If you dismiss or block the initial mic/camera permission pop-up window, you may see a message stating that "Gather needs your permission to access your Camera/Microphone..."

The warning you will see when your browser has blocked Gather from accessing either your camera and/or microphone.

Here is how to find your browser settings and grant Gather access to your camera and Microphone. 

 

Chrome Settings

When you first enter Gather, you will see a pop-ups asking for camera and microphone access permissions. Click "Allow" in order to provide the best experience in Gather.

The pop-up asking for your camera and microphones permission will appear on the upper left side of your browser. Click Allow to continue.

If you accidently blocked Gather from accessing your camera or microphone, you will see a camera icon in the upper right of your site address bar with a red "x" to indicate that you have denied the site access. You can click on this to change your preferences.

If you accidently blocked camera or microphone permissions, you can click the icon in the upper right to see what you have blocked and adjust your permissions.

After selecting the radio button to allow Gather access to your camera and microphone, you will need to refresh the page for the changes to go into effect.
After allowing access to your camera and microphone, you may need to refresh your page before changes will go into effect. 

 

You can always check or change your permission settings by clicking the lock icon in the upper left of your site address bar. 

Privacy and Security settings for each webpage you visit are easily accessed on the left side of your site address bar.

 

Firefox Settings

When you first enter Gather, you will see a pop-ups asking for camera and microphone access permissions. Click "Allow" in order to provide the best experience in Gather.

A pop-up asking for camera and microphone permissions will appear on the upper left of your screen when you first use Gather.

If you accidently blocked Gather from accessing your camera or microphone, you will see a camera and/or microphone icon in the upper left of your site address bar with a grey slash through it to indicate that you have denied the site access. You can click on this to change your preferences.

If you have denied Gather access to either your camera or microphone, it will show you icons with a grey slash through the camera and/or microphone icon.

To remove the blocked permissions and allow Gather access to your camera and microphone, click on your site privacy and security settings by clicking the lock icon on the left site of your site address bar and then clicking the "x" next to each blocked permission. Refresh your page. 

Click the "X" next to each blocked permission inside of your site privacy settings located on the left side of your site address bar. 

Once all permissions have been granted, you can always check or change your settings by clicking on the lock icon in the left side of your site address bar.  Your site security settings should look something like this:

Site settings with both camera and microphone permissions temporarily allowed. 

If you get this message instead, you need to refresh the page.
Site settings after canceling blocked permissions but not yet refreshing.

 

Desktop Safari (Beta)

Safari will prompt you for camera and microphone permissions when you first log into a space.

A screenshot of Safari's permissions prompt. It says "Allow "gather.town" to use your microphone? You can change this setting in Safari Websites preferences." There are three options: Allow, Never for This Website, and Don't Allow.

Safari will prompt you twice for camera and microphone permissions when you first log into a space. Click 'Allow' to permit Gather to use your microphone, and to use your camera. 

If you accidentally click 'Don't Allow', refresh the page and try again.

If you accidentally click 'Never for This Website', you can change this setting in your Safari Preferences. 

In Safari Preferences, open the 'Websites' tab and scroll down on the left side bar until you see 'Camera' and 'Microphone'.

Safari preferences window, with the 'Websites' tab highlighted. In the list of permissions, Microphone is selected. In the list of websites, gather.town is selected, and the drop down menu is set to 'Allow'.

Click into each one of these and find gather.town on the list of websites to the right, then set the drop down menu to 'Allow' (or 'Ask', if you wish to be prompted every time).

The biggest culprit of this error is another app capturing your camera, and preventing other apps from accessing it. This happens especially often if you are using other video calling tools like Zoom or video effects programs like OBS or  Snap Camera.  To fix this, double check that all of the other applications that use your camera or microphone or closed.

Additionally, check your other browser tabs to make sure there aren't other instances of Gather or another website using your camera or microphone.

If you hear a voice announcing "TRIAL MODE" or similar in your Gather space, check for any participants using audio or video programs or plugins such as OBS or  'e2esoft ivcam'.

Gather cannot make sounds in your browser aside from the chat notification, and will not announce whether your space is free or paid.