Mic suddenly stopped working

Technical Support
1

So as the title says, my microphone just stopped mysteriously working. I played 2 ranked games and then closed the game after couple hours I started the game again but this time the mic didn’t work. It still works in teamspeak, discord, rainbow six siege, etc. Microphone drivers are up to date and I’ve been trying to fix the problem for 2 days now.

2

I have the same issue with my headset.

3

I also have uninstalled overwatch, restarted my pc, restored settings in overwatch. At this point I’m very frustrated.

4

If any of you have recently updated Windows, they have acknowledged they messed up most sound drivers, so you’ll probably need to update again.

5

I’ve tried that as well. All my drivers are up to date, but mic still not working.

6

Hello gang!

Another thing that we see happen following Windows updates is certain audio device settings getting changed (due to a default setting at odds with your current configuration). Let’s check this batch of OS settings…

Make sure Exclusive Mode is disabled:

  1. Right-click the speaker icon in the system tray and select Recording Devices.
  2. Select your device and click Properties.
  3. Select the Advanced Tab.
  4. Uncheck any boxes in the Exclusive Mode section.

Ensure apps are able to utilize the mic:

  1. Hit Windows key and type settings.
  2. Go to the Settings app.
  3. Click Privacy.
  4. Under the Microphone category, toggle “Let apps use my microphone” off and then back on.

Change how Windows behaves when it detects communications devices:

  1. Hit Windows key and type sound.
  2. Go to the Sound options.
  3. Click the Communications tab.
  4. For the setting “When Windows detects communications activity”, set it to “Do nothing”.

In conjunction with the above step, in-game you can go to Audio settings and try toggling your voice chat device between Default Devices or Comms Devices.

Best of luck in your adventures :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

Hey, i’ve tried this to no avail , i have also set my default mic in the bliz launcher settings but overwatch is still not detecting it at all, just says ‘unknown’ for default and comms despite always working beforehand. anything else to suggest?

8

I tried all of these and none of them worked. I still can’t use mic in game. :confused:

9

Do a test for me. In the battle.net launcher go to settings and then voice/chat. Click mic test and see if you an get the levels to move at all. If it doesn’t unplug the headphones and leave the mic plugged in. See if that works.

1 Like
10

Levels move, but they move by themselves. They don’t move when I speak they have life of their own.

11

Hmm, that suggests the recording device is not actually set to the microphone, if the Voice Chat settings in the Battle.net app are testing the “System Default Device”.

Let’s check what’s going on there.

  1. Hit Windows key and type sound.
  2. In the filtered search results, select the Control Panel item for Sound.
  3. Go to the Recording tab.
  4. Check which device is set as the Default Device. It should be your headset microphone.
  5. If you see the Stereo Mix device in the light, right-click it and select Disable.

Retest the microphone in the Battle.net voice chat after that.

1 Like
12

Seems to be working now. Thank you. I had to disable my backpanel audiojack to get it working. Thank you, finally it’s working. THANK YOU Metalagon!