This section documents some common things that go wrong with Discord tournaments and how to fix them.
If you’ve gone through this guide and still have a technical issue, PACE Online Quizbowl tech support can help. See here for details.
The moderator is speaking but can’t be heard
Who: Moderators and players
First, make sure the moderator is in the correct voice channel.
Next, check if the moderator is lighting up as green in their listing in the voice channel. If not, this means that Discord doesn’t think they’re talking. The most common reason for this is that the moderator is either muted or has push-to-talk enabled and isn’t hitting the push-to-talk keyboard shortcut. Check Discord’s audio settings.
Another thing to check is if the moderator is using the web version of Discord (i.e. they’re using Discord via their web browser). If so, have them download the desktop app and try there.
Some moderators may be using a microphone with a volume or hardware mute button on it. Check to make sure the volume is turned up on the device and that it’s not muted.
Tournaments can continue without the player being heard (so long as they can hear the moderator). It’s not ideal, but players can communicate solely via text.
Moderator or player is on slow internet connection and video is lagging
Who: Moderators and players
It’s important for players to keep their video feed on to prevent cheating. However, if they’re having bandwidth issues they can try disabling the video of other people in the call. You can do this by right clicking on someone’s video in the Discord video window.
The moderator is speaking but can’t be heard well
Who: Moderators
The most common source of this problem is that Discord isn’t using the correct microphone as input. Have the moderator load their audio settings and make sure that they’ve set the input device to the correct value. Chances are it’s set to use their laptop microphone instead which will be of lower quality.
Sometimes this problem can be a bandwidth issue. Have the moderator turn off their video feed (but not audio feed) and see if that improves things.
Moderator is cutting out, especially at the beginning/end of questions
Who: Moderators
This is commonly due to moderators not having their audio settings configured correctly. Moderators should check in Discord’s Voice & Video settings that they have their input mode configured in one of the two ways:
Sometimes, though, this is due to a bad connection on the moderator and/or players and cannot be easily fixed. If it keeps recurring the TD may need to replace the moderator.
As an extreme backup, moderators may try joining the call on the Discord app on their phone. Moderators should still do the rest of the tournament from their computer, but using just the audio on the phone sometimes produces better results than relying on desktop audio.
A player or moderator can’t see the rounds they need to join
Who: Players/moderators/coaches
Staffers, make sure that you’ve assigned this person the correct Discord role. Right click on their name in the chat and assign them to either Staff or the appropriate team role.
Sometimes this can also happen if the team hasn’t been added to the room where they’re playing their next match. Staffers, use the Discord tournament bot to run a command like this (by typing it into the #bot-commands chat channel and hitting enter):
.a @A2 #room-1
Moderator can’t open the packet
Who: Moderators and TDs
This is best prevented by having the moderators check ahead of time that they can open the packets. Have them try other apps. If possible, send them the packets in another format.
“Checking ICE” or “No Route” error when joining a video chat
Who: Moderators and Players
This usually indicates that the player can’t join a video chat for some reason. The player should restart Discord and try again. And/or use another internet connection if possible. If this problem persists, it can sometimes be resolved by changing the match to be audio only (everyone will have to leave the video chat first).
Chat messages are delayed
Who: Moderators and Players
Chat messages sometimes take a long time to be delivered on busy Discord servers. This can be a big problem for getting buzzing timing correct.
The most immediate remedy is for players to yell “buzz” when this is happening if they’re trying to buzz in.
This problem often goes away on its own. If it persists, tournament directors may want to create a new temporary server for handling chat messages.
The Tournament Bot is not present on the server
Who: Tournament Directors
Follow the steps here to add the Tournament Bot to your server.
The Tournament Bot is offline
Who: Tournament Directors
If the Tournament Bot is offline (you see it in the #bot-commands channel but it’s listed in the Offline section), this can only be remedied by the bot owner. Please contact PACE via the instructions in the PACE Tech Support section to get this resolved.
If the bot is offline for an extended period of time during the day of the tournament, here’s how to manually change room permissions.
Assuming the tournament has already been set up, the main things you’ll need to do is manually change role permissions for rooms.
For both the text and voice channels for a room, right click on it and select “Edit Channel”.
Then go to “Permissions”. You’ll see something that looks like this:
You’ll always want to keep the Staff and Spectator roles in the channel. To remove any existing teams that have access to this channel (for instance, A5 in the above screenshot), click on it and then scroll down the bottom to find the remove button:
Click this Remove button and hit okay at the confirmation dialog.
Next, add the roles for the teams that will be playing in this room for the next match. Do this by hitting the + button next to “Roles/Members”:
Then, find the role for the team you’re adding. In this case, I’m adding A1:
You should not need to change any other permissions for the team you’ve added.
Repeat the process for the second team and repeat it for the voice/text channel.
The server invite link isn’t working
Who: Tournament Directors
This can sometimes happen if you generate a new link or the original was set up to expire. The easiest way to fix this is to generate a new link in the process described in this section.