Teams meeting attendees are stuck in the "lobby" and host has joined by phone and is not prompted to admit

Question

Teams meeting attendees are stuck in the "lobby" and host has joined by phone and is not prompted to admit

Jeffrey Dible 5

When the organizer / host of a Teams meeting must dial in by phone to host the meeting, and when one or more of the other attendees join using the Teams app, how can the organizer prevent the attendees from being stuck in the lobby, waiting to be "admitted." The organizer who has joined by phone doesn't see any prompt to admit any other attendees. The meeting options are set so that attendees supposedly can bypass the lobby.

Jeffrey Dible 5 Reputation points

2026-10-17T12:22:24.13+00:00

The AI comment is not helpful. Absolutely every time I join a Teams meeting by phone as the organizer, when I am prompted to enter my PIN, I enter my official PIN, and them I am told, "Sorry, the PIN you entered does not match the meeting organizer's PIN." I have to re-enter my correct PIN two more times, and hear that error message two more times, and then I am permitted to join the meeting.

1 answer

Your answer

Jeffrey Dible 5 Reputation points

2026-10-17T12:22:24.13+00:00

The AI comment is not helpful. Absolutely every time I join a Teams meeting by phone as the organizer, when I am prompted to enter my PIN, I enter my official PIN, and them I am told, "Sorry, the PIN you entered does not match the meeting organizer's PIN." I have to re-enter my correct PIN two more times, and hear that error message two more times, and then I am permitted to join the meeting.

Answer 1

Roebe Ta 1,825 Independent Advisor

Hello @Jeffrey Dible ,

I understand the inconvenience you're facing.

To help narrow down the scope of the issue, could you please confirm the following?

Does this happen with all meetings where you join as the organizer by phone, or only with certain meetings?
Are the attendees who get stuck in the lobby internal users, external users, or anonymous guests?
Does the issue occur regardless of who the attendees are?
After you join by phone, do you have access to any organizer controls or indications that Teams recognizes you as the meeting organizer?
Could you also share a screenshot of the meeting's Meeting options, specifically showing:
- Who can bypass the lobby?
- People dialing in can bypass the lobby?
- Who can admit from the lobby?

User's image

In the meantime, I would recommend contacting your IT administrator/Microsoft 365 administrator and asking them to review the Teams meeting policy assigned to your account, particularly the lobby-related settings and the People dialing in can bypass the lobby policy. These organizational policies can affect the meeting experience and may override or influence the options configured for individual meetings.

For your reference: IT Admins - Manage lobby options in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

Additionally, the behavior you described where your organizer PIN is reported as incorrect multiple times before eventually allowing you into the meeting appears unusual and could be related. Please let me know whether that occurs consistently across multiple meetings.

I look forward to your update and the requested screenshots.

Kind Regards.

Jeffrey Dible 5 Reputation points

2026-10-17T13:02:02.7133333+00:00

Thank you for the reply. Here is a screen shot of the meeting options settings:

The problem with my official audio conferencing PIN not being accepted happens every time when I, as the organizer, join the meeting by dialing in from my phone.

I really have no confidence whatsoever that this problem will go away if I reset my audio conferencing PIN. That is a good illustration of my general cynicism as a 34+ year user of Microsoft applications and how little confidence I place in Microsoft to solve problems.

The phenomenon of invited guests (clients) being forced to wait in the lobby, with me receiving NO prompt that they are waiting to be "admitted," happened for the first time (that I know of) on October 16 when I joined the meeting by phone and when the other two invited guests may have joined via the Teams app. I don't know how they attempted to join. I only know that they told me, more than 12 hours later, that they had attempted to join the meeting but were stuck in the "lobby."
Roebe Ta 1,825 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-10-19T14:54:28.68+00:00
Thank you for the additional details.

Based on the information provided, I think it would be helpful to confirm how the two clients joined the meeting.

Although your meeting options may have been configured to allow participants to bypass the lobby, the actual behavior depends on how the participants are recognized by Teams (for example, as guests, external users, trusted external users, or anonymous participants).

For your reference: IT Admins - Manage lobby options in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

If the clients joined as anonymous participants (for example, by opening the meeting link in a browser without signing in), they can still be placed in the lobby depending on the meeting policy assigned to your account, even when other participants are allowed to bypass it. Likewise, external users from organizations that are not configured as trusted organizations may also have different lobby behavior than internal users.

If the meeting options and organizational lobby policies are configured correctly for the participant type, but the issue persists, I would recommend opening a support case with Microsoft Support for further investigation. The recurring issue where your conferencing PIN is not initially recognized when joining by phone may also warrant additional review, as it could affect organizer recognition in the meeting.

For business support:

Find your Microsoft 365 admin: If you don't know who the global admin is in your organization, you can find guidance here: How can I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support

Submit a service request: The Global Administrator should create a support request with Microsoft to receive advanced technical assistance. For detailed instructions, see: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Note: If your subscription is from a partner or reseller, contact the reseller's support provider to help open a service request on behalf of you instead.

If you discover any solutions or have additional insights, please consider replying to this thread to help others in the community.

I sincerely apologize for redirecting you to the Microsoft Technical Support Team. While I strive to assist as much as possible here in the forum, my resources are limited when it comes to backend-level diagnostics and advanced troubleshooting. Some issues require deeper technical analysis and access to internal tools that only the official support team can provide.

If you need further assistance, feel free to reply. I'm here and happy to help!