Honorlock Issues and Fixes: Extension, Phone Scan and Flagging Explained

Honorlock is a Chrome extension paired with on-demand live proctors: the session is recorded and automatically analyzed, and a human joins only when the system detects something worth checking. It also runs a search-and-destroy service that looks for leaked exam questions posted online, and a phone-detection feature that listens for audio signatures when a browser-based test is opened on a second device.

The extension will not install or the exam says it is missing

Honorlock only works in Google Chrome (and Chromium-based Edge on some deployments) on a desktop or laptop. It does not work on iPads, phones, or most managed Chromebooks.

Fix: install from the link inside your course, confirm it appears in `chrome://extensions`, enable it, then close and reopen Chrome entirely. Launch the exam from the LMS course page. If your school laptop blocks extension installs, contact IT — this cannot be bypassed from the student side.

Camera, microphone or screen-share check fails

Honorlock records webcam, microphone and screen. All three require permission.

• In Chrome, click the lock icon in the address bar and set Camera, Microphone and (where prompted) Screen to Allow.
• On macOS, grant Chrome Screen Recording under Privacy & Security, then quit and reopen Chrome. Screen-recording permission does not apply until Chrome restarts — this is the single most common macOS failure.
• Close any other app holding the camera, then reboot if the black screen persists.

The room scan keeps restarting or "did not complete"

The scan wants a slow, continuous 360-degree pass showing your desk, the area under it, and the walls around you.

Do it right the first time: hold the laptop or external webcam with two hands, rotate over roughly twenty to thirty seconds, pause on the desk surface, and end facing your seat. Rushing produces motion blur that the analyzer rejects. If it restarts anyway, increase room lighting — dark rooms are the second most common cause.

Phone detection: what it does and does not do

Honorlock does not access your phone, read your messages, or install anything on it. It plays an inaudible tone during the exam and, if a phone browser opens a page containing exam content that has been fingerprinted, that device can register with the system. In practice: keep the phone out of the room, face down and silenced, and do not open any study site during the test.

Why you were flagged

Flags come from face-absence, multiple faces, background voices, tab or window changes, unusual copy behavior and text matches against known leaked content. The recording is reviewed by your instructor. Benign flags are common. Reduce them by testing alone in a closed room, keeping your face in frame, not reading aloud, and never leaving the exam window — even a permitted calculator app can register as an application switch unless the instructor allowed it.

Mid-exam disconnects

If the internet drops, stay on the page. Honorlock caches locally and resumes upload when the connection returns. Reload only if the page is genuinely frozen for several minutes, and if you must, log back into the same attempt through the LMS rather than starting a new one.

The universal pre-exam checklist

Roughly nine out of ten proctoring incidents trace back to the same five conditions. Run this list the day before, not fifteen minutes before.

• Use the same machine, browser and network you will test on. A system check passed on a laptop at home does not certify the desktop at work.
• Reboot fully. A cold restart releases the camera handle that Zoom, Teams, Discord, OBS, Snap Camera or Windows Camera quietly kept open.
• Update the browser and the secure application. Version mismatch is the single most common launch failure.
• Test upload, not download. Live proctoring streams video *out*. You need a stable 1.5–3 Mbps upload; a 500 Mbps download does not help if upload collapses.
• Disable VPNs, proxies, corporate firewalls, parental filters and antivirus web shields. Managed work or school devices block the ports proctoring platforms use, and administrators cannot always unblock them in time.

Fast diagnostic sequence when something breaks

1. Note the exact error code or message and screenshot it — support resolves coded errors in minutes and vague descriptions in hours.

2. Check whether the failure is *device*, *network* or *account*. Device: the check fails offline too. Network: it fails only on this connection. Account: it fails on every device.

3. Switch one variable at a time: hotspot instead of Wi-Fi, Chrome instead of Edge, second machine, guest OS profile.

4. Re-run the vendor system check and save the report ID.

5. Contact live support *before* the appointment window closes — most vendors will not reinstate a session once you have exceeded the launch grace period.

What to do if the session is lost anyway

If the exam terminates, do three things immediately, in this order: screenshot the error, open the vendor's live chat and get an incident or case number, and email your institution or licensing board the same day with that number attached. Reinstatement decisions almost always hinge on documented, timestamped evidence created during or immediately after the incident — not on a request filed a week later.

Then use the retake window deliberately. Rehearse the launch flow on the exact machine, run one full-length timed practice test under the same conditions, and treat the technical setup as part of your study plan rather than an afterthought.