Call them. Before you troubleshoot anything, get them on the phone — you keep the session, you keep the containment, and you can walk them through the fix with a working channel open instead of by text message.

Then, once you're talking, it is almost always one of five things: they opened the link inside another app's browser, they tapped Block on the camera prompt, their phone is in a battery-saving mode, they're on a network that blocks video, or they're using an old link. In that order, because that's roughly the order of frequency.

The list matters less than the fallback, though, and the fallback belongs in the first session rather than being invented during a broken one. One sentence in your intake note — "if the video won't connect, I'll call you on the number you gave me" — turns a stressful ten minutes into a normal one, and means a client sitting in front of a broken link knows to stay put rather than assuming the session is cancelled.

What are the five causes?

They opened the link inside another app. The browser built into Instagram, Messenger, Gmail or a mail app frequently blocks camera and microphone access. The screen looks right, the join button works, and nothing happens. Fix: have them tap the menu — usually three dots or an arrow — and choose "Open in browser" or "Open in Safari." This is the single most common cause and the easiest to miss because everything looks normal.

They denied the camera or microphone prompt. Plenty of people tap Block reflexively the first time a website asks for a camera. Fix: refresh the page and allow it this time. On a phone, if the prompt doesn't reappear, they may need to clear the site's permission in their browser settings.

Battery saver. Low Power Mode on an iPhone and Battery Saver on Android both restrict media in ways that can stop a video call cold. Fix: turn it off, and plug the phone in.

A restrictive network. Work networks, hospital networks, some school and library networks block the traffic a video call needs. Fix: switch to mobile data. This one is more common than you'd guess, because clients take sessions from workplaces.

An old or wrong link. They bookmarked something, or they're using the link from an email six months old. Fix: send the current one in the moment.

What order should I actually do things in?

1. Phone them. Do not spend five minutes texting.

2. Ask what they see. "Nothing happens when I tap join" and "it says it can't find my camera" are different problems, and the answer takes ten seconds.

3. Try the one fix that matches. Not all five. One.

4. If it doesn't work in two minutes, do the session on the phone. You are not a helpdesk and the hour is not a support ticket.

5. Fix it properly afterwards, when neither of you is watching a clock.

Step four is the one practitioners resist and the one that matters most. A session conducted by phone is a session. A session spent troubleshooting is not.

What if they can't be reached at all?

They're not in the waiting room, not answering the phone, and the session time has come and gone.

Treat it as you would an in-person no-show, with one addition: send a short message on whatever channel you use, saying you're here, giving the link again, and saying how long you'll wait. Some clients are sitting in front of a device that isn't working and have concluded you cancelled.

If there's risk in the picture, the ordinary risk protocol applies and a technical failure doesn't change it. That is one of the reasons to know where your client physically is at the start of every virtual session, and who to contact if you can't reach them.

How do I stop this happening again?

Send the link the same way every time, from the same place, so there is one current version and no archaeology.

Get them to open it before the first session, not at the first session. Two minutes on a Tuesday afternoon is worth twenty minutes of a Thursday hour.

Ask which device they'll use. A client on a laptop and a client on a five-year-old phone have different failure modes, and knowing which one you're dealing with cuts your first guess in half.

Say the fallback out loud. In the intake note, and again in the first session. "If the video won't work, I'll call you."

Keep a phone number that works. This is the whole safety net. If your only route to a client is inside the platform that just broke, you have no route to the client.

What about the client who can never make it work?

There is usually one. Old device, poor connection, low confidence with technology, or all three.

At some point the honest answer is to stop treating each session as a troubleshooting problem and change the arrangement. Options worth putting on the table: sessions by phone as the default rather than the fallback, sessions from a different location — a family member's home, a quiet room somewhere with better connectivity — or in-person if that's available.

A client who spends the first ten minutes of every session apologising for their internet is losing something. Naming it and choosing a different format is a clinical decision, not a defeat.

The short version

Agree the phone fallback before you need it. When it happens, call them, identify which of the five causes it is, give it two minutes, and then do the session anyway on the phone. Fix the underlying thing later, when nothing is at stake.

About Rivet

Rivet is a Canadian practice line built for therapists — a separate number for calls, texts and voicemail, with video sessions and clinical tools in the same place. Your data stays in Canada, and transcription runs on Rivet's own hardware rather than a third-party AI service.

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