A lightweight package for requesting camera and microphone permissions from the browser with better error handling.

Note: This library does not include any UI or components and is designed to help you implement those pieces more easily through better error handling. You can, however, use the code included in the examples.

One of the most frustrating pieces of building a video chatting website is helping the user set up camera and microphone access. Ideally, you should be able to use the Permissions API to request media device access, but it isn't yet available on Safari which accounts for a significant group of users.

navigation.mediaDevices.getUserMedia() is now available on all major browsers, but it returns different errors for the same problems across various browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari) and operating systems (macOS, Windows). Some problems, like the system denying permission, are more common on macOS. Whereas being unable to start the video stream due to another application using it is more Windows specific. Oh, and Firefox is the only one with any error documentation at all.

Handling these errors across browsers and OS's can be difficult, but is crucial to a great user experience. mic-check categorizes the major errors and allows you to focus on building a great experience!

npm install mic-check

or

yarn add mic-check

import {
  MediaPermissionsError,
  MediaPermissionsErrorType,
  requestMediaPermissions
} from 'mic-check';

requestMediaPermissions()
	.then(() => {
		// can successfully access camera and microphone streams
		// DO SOMETHING HERE
	})
	.catch((err: MediaPermissionsError) => {
		const { type, name, message } = err;
		if (type === MediaPermissionsErrorType.SystemPermissionDenied) {
			// browser does not have permission to access camera or microphone
		} else if (type === MediaPermissionsErrorType.UserPermissionDenied) {
			// user didn't allow app to access camera or microphone
		} else if (type === MediaPermissionsErrorType.CouldNotStartVideoSource) {
			// camera is in use by another application (Zoom, Skype) or browser tab (Google Meet, Messenger Video)
			// (mostly Windows specific problem)
		} else {
			// not all error types are handled by this library
		}
	});

import {
  MediaPermissionsError
  MediaPermissionsErrorType,
  requestAudioPermissions,
  requestVideoPermissions,
  requestMediaPermissions
} from 'mic-check';

// Requesting AUDIO permission only:
requestAudioPermissions()
	.then(() => {})
	.catch((err: MediaPermissionsError) => {});

// another way to request AUDIO only...
requestMediaPermissions({audio: true, video: false})
	.then(() => {})
	.catch((err: MediaPermissionsError) => {});

// Requesting VIDEO permission only:
requestVideoPermissions()
	.then(() => {})
	.catch((err: MediaPermissionsError) => {});

// another way to request VIDEO only...
requestMediaPermissions({audio: false, video: true})
	.then(() => {})
	.catch((err: MediaPermissionsError) => {});

These are common errors and recommended user actions to resolve them that we have discovered from testing the four major browsers on Windows and macOS.

We have found Google Meet to have one of the best onboarding experiences for camera and microphone permissions. They do a good job of explaining permissions, showing how to allow permissions, and deep linking into System Preferences or Settings when needed. This example, built with React and Material UI, closely copies the Google Meet experience.

You can try it out by going to examples/react-example and running:

yarn install && yarn start

Allow custom constraints for getUserMedia().

Handle errors for when there are no camera or microphone devices.

Provide support for mobile browsers.

A small, fast and rich-API browser/platform/engine detector for both browser and node.

• Common getUserMedia() Errors - A great read explaining various errors when calling getUserMedia() on Firefox vs Chrome. (slightly outdated)
• MediaDevices.getUserMedia() - Mozilla's documentation for the reason behind errors when calling getUserMedia().
• StackOverflow: reprompt for permissions with getUserMedia() after initial denial - Some good responses for ways to ask for permission to access camera and microphone.

Made with ❤️ at Glimpse