Loom Not Working? Common Issues and How to Fix Them in 2026

Loom has become one of the most popular tools for recording quick screen shares, product walkthroughs, and async team updates. When it works, it is fast, simple, and effective. But users regularly report issues that interrupt their workflow at the worst possible moment: a recording that fails mid-session, a video stuck in an endless processing loop, or audio that simply refuses to capture.

These problems are well-documented across Trustpilot, G2, Product Hunt, and Loom's own community forums. The good news is that most of them have straightforward fixes. This guide walks through the eight most common Loom issues reported by users in 2026, explains what causes each one, and provides step-by-step solutions you can try right now.

If you have already tried everything and Loom still does not cooperate, the final section introduces a fundamentally different approach to video that eliminates the root causes behind most of these issues.

1. Recordings Fail, Crash, or Get Stuck in Processing

This is the most frequently reported Loom problem. You hit record, capture your screen for several minutes, stop the recording, and then watch Loom attempt to process the video. The progress bar stalls. Sometimes it sits at a percentage for hours. Other times, the recording simply disappears or shows an error message.

What causes it: Recording failures typically stem from insufficient system resources (RAM or CPU), a corrupted local cache, or an unstable internet connection during the upload phase. The Loom desktop app stores a temporary file locally before uploading it to Loom's servers. If anything interrupts that pipeline, including a sleep event, a network switch, or a system resource spike from another application, the recording can become corrupted or fail to upload.

How to fix it:

• Close unnecessary applications before recording to free up RAM and CPU. Loom's screen capture and encoding are resource-intensive, especially at high resolutions.
• Check your internet connection. Loom needs a stable upload bandwidth of at least 5 Mbps for reliable processing. If you are on Wi-Fi, try a wired connection for important recordings.
• Clear Loom's local cache. On the desktop app, go to Settings and look for the option to clear cached data. On Chrome, remove the Loom extension, clear browser cache, and reinstall.
• Update the Loom desktop app or Chrome extension to the latest version. Older versions may contain bugs that have been patched.
• If you are on macOS, check that Loom has Screen Recording, Microphone, and Camera permissions under System Settings > Privacy & Security.

2. Camera Feed Disappears During Recording

You start a recording with your webcam bubble visible, but partway through the session, the camera feed goes black or disappears entirely. The screen recording continues, but the webcam overlay is gone. This is particularly frustrating for sales professionals and educators who rely on face-to-camera presence to build trust.

What causes it: Camera disconnection during recording is often caused by another application seizing exclusive control of the webcam, a USB connection interruption (for external cameras), or macOS privacy permissions being revoked mid-session by a system update. Some users also report this issue after their machine enters a brief sleep or screen saver mode.

How to fix it:

• Before recording, close any application that might use your camera: Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, Teams, Photo Booth, or any other video conferencing tool. Only one application can access the camera at a time on most systems.
• If you use an external USB webcam, ensure it is plugged directly into your computer rather than through a hub. USB hubs can cause intermittent disconnections.
• On macOS, verify that the Loom desktop app has Camera permission under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Camera. If you recently updated macOS, these permissions may have been reset.
• Try switching to the built-in webcam temporarily. If the built-in camera works but your external one does not, the issue is with the external device or its driver.
• Disable power-saving modes that might put USB ports to sleep during recording.

3. Desktop App Login Broken After Atlassian Migration

Since Loom was acquired by Atlassian, some users report being unable to log into the desktop app. The login screen either loops endlessly, shows a blank white page, or redirects to an Atlassian SSO page that never completes authentication. This is especially common for users who had standalone Loom accounts before the acquisition and were migrated to Atlassian credentials.

What causes it: The Atlassian migration changed Loom's authentication system. Users with older standalone accounts sometimes encounter token conflicts between the legacy Loom authentication and the new Atlassian SSO flow. Cached authentication tokens from the pre-migration period can also interfere with the new login process.

How to fix it:

• Completely uninstall the Loom desktop app, including any leftover configuration files. On macOS, check ~/Library/Application Support/Loom and delete the folder. On Windows, check %AppData%/Loom.
• Clear your browser cookies for loom.com and atlassian.com, then reinstall the latest version of the desktop app from loom.com/download.
• If you are part of a team workspace, ask your admin to verify that your account was properly migrated to Atlassian. Some accounts require a manual re-invitation from the workspace admin.
• Try logging in via the Chrome extension first. If that works, the desktop app should sync your authentication state on next launch.
• As a last resort, contact Loom support and specifically mention the Atlassian migration. They have internal tools to manually reset migrated accounts.

4. Only Records One Person's Audio in Meetings

When using Loom to record a meeting or a call on Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams, the recording captures only your own microphone audio. The other participants' voices are either missing entirely or barely audible. This makes the recording useless for documentation purposes.

What causes it: Loom's Chrome extension captures audio from two sources: your microphone input and the tab or system audio. If you are in a meeting via a desktop app (like the Zoom or Teams desktop client) rather than a browser tab, Loom's Chrome extension cannot access the application's audio output. The desktop app version of Loom can capture system audio, but this depends on having the correct audio routing configured.

How to fix it:

• If possible, join the meeting through your browser rather than the desktop client. When recording with Loom's Chrome extension, select the specific tab running the meeting. This allows Loom to capture both your mic and the tab's audio output.
• If you must use a desktop meeting app, switch to the Loom desktop app and enable system audio capture. On macOS, Loom may require an additional audio driver to capture system audio. Follow Loom's setup instructions for installing the audio loopback component.
• Check your system's audio output settings. Ensure the meeting audio is routed to the same output device that Loom is monitoring. If you are using Bluetooth headphones, the audio routing can become complex.
• Test before the actual meeting. Do a short test recording with a YouTube video or music playing to confirm both mic and system audio are being captured.

5. Cannot Record More Than 5 Minutes on a Paid Plan

Some users on paid Loom plans report that their recordings are capped at five minutes, even though their subscription should allow unlimited recording length. The recording simply stops at the five-minute mark with no warning, or a popup appears stating the free plan limit has been reached.

What causes it: This issue typically occurs when Loom's Chrome extension or desktop app is not properly synced with your account subscription status. It can also happen after a billing cycle change, a team workspace migration, or when using a different browser profile that is not logged into your paid account. The five-minute limit is the free tier restriction being incorrectly applied to a paid user.

How to fix it:

• Log out of Loom completely (both the extension and the desktop app), then log back in. This forces a refresh of your subscription status.
• Check which account you are logged into. If you have multiple Loom accounts (personal and work, for example), you may be signed into the free one. Verify the email address shown in your Loom profile.
• Visit loom.com/billing in your browser and confirm that your subscription is active and that your current payment method is valid. A failed payment can silently downgrade your account to the free tier.
• If you were recently migrated to an Atlassian workspace, your individual paid plan may have been superseded by the workspace plan. Check with your workspace admin to confirm your seat is properly assigned.
• Clear the extension cache by removing and re-adding the Loom Chrome extension.

6. Chrome Extension Refuses to Record Audio

The Loom Chrome extension launches and records the screen, but audio capture is completely silent. The microphone icon may appear active, but the resulting video has no sound. This affects both microphone input and tab audio.

What causes it: Chrome manages audio permissions at the extension level. If another extension is controlling audio (like a noise cancellation extension or a virtual audio device), it can block Loom's access. Chrome also sometimes revokes extension permissions silently after a browser update, or when the user has recently changed their default audio input device.

How to fix it:

• Right-click the Loom extension icon in Chrome, go to "Site access" or "Manage extension", and verify that microphone permission is granted. Also check chrome://settings/content/microphone and ensure your correct microphone is selected as the default.
• Disable other extensions that interact with audio: ad blockers, noise cancellation tools, audio equalizers, or virtual audio devices. Test Loom with all other extensions disabled to isolate the conflict.
• Check Chrome's site-level permissions for loom.com. Navigate to loom.com, click the lock icon in the address bar, and ensure both Microphone and Camera are set to "Allow".
• Test your microphone in another application first (like an online audio recorder or your system's sound settings) to confirm the hardware is working. If the mic works elsewhere but not in Loom, the issue is extension-specific.
• Try using the Loom desktop app instead of the Chrome extension. The desktop app handles audio capture at the system level rather than through Chrome's permission layer, which often resolves the issue.

7. Videos Stuck Processing — Appear in Library With No Duration

After completing a recording, the video appears in your Loom library but shows 0:00 duration and a blank thumbnail. It remains in a perpetual "processing" state and never becomes playable. Some users report that the video was successfully recorded (they can see the file size), but the processing step never completes.

What causes it: This usually means the raw video file was uploaded to Loom's servers but the transcoding pipeline failed. Possible causes include an upload that was only partially completed (the file on the server is incomplete), a server-side encoding error for specific resolutions or frame rates, or an account-level processing queue issue during peak usage hours.

How to fix it:

• Wait at least 30 minutes. During peak hours, Loom's processing queue can be slower than usual. Videos that appear stuck may simply be waiting in line.
• Check Loom's status page (status.loom.com) for any ongoing incidents or degraded performance notices.
• If the video has been stuck for more than an hour, try downloading the original recording from Loom's local cache. On the desktop app, the raw recording file is stored locally until processing completes. Look in your system's temporary files or Loom's application data folder.
• Re-record at a lower resolution. If you were recording at 4K or high frame rates, try 1080p at 30fps. Unusual resolution and frame rate combinations can sometimes cause transcoding issues.
• Contact Loom support with the specific video URL. Their engineering team can manually re-trigger the processing pipeline for individual videos.

8. Billing Shock After the Atlassian Acquisition

After Loom's acquisition by Atlassian, many users report unexpected changes to their billing. Previously free viewer seats now require paid licenses. Workspace pricing structures have shifted. Some users who had grandfathered plans found themselves on significantly more expensive tiers after the migration, with no prior notification matching their understanding of the changes.

What causes it: Atlassian restructured Loom's pricing model to align with their enterprise-oriented approach. Free viewer seats in many workspace configurations were reclassified as paid seats. Grandfathered pricing from pre-acquisition plans was phased out for some users. The transition was communicated via email, but many users report not receiving clear notice or not understanding the impact until their next billing statement arrived.

How to fix it:

• Review your current plan at loom.com/billing. Identify which seats are now classified as paid and whether you can remove inactive users to reduce costs.
• Audit your workspace members. Remove any users who no longer need access. After the Atlassian migration, some workspaces accumulated ghost accounts from the merger process.
• Contact Loom's billing support and ask specifically about grandfathered pricing options. Some users have reported success in negotiating transitional pricing when they explain their situation clearly.
• Evaluate whether you actually need a per-seat video tool. If your primary use case is creating personalized video content for leads and prospects rather than internal team communication, a flat-rate tool may be significantly more cost-effective for your team.

When Troubleshooting Is Not Enough

The fixes above resolve most Loom issues for most users. But if you find yourself cycling through the same troubleshooting steps regularly, clearing caches before every important recording, or losing critical videos to processing failures at the worst possible times, the problem may not be something you can configure away.

Many of Loom's recurring issues are architectural. Real-time screen recording through a browser extension depends on a chain of components that all need to work simultaneously: the extension itself, Chrome's permission system, your operating system's screen capture and audio routing, your hardware, your internet connection, and Loom's cloud processing pipeline. A break at any point in that chain causes the recording to fail.

For internal team communication, these occasional failures are an inconvenience. You re-record the video and move on. But for professionals who use video as part of their revenue-generating workflow, whether for sales outreach, lead nurturing, or client onboarding, unreliable recording is a direct cost. A failed recording means a missed follow-up, a delayed proposal, or a prospect who moves on.

If your use case requires video that works every time without exception, it may be worth considering an approach that removes the fragile components from the equation entirely.

A Different Approach: Pre-Recorded Personalized Video

Custom One takes a fundamentally different approach to video. Instead of recording videos in real time through a browser extension, you record your videos once under ideal conditions: good lighting, clean audio, no interruptions. You upload these recordings to the platform, and Custom One assembles them server-side into personalized funnels based on each prospect's profile and quiz responses.

This architecture eliminates the root causes behind nearly every issue listed in this article:

• No Chrome extension. Custom One does not require any browser extension. There are no permission conflicts, no extension crashes, and no dependency on Chrome's audio routing layer.
• No real-time recording failures. Your videos are pre-recorded and stored on the server. There is no live capture that can fail due to CPU spikes, RAM pressure, or USB disconnections.
• No processing delays. Videos are encoded once during upload. When a prospect triggers the funnel, the personalized video is assembled and served immediately. There is no waiting for a cloud processing queue.
• No per-seat billing surprises. Custom One uses flat-rate pricing. Your entire team accesses the platform for one price, regardless of how many people create or manage funnels.
• True personalization at scale. Instead of recording a unique video for each recipient (which does not scale), Custom One uses quiz-based segmentation to deliver the right pre-recorded video to each prospect automatically. Thousands of leads receive personalized experiences without a single live recording session.

Custom One is purpose-built for professionals who use video as a conversion tool: course creators, coaches, consultants, and sales teams who need personalized video funnels that work reliably every time. If your goal is async team updates or quick screen shares, Loom remains a solid choice when it cooperates. If your goal is generating and converting leads through personalized video experiences, Custom One was designed specifically for that workflow.

Loom vs Custom One: Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions