Communication
BigBlueButton
BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system designed for online education with virtual classrooms, whiteboards, and breakout rooms.
What is BigBlueButton?
BigBlueButton started as an open-source web conferencing system purpose-built for online education, developed at Carleton University in Ottawa with a mandate to support the pedagogical needs of virtual classrooms rather than corporate meetings. Unlike Zoom or Teams, BigBlueButton was designed from the start around features teachers actually need: multi-user whiteboards, breakout rooms, polling, shared notes, and learning management system integration through LTI. Universities, school districts, and online course platforms around the world have adopted it as the conferencing backbone embedded directly in Moodle, Canvas, and other LMS platforms.
The system is primarily self-hosted rather than delivered as a managed SaaS product, though commercial hosting providers including Blindside Networks and various regional partners offer managed deployments. WebRTC handles audio and video in the browser without plugins, with FreeSWITCH as the media server for audio mixing and Kurento or mediasoup for video. The architecture is designed to handle hundreds of simultaneous sessions on appropriately provisioned hardware, and the LTI integration allows instructors to launch meetings directly from within their course shell without students needing separate credentials.
When BigBlueButton has problems, they typically trace to the media server layer or the backend signalling infrastructure. Audio joins succeed but participants cannot hear each other, which usually points to FreeSWITCH or WebRTC ICE failure — the media path cannot be established between the browser and the media server. Video freezes while audio continues, or video never starts after camera activation. Breakout rooms fail to launch when the session management backend has issues. Recordings fail to process after sessions end, leaving the playback link in a "processing" state indefinitely. LTI launch errors prevent students from joining through Moodle or Canvas when the SSO handshake fails.
Outage.gg tracks BigBlueButton platform and hosting status using community-submitted reports from educators, students, and institutional administrators. If audio is failing, rooms are not launching, or recordings are stuck, the live status page shows current impact.
Common BigBlueButton Problems
Issues users most frequently report when BigBlueButton is having problems.
Messages not sending
Messages appear stuck, fail to deliver, or recipients are not receiving them.
Login & authentication
Unable to sign in, 2FA not working, or being unexpectedly logged out.
Feed & content not loading
Posts, stories, or notifications are not appearing or are failing to refresh.
App & website errors
The app or website returns error pages, crashes, or is completely unreachable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about BigBlueButton outages and server status.
You can check the live BigBlueButton server status at outage.gg/services/bigbluebutton. The page shows real-time community-submitted outage reports, an hourly trend chart, and the current health status.
BigBlueButton can stop working for a number of reasons including scheduled maintenance windows, unexpected server failures, network infrastructure problems, or DDoS attacks. Check the live status page on Outage.gg for the latest community reports to see if others are experiencing the same issue.
Go to outage.gg/services/bigbluebutton and click the "Report an Issue" button. Your report is counted immediately and helps confirm whether a problem is widespread. Reports from multiple users trigger a status change visible to everyone watching the page.
Click the "Notify Me" bell button on the BigBlueButton status page at outage.gg/services/bigbluebutton. Create a free account and we will send you an email the moment BigBlueButton comes back online — no app download required.
Many services maintain official status pages with planned maintenance notices. Outage.gg aggregates real-time community-reported outages which often surface faster than official channels.
Related Services
Other services you might be tracking alongside BigBlueButton.
