Has anyone been experiencing this with the 13s? I don’t know if this is a software issue or a phone issue.

 

[cynics]

Recently I bought an iPhone 13. I use it a lot to video call with my girlfriend who lives in another country. She has an iPhone 11.
I noticed when we are facetiming, that her video is freezing on my screen during the facetime video call. She says she sees me crisp and clear and smooth without any freezing on her phone, but unfortunately on my screen she keeps freezing, but I am still able to hear her and talk to her.

As soon as I turn off my wifi and use data, I can see her without freezing. If I turn my WiFi on again during the facetime call she will start freezing again on my phone. I have no clue what causes this...

When we are video calling through whatsapp video (WiFi) call there are no problems. So it seems to be something in FaceTime.

Anyone else also has this problem? Perhaps related to iPhone 13 only? I'm not sure

Depending on cellular network protocol (LTE, 5G) and cellular provider your FaceTime video calls can be throttled to a certain extent. This would result in a reduction in video quality that MIGHT go unnoticed however it also inadvertently would increase network performance.

Personally I've always found FaceTime to favor quality a bit too much resulting in poor performance.

Download the speedtest.net app if you don't already have it. Connect via wifi and change the server to a server more local to your friend in that other country (if one exist). Do the same wth cellular. Post the results including ping and jitter.

Ping and jitter are really important because ping is the delay, jitter is the variances in that delay. High ping (latency) with high jitter will lead to exactly what you are describing. Since the video is real time there isn't a way to "buffer" the video, data is just dropped.

Facetime will also need access to the following ports. Make sure they are open if you are capable...



A hamfisted approach would just be putting your iPhone outside of your routers security temporarily for testing (DMZ).

Since FaceTime is likely RTP (Real time Transport Protocol) make sure nothing else is going on with your network. Like someone else using FaceTime/Zoom/Whatsapp/etc. Even make sure no QoS things are going, streaming services like netflix, gaming, etc just for testing purposes.

 

[cynics]

I am noticing this too. We have two iPhone 13 pros in the house when we FaceTime people they always complain that all they can see if the triangle with a question mark in it. This didn’t start until we got the 13 pros. My internet speed is over 200mbps so it can’t be my wifi.

Has anyone been experiencing this with the 13s? I don’t know if this is a software issue or a phone issue.

People can hear you but the video drops out with a poor network icon?

Its not about your internet with video conferencing. FaceTime is a peer to peer connection, two people with great internet could have lousy video conferencing because somewhere between them the network isn't good.

200mbps is max bandwidth, not your minimum btw. The more server hopping your data has to do the longer it will take (increased latency) and the lower the capacity will be (bandwidth). For example I have 800mbps internet, if I use speedtest to a local sever its very near that with a 14ms ping 0 jitter. If I enter a Japanese server my download speed is 140mbps and more importantly it has 600-700ms ping latency 60 jitter. Its unlikely I could maintain a FaceTime call to someone in japan even though my internet is great and theirs could be too....its just too much data hopping.

If possible try FaceTiming someone in your house. If you have another Apple device you can FaceTime yourself (make sure to mute both device to avoid feedback). If it works fine then its the network, if its still an issue its the device or something in particular about your network.

 

[ant the ninja]

People can hear you but the video drops out with a poor network icon?

Its not about your internet with video conferencing. FaceTime is a peer to peer connection, two people with great internet could have lousy video conferencing because somewhere between them the network isn't good.

200mbps is max bandwidth, not your minimum btw. The more server hopping your data has to do the longer it will take (increased latency) and the lower the capacity will be (bandwidth). For example I have 800mbps internet, if I use speedtest to a local sever its very near that with a 14ms ping 0 jitter. If I enter a Japanese server my download speed is 140mbps and more importantly it has 600-700ms ping latency 60 jitter. Its unlikely I could maintain a FaceTime call to someone in japan even though my internet is great and theirs could be too....its just too much data hopping.

If possible try FaceTiming someone in your house. If you have another Apple device you can FaceTime yourself (make sure to mute both device to avoid feedback). If it works fine then its the network, if its still an issue its the device or something in particular about your network.

So when I FaceTime someone else in my household on the same wifi, it works perfectly fine. Even turning wifi off on one device and leaving it on the other, no issues. If I try FaceTiming my mother or sister who live 10-15 minutes away from me, I can see them perfectly but to them, I freeze up and then they can only see a symbol with an exclamation point in it. I’ve never had this issue before the 13 Pro, FaceTime has always worked perfectly for my on my previous phones. It happens on my wife’s device too when FaceTiming outside the house. Nothing with my internet has changed, the only difference is the 13 Pros now instead of the 12 Pros.

I use speedtest.net quite a bit and 3 times in a row my results were:

224 down 10 up 10ms Ping 1.7ms Jitter
219 down 8 up 12ms Ping 3.7ms Jitter
223 down 8 up 11ms Ping 1.7 Jitter

I even ran a speedtest while on FaceTime with the other person saying that all they could see was the error

221 down 6 up 11ms Ping 1.9 Jitter

But now that I’m doing the speed tests, I remember my upload speeds were always consistently 30, now they are way down. Could that be it? I just can’t figure out what the heck changed

edit: I just called my provider and they did, they dropped my plan to 200/10 when it used to be 200/40. This has to be the issue, right?

Second edit: well that was it. I called and complained that they made the change without my knowledge so they upped me to the 300/35 plan and now I’m having no issues at all FaceTiming. So weird.