Recommended Best Practices:

Disable/Deactivate any VPNs when using CloudTalk. They tend to conflict with our software.

Use Google Chrome as your browser. One of CloudTalk's many web tools is WebRTC, which allows realtime, audio and video communication without the need for plugins. While WebRTC itself is supported natively in most browsers (including Safari, Edge, and Firefox), CloudTalk only officially supports Google Chrome. As a result, we may not be able to advise on conflicts arising from using other browsers.

Use a wired connection. Wired connections tend to provide more consistency and an overall higher quality network connection. Cable quality also matters—a Cat 5e Ethernet cable will serve at minimum, though we recommend a Cat 6. If your computer lacks an ethernet port, you can check out this Ethernet/USB 3.0 adapter for Windows, or for Mac, the Ethernet/Thunderbolt adapter.

Open network ports for CloudTalk within your firewall and/or antivirus software. Go into your network security settings or the settings within your antivirus program to check if CloudTalk programs are being blocked. If your firewall blocks outbound connections by default, our specific domain *cloudTalk.io should be excluded from inspection or policing on ports 80 and 443. To check if Windows Firewall is blocking a program:

Accessing firewall settings for a router will require logging into the router as an admin. Consult your company's system administrator for help with this, or feel free to contact us for additional guidance. You can see the ports and addresses to enable by viewing these tables.

Set up QoS to prioritize CloudTalk IPs or general Voice Packets. Consult a system administrator and check out our QoS setup article for help on this.

Test your headset and sound. Our desktop app allows you to see your headset status to confirm proper audio function. Once again, wired is recommended for stability and quality of sound. If you are a current CloudTalk user, you can run a test in your CloudTalk app by navigating to your profile. Under Settings, select Microphone & Speakers > Start test call. You can also try dialing the test number (9000) to check this.