Zoom Invite not Working

Zoom Invite not Working: A reader asks…

Sometimes when I’m trying to connect to a Zoom invitation, I am denied entry. The invitation looks normal with a URL to click which is supposed to get me directly in from my AOL/Verizon email, but I can’t click the link. When I get invitations to my Gmail account the links are usually clickable, but sometimes when I click on them I get an access denied entry. I do have a Zoom account and usually stay signed in.

There are two problems that can affect your ability to get into a Zoom meeting. The first issue is that sometimes AOL’s webmail interface restricts hyperlinks, so they’re not clickable. The simple solution to that is to highlight and copy the URL and then paste it into your browser’s URL bar. This is a workaround for AOL’s lack of standardization in email services. AOL is in the middle of a webmail interface redesign, so hopefully this problem will go away soon.

The second problem may be that the meeting organizer has set their Zoom account to only allow “authenticated users” into the meeting. Since you’re using two different email accounts, most likely only one of them is used for your Zoom account. That’s the email address you need to give when registering for Zoom meetings where the meeting organizer has set this up. If you signed up using the other email address, Zoom won’t recognize your Zoom account as being authenticated, and you won’t get in.

In this situation, the meeting organizer logs into their account settings at https://us02web.zoom.us/profile/setting. There are a lot of settings, but near the top there are security items to turn on or off, such as one-click joining links for meeting invitations (where the meeting passcode is embedded in the link). There’s another switch on that settings page that may be turned on – “only authenticated meeting participants and webinar attendees can join meetings and webinars”. Meeting organizers turn this on to try to prevent zoom-bombing (where someone who’s not invited joins the meeting because they found the link for the meeting somewhere).

When the sender is managing a lot of zoom meetings, the chances increase that one of the invitees either inadvertently, accidentally, or unthinkingly shared the invitation (say on social media or somewhere else), making the meeting vulnerable to zoom-bombers. That option switch keeps zoom-bombers out, and with that option turned off (as I have it), the meeting organizer may have some work to keep zoom-bombers off if they join. This can be a lot of work for big zoom meetings and webinars, so they force the attendees to take that extra step (log into a zoom meeting).