No Voice Chat Options

Technical Support
1

I used to be able to join voice chat in HotS, but now the option doesn’t exist for me. It is not in the settings, and there is no microphone to click on during games to join team voice chat. There is nothing to indicate that I have been banned or silenced, but even if I was, shouldn’t I still see the voice chat options? I am not sure when exactly this problem started because I haven’t used voice chat in HotS for the better part of a year, and only noticed it when I tried to join voice chat last night during a SL game.

I’ve checked the BNet settings and it recognizes my microphone and picks up my voice there. I am able to use Discord and use voice chat in CoD:MW without issue as well.

Not sure if it matters, but I have BNet installed on a different drive than my OS (OS on C:, BNet on I:)

What I have attempted so far:

  1. I have tried a ‘scan and repair’ on the game, and have uninstalled and re-installed the game, but still no voice options exist within the menus.

  2. I uninstalled the game again and deleted all HotS folders in ‘Documents’ and ‘User’ ‘App Data’ settings. Reinstalled and the issue remains.

  3. I have re-named the ‘Heroes of the Storm’ folder in ‘Documents’. I have also deleted this folder prior to each re-installation of HotS.

  4. Uninstalled the game and re-installed the game on a different drive (C:)

Pictures of my menus and missing voice options: imgur(dot)com/a/eFIIH2l

I have SIF and DxDiag files available, but it didn’t seem appropriate to paste the text here due to the large amount of text. Please let me know the best way to provide this information/files for this post.

2

Hey there Armeni,

Thanks for reaching out! I see that you’ve tried a few steps already. If you’ve already tried the steps listed here, lets go ahead and have you create a fresh DxDiag so we can further investigate the problem. Here are the instructions:

  1. Press Windows Key + R.
  2. Type DxDiag and press Enter.
  3. In the DxDiag window, click Save All Information.
  4. Name the file “dxdiag” and click Save
  5. Once you have that made, open the file. You’ll need to copy and paste the contents of the Text document into the post, and put four Tilde (~) marks above the DXDiag. It’ll look like this:
DXDiag goes here

If you have issues pasting here, please use Pastebin and post the link (ex: Pastebin (dot) com/123456).

3

DxDiag: pastebin(dot)com/xcncjXk9

4

Hey there Armeni,

Before we get too technical I did want to ask a few diagnostic questions.

  1. If we open Heroes of the Storm and go to the in-game settings menu, under voice chat, what happens when you use the “test” feature?
  2. Is the Snowball device set as the Microphone in the in-game settings for voice chat?
  3. Is “Enable Team Voice Reminder” checked in this same menu? It should look like this.

We hope to hear from you soon!

5
  1. When I go to the HotS in-game settings, there is no ‘Voice Chat’ options available. I see:
  • Graphics
  • Sound (No voice chat options exist in here either.)
  • Mouse and Keyboard
  • Gameplay
  • Social
  • Language and Region
  • Observer and Replay

However, in the BNet client when I go to HotS, then ‘Options’, then ‘Game settings’, ‘Voice Chat’, and click on ‘Test’, I get a positive response with the microphone clearly picking up sound and the test bar fluctuating based on volume. This occurs whether the input device is ‘Default’ or ‘Blue Snowball’

  1. ‘Voice Chat’ options do not appear in-game for me. In the BNet client when I click on HotS and then ‘Options’, then ‘Game Settings’, then ‘Voice Chat’, the ‘Microphone’ is set to Default. I have tried both the Default and Blue Snowball options and restarted HotS, but there is no change. ‘Voice Chat’ still does not exist in any in-game options or settings.

  2. That option is not available to me in-game.

These are what my in-game settings, SL Hero Select, and score screen menu look like currently: imgur(dot)com/a/eFIIH2l. No voice chat widget appears in the SL Hero Select screen or on the score screen.

6

Hey again,

To help verify the report I attempted a login to the account. During this time I was able to join/view the voice service normally. This was done to rule out any sort of account-level issues.

This means the problem is related to either software interactions or network problems. To help further narrow down this issue, would it be possible to do a mobile tether temporarily?

Basically disable wifi on your phone, then plug it into the computer with USB. After that enable mobile tethering in the device settings menu. Once tethering is setup unplug the ethernet cable and disable any wifi adapters. This should force all game data to go through the cellular network.

No need to play any full matches, just open the game and once it’s finished loading the game settings menu.

If the voice chat service works while on the hotspot, but not on the normal home network, I recommend the following:

  • Power Cycle the device
  • Contact the ISP and ask about a factory reset on the modem/router
  • Also ask the ISP about firmware updates

If the voice chat service does NOT work on the cellular network, this confirms the issue is related to software interactions. In that case we’d want to:

I do hope the info helps. Let us know how it goes!

7

First, thank you for your assistance with this. I’m very satisfied with the response times and effort going into helping solve this issue.

There has been some progress!

I do not have a cord that lets me connect my phone to my PC, so I was not able to test the network. What I did, and the results I got, are as follows:

Unplug all audio devices, then plug them back in

No change.

Try a different input port (usb, 3.5mm jack, etc)

My audio devices were connected to my keyboard, so I tried connecting them directly to the mobo back panel ports. This did not solve the issue.

Run software updates on any related audio devices

There are no available update drivers for my microphone (that I am aware of). I checked the manufacturer’s site for support and downloads, but no drivers were listed. My headphones regular stereo headphones that only use a 3.5mm jack and do not require/use driver updates.

Disable background applications

No change. I disabled all background applications as per the attached instructions. I’ve added a screen cap of my background applications that were available to disable to the imgur library I previously posted.

Try a new admin account

I created a new admin account, logged in to BNet and started HotS. The ‘Voice Chat’ settings appeared! I tested the microphone in-game and could hear my own voice.

I switched back to my main Windows account and tried the same thing, but still no ‘Voice Chat’ option. All startup programs are still disabled on this account, and on the second admin account that had the successful ‘Voice Chat’ option enabled.

8

That’s great news! This means that the root issue is related to that specific user profile in Windows.

Lets try this (on the “problem” profile):

  • Check Windows Privacy Settings
  • Locate and delete this folder: C:\Users\YOUR-WINDOWS-USERNAME\AppData\Local\Blizzard Entertainment\Heroes of the Storm
  • Disable OneDrive

Let us know how it goes!

9

Lets try this (on the “problem” profile):

  • Check [Windows Privacy Settings ]
  • Locate and delete this folder: C:\Users\YOUR-WINDOWS-USERNAME\AppData\Local\Blizzard Entertainment\Heroes of the Storm
  • Disable OneDrive

No change. I even went so far as to uninstall OneDrive.

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