Chat issues in Teams meeting

Symptoms

As an attendee in a Microsoft Teams meeting, you might experience one of the following issues when you try to access the meeting chat:

• The Chat icon is missing.
• When you select the Chat icon, you see the following error message:

  The Administrator has disabled the Chat

• You can't see the meeting chat history.

Cause

These issues can have any of the following causes.

Cause 1: In the meeting policy that's assigned to you, the Meeting chat setting is set to Off for everyone.

Cause 2: The number of attendees in the meeting exceeds 1,000, which is the maximum number that's supported for chat.

Cause 3: You were added to the meeting as an attendee by using a meeting link such as one that's shared in a forwarded meeting invitation. However, you were not added to the original invitation. In this scenario, attendees will have access to chats, files, notes, and other meeting content only during the meeting, and will lose access to them after the meeting ends. If this is a recurring meeting, then attendees will also not have access to the meeting chat in subsequent meetings.

Resolution

To make sure that this isn't a transient issue, leave and rejoin the meeting. If the issue persists, try the following resolutions.

Resolution 1: Update the Meeting chat setting in the meeting policy

Meeting policies are enabled and configured by Teams administrators. To update the meeting policy that's assigned to you, an administrator should follow these steps:

1. In the Microsoft Teams admin center, select Meetings > Meeting policies.

2. Select the meeting policy that's assigned to you.

3. Navigate to the Meeting engagement section.

4. Set Meeting chat to On for everyone or On for everyone but anonymous users.

   Note

   To allow users to use chat in Teams meetings that are hosted by other organizations, make sure that External meeting chat is set to On. For more information, see Manage chat messages in Teams meetings hosted by other organizations.

5. Select Save.

Resolution 2: The meeting organizer should make sure that the number of attendees in the meeting is less than the maximum limit. For more information, see Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams.

Resolution 3: To enable access to the chat after the meeting is over, the meeting organizer should add the attendee to the original meeting invitation or to the original recurring meeting series, as appropriate.