Cisco Jabber Reviews

A chat app that integrates with multiple workstations, allowing you to get work done anywhere - it sounds great if it worked correctly.

Frequently, I'll get a notification on my phone that there's a new message- I open up CiscoJabber , it's nowhere to be found. Where did it go? Sometimes it'll re-sync and within a few hours or a day the message will appear correctly, and sometimes not. Sometimes Jabber notifies you there's a new message (or multiple messages) on the notification screen but then when you open CiscoJabber - the message never appears. This is a failure of the most basic functionality of any messaging app.

Another annoyance is that Jabber will sometimes notify you of app updates in the middle of the night such as "messages may expire soon". I understand my company has set an expiration policy for messages sent through Jabber (something I wish Jabber let you turn off, why would I ever want my messages to expire? but I understand that there are reasons a business may configure Jabber this way) however why does Jabber have to notify me at midnight of this? Then I wake up, think I have an important message from work - but nope, just Jabber deciding midnight is the best time for a random notification. The only way to stop this is to turn off all notification- but I don't want to turn off chat messages, only information messages from Jabber itself.

Please fix, I'd love to enjoy using CiscoJabber.

It’s a good this they make people use CiscoJabber in thier day to day at work, because there is no way I would put this junk on my phone if I didn’t have to have it for work. To be fair, when it works, it is awesome. Everyday, multiple times a day, kicks me off saying settings have changed and I have to reset to get it to work again and that is just the beginning of the non stop issues CiscoJabber as. Some times I have to log in multiple times to actually log in. When I log in I don't names of my contacts I see email addresses and I have to log out and start the whole process all over again to see names and that again might take several log ins to be normal again.

Jabber on my laptop works fine. Jabber for my iPhone is completely unreliable. The only way chat messages will come to my phone is if the phone screen is actively on and Jabber is open. When the phone screen goes black after a few minutes (as it does to conserve battery), then it’s completely hit or miss. I can’t even figure out the rhyme or reason to which messages will and won’t come to my phone. I have it set to never log me off and automatic away is also turned off. I have notifications enabled in every way. Why can’t there be a setting where all messages populate to both my phone and my laptop so I can respond from whichever device I happen to be near? This problem renders this entire app useless for me.

I love CiscoJabber and how it allows me to work from anywhere in the building instead of lugging around my workstation.

I think it would be nice to have a Haptic Touch option to allow you to change your status from the iOS home screen in the same way a right click on the taskbar allows you to do this in Windows. Integration with the shortcuts apps for status changes would be nice. I could set up an automation whenever I leave the office, change status to “off the clock” or something like that. Cool possibilities.

It’s really frustrating that you have to leave CiscoJabber open on your phone while using it. That’s 40+ hours a work week to leave an app in the background of your cell, eating up your battery. Also, I’ll click on CiscoJabber every now and then to check if it’s still working, and sure enough if I’m away too long, it gives me a “reconnecting” signal instead of the green light. How often does it do it? Luckily I physically have to go into work every other day so that’s when I check my missed calls and messages...... I’ve had 7 in the last week.. good thought in theory, but not executed well.

No background refresh even when background refresh is turned on. If you don’t have CiscoJabber in the foreground for more than a minute or so the services get disconnected. Basically useless unless you use for phone for Jabber exclusively. For such a huge company that has partnerships with Apple I can’t believe how horrible CiscoJabber is at maintaining a connection. Windows version is great but I can’t carry my laptop in my pocket. I have an iPhone 12 Pro with iOS 14.8. I dream of being able to work from home but if I have to be handcuffed to the computer all day I might as well go to the office.

Seems to have issues after signing out on corporate WiFi at work to sign back in before leaving work. Able to sign in over LTE before leaving for work. Then once at work use corporate WiFi since LTE is weak. So sign off then as will start the Windows Jabber on PC. Then try to sign back on iPhone Jabber on WiFi before shutdown PC. Worse the reset option disappears and locks login for timeout. Waited this time after timeout still wouldn’t login...Then when save an outside number with a dialing prefix symbol like + it doesn’t save the dialing prefix so causes a wrong number. So have to edit the save to add the dialing prefix.

CiscoJabber works well most of the time, but there are times when it seems she just randomly disconnect her go off-line. No one seems to know why that happens except that it affects the telephone connection more than instant messaging. I do wonder why Cisco doesn’t make CiscoJabber readily available for a Mac as opposed to insisting that software be downloaded and even then doesn’t allow it to be done for free without having an account. Why would you make the apps for iPhones and iPads free and make it more difficult on a Mac?

5 stars for working on my PC - it makes my computer a little laggy, which might not be the apps fault. This is why I prefer to use jabber on my 2020 iphone SE, and the following bugs have been longstanding and frustrating:

1. Ringer Volume increases randomly. I always set my ringer to low so I'm not disturbed mid-thought. Jabber randomly but regularly will increase the volume to max or 3/4 max throughout the day - I can visually see the ringer volume jumping up

2. Calls using the number keypad usually don't work. If the person is dialed from my contacts, it works fine. If I need to use the number keys, CiscoJabber will accept the #s, look like it's dialing the numbers, but then disconnect before connecting to that number. This happens about 80%of the time.

3. I think corporate it depts may be able to access and request help directly, but not end-users like me. Hence, this review after trying to contact the jabber customer support.

This works very well for me, for exactly 24 hours. Then it hangs. Here’s why:

My company federated authentication, so when I open the session I log in using corporate credentials. That’s pretty normal, and it works. But we have a maximum 24-hour lifespan on a session.

OK, no problem, I will simply initiate a new session in the morning.

No, CiscoJabber is too smart; it keeps the old session information and restores it - even, as I verified this morning, after an update / restart of the iPad.

So - yesterday at 8:25 I was in the middle of a call and everything froze. I killed Jabber and restarted, and I could log in.

This morning, after a restart, I opened Jabber - no password prompt, just a live session. I killed it and restarted it - same thing.

At 8:25 this morning, again in the middle of a call, again it hangs.

How do I force the current session to end, so I can choose when to log back in?

CiscoJabber does what it is designed to do quite well. However, a major shortcoming is frequently I cannot connect into a conference call after I have signed in and dialed the conference number. It is not clear to me why this happens frequently (and I have heard similar issues from colleagues). I figured out I have to sign out of CiscoJabber and sign in again to be get a “dial tone” to connect into a conference. This makes no sense to me; and it also has caused me to be late connecting into a conference call.

When it works, it’s great; I can answer and make calls on my work number through my personal cell phone. However, on a vast majority of my calls, the sound cuts out within 2-5 minutes so that the other person cannot hear my voice. Then when I hang up it gives me an error that says I’m connected on Jabber elsewhere and cannot make a call. When I’m finally able to reconnect, I end up having to call people back multiple times just to finish our conversation. I hope the developers fix this issue!!

Best feature of using this on the go when I didn’t have someone in my contacts was the directory search. Didn’t have to know anything but just a portion of the name... now it’s frustrating to navigate to contacts (just to read and not able to call anymore the person) to then add a contact then search then cancel then hope I remembered the number correctly then keypad then call. What if it’s the wrong persons number.... nope repeat the process all over.

Have frequent issues with connectivity across iPhone and iPad. The need to every few hours manually log in does not represent the “always-on” utility grade needs for a phone service. Pushing thru this though as a daily active user w/o a hard phone at work.

I really wish there was iPad multi-task support - in side by side mode the video automatically turns off and there’s no way to share content (eg a ppt). Those two features would really elevate the iPad experience to category killer in my view. Is anything like this in the works? Are there iOS blockers?

Also - I’ve noticed that on regular calls my AirPods will use ~15% of their battery for 30min of talk time. When on a Jabber audio-only call my AirPods use ~90% of their battery. Something is wrong here, needs attention please!

Thanks!

CiscoJabber would be great if it worked properly but my biggest issue so far is that more than half the time I call a number, it either gives an annoying busy tone, gives me silence, or a “we’re sorry, but the number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time”. Then I call the same number out of CiscoJabber and it works fine. I don’t understand if I’m doing something wrong or if it is just CiscoJabber itself but the fact that it isn’t more clear just adds to my frustration. If I didn’t have this issue, I would say CiscoJabber is great.

I had been using Jabber for iPhone the better part of the lockdown. So approximately +/- 2 weeks. I have a very stable internet connection but CiscoJabber seems to disconnect randomly, so you constantly have to keep checking your login status. To fix the connection I would have to either restart CiscoJabber several times or restart my phone. The voice quality is descent though.

My biggest worry is the connection is not stable and needs to be reset / restarted.

CiscoJabber closes or resets chats regularly. I need it to be open 24/7 and I just can’t trust it. I just bought the flagship iPhone with more storage than I need in the hopes that this would help. It didn’t.

At least 2-3 times a week I’ll have an alert of a new message, go into CiscoJabber and it flashes then reconnects and all my chat histories are empty.

It does not consistently show my presence accurately either which matters in my company. We need to use this for people on call and simply can’t trust it.

My app automatically updated this past week. It now crashes as soon as I open it. I can’t submit a report as it won’t stay open long enough for me to do anything. However, I uninstalled then reinstalled CiscoJabber . It then allowed me to open, enter my credentials, then login. As soon as it connects to our sever it crashes.
My coworkers iPhone is a iPhone 7 and he is running the same version of Jabber as I am. He isn’t experiencing the problems I am having.
I tweeted a video of what’s happening to Cisco support but no reply. I can’t open a TAC as our Cisco servers are managed by a outsource tech company.

I like the Jabber application from an IM capability and it even syncs my phone and allows call forwarding to my cell. However, the chats are not synced across all devices (laptop to mobile phone app etc) so when using multiple devices you don’t have a clear or complete chat thread. I also no longer receive emails of recent chats, like I used to, and I’m not sure why. Otherwise its a solid application.

CiscoJabber is totally unreliable. I miss calls all the time and it doesnt even register a missed call. I am a doctor who needs to use this for work but if I had any choice ie if my institution used a different app I would switch in an instant. I would never recommend CiscoJabber due to its poor connection, unreliability with receiving calls or even registering an accurate call record and difficulty of use. Unless I have CiscoJabber physically open I miss calls without even knowing I was called.

For the most part, CiscoJabber is great. However, every time my password is changed CiscoJabber continuously saves the old password and I’m unable to sign on unless I’m at my computer. I’m currently having this issue and have been unable to login without getting an error saying I’m using the wrong credentials. I’ve deleted and re-installed CiscoJabber hoping for a different result, but I’m still encountering the same exact issue.

My biggest annoyance with CiscoJabber is that the alert is the default alert and there is no way to change it. When working, I have no way to tell if the alert I received is from Jabber or another alert on my phone. Please either change the alert tone to something less generic or allow us to change the alert.

I keep getting an error saying the certificate is missing on my device. I have to uninstall CiscoJabber then reinstall it. It will then let me log into it and function for while or until I close CiscoJabber then I get the certificate error again and have to go through the uninstall process to get it to function again. I have an iPhone 6S running 11.2.1 software version. Very frustrating! Love it When it’s working.

Phone Services doesn’t connect on T-Mobile’s networks (LTE or 4G). Every now and then an update to CiscoJabber will occur and it will connect, but you can be sure that within a couple weeks it will fail again. Cisco blames T-Mobile any time I’ve had a support case open with them, T-Mobile doesn’t find anything wrong either. No other apps, Cisco or otherwise, have issues. I’ve about given up on the Jabber app except for checking voicemails since our company doesn’t allow for instant messaging.

The ringtones are positively awful. There are 3 and for no reason whatsoever you can’t choose any of the iPhone ringtones.

In any case it is ignoring my choice of ringtone now and only using the annoying “Ringer” one.

There is no way to tell if Jabber is sitting on the opening user license agreement screen after getting automatically updated, waiting for you to accept the terms. This screen is unnecessary and should be removed, no other app does this.

This is a major update, it’s great to see so many features going into this release. Touch ID authentication is a great add as well as the custom TABs. The best thing is things just work the way they are supposed to work. Nice job!