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Moderation — Android

When you connect to a session with a token that includes moderator privileges, you can force other clients to mute their audio:

Checking for moderation privileges

Once you have connected to a session, you can check if the client can moderate. Check the value of the canForceMute property of the object returned by Session.getCapabilities(). If it is set to true, the client can moderate:

if (session.getCapabilities().canForceMute) {
    // The client can forceMute. See the next section.
} else {
    // The client cannot moderate.
}

Muting the audio of streams in a session

Moderators can force all clients or a publisher of a specific stream to mute their published audio.

To force a publisher of a specific stream to mute its audio, call the forceMuteStream() method of the Session object, passing in the Stream object corresponding to the stream to be muted:

mSession.forceMuteStream(mStream);

When the call to the Session.forceMuteStream() method fails, the Session.SessionListener.onError() method is called. For example, if the client does not have moderation privileges, the code parameter of the OpentokError object passed into this method is set to SessionUnableToForceMute. In this context, success indicates that the options passed into the method are valid and the request to mute the stream was sent. It does not guarantee that the request was successfully acted upon.

Moderators can also force all streams (except for an optional list of streams) in a session to mute published audio. Create an array of excluded streams:

List<com.opentok.android.Stream> mExcludedStreams = new ArrayList<com.opentok.android.Stream>();
mExcludedStreams.add(stream1);
mExcludedStreams.add(stream2);

Then call the forceMuteAll() method of the Session object, passing in the excluded stream array:

mSession.forceMuteAll(mExcludedStreams);

A stream published by the moderator calling the forceMuteAll() method is muted along with other streams in the session, unless you add the moderator's stream (or streams) to the excluded streams list.

If you leave out the excludedStreams parameter, all streams in the session (including those of the moderator) will stop publishing audio:

mSession.forceMuteAll();

Also, any streams that are published after the call to the forceMuteAll() method are published with audio muted. You can remove the mute state of a session by calling the disableForceMute() method of the Session object:

mSession.disableForceMute();

After you call the Session.disableForceMute() method, new streams published to the session will no longer have audio muted.

You can get references to Stream objects when the onStreamReceived(Session session, Stream stream) of the Session.SessionListener object is called. See Detecting streams in a session. You can also get a Stream object from the getStream() method of a Publisher or Subscriber object.

When the stream is muted as a result of one of these methods (or from a force mute stream call in another client SDK), in each client publishing a muted stream, the onMuteForced(PublisherKit publisher, MuteForcedInfo info) method of the PublisherKit.MuteListener object is called.

Similarly, in response to a call to the Session.forceMuteAll() method (or to a force mute all call in another client SDK), onMuteForced(Session session, MuteForcedInfo info) method of the Session.MuteListener object is called in each client connected to the session, and the active property of the MuteForcedInfo object passed in is set to true.

And in response to a call to the Session.disableForceMute() method (or to a disable force mute call in another client SDK), the onMuteForced(Session session, MuteForcedInfo info) method of the Session.MuteListener object in each client connected to the session, and the active property of the MuteForcedInfo object passed in is set to false.