Troubleshooting Recording Issues
Recording issues can occasionally occur due to a variety of reasons, including hardware, permissions, or misconfigurations. This section aims to identify problems that may occur while using the desktop audio & video recording client, explain their causes, and provide helpful information to resolve them.
Audio Issues
Low Microphone Level
Sometimes, the microphone device is muted, and we have no way of knowing without measuring the input volume level (the JavaScript onmute event, when received, is handled differently; see Muted Devices below).
These are a few such situations:
- Using the virtual Microsoft Teams Audio Device on macOS as a microphone input source (it gets installed with Teams on macOS)
- Using the built-in MacBook Pro Microphone on a powered MacBook laptop that’s connected to an external monitor and has the lid closed
- Using an external microphone that’s muted through its own mute button (replicated with the HyperX SoloCast USB mic, Jabra EVOLVE 20 MS headset and the Audeze iSine 10 Lightning cable v2 connected to an iPhone 13 PRO)
- On Safari on macOS, muting the active selected device by setting the macOS level input volume to 0 for it
- On a Windows 10 PC, with just an analogue extender cable connected to the mic jack output (to trick the driver into thinking an analogue headset is connected)
- Using the iPhone as a microphone on a macOS device through Continuity Camera and Pausing the stream on the iPhone device
In most cases above, the microphone volume is reported as 0. However, in some situations, a very faint input signal may still be detected. To handle this reliably, we monitor the volume level and define a threshold below which all devices are considered silent.
As a result, the recording client now continuously monitors the input volume. The mechanism has evolved since its introduction (initial changelog, initial blog post), and it is now a lot better.
Other notable scenarios:
- Some devices are louder when muted than when live in a silent room (replicated with Jabra EVOLVE 20 MS)
How the Microphone Input Level is Measured
The recording client measures the microphone input level using RMS (Root Mean Square), a standard audio measurement method that computes a single value representing the overall loudness. The values are between 0 and 1, where 0 is complete silence and 1 is the loudest possible input.
The recording client captures RMS values over each 5-second window (5 seconds * 15 measurements/second = 75 measurements) and calculates the average. If the average stays above the threshold (see below), everything continues normally with no warning shown.
If a 5-second average value falls below the threshold, the recording client immediately displays a warning (“Your microphone is muted or the volume is too low.”). As soon as any sound is detected above the threshold, the warning disappears.
This warning shows when a microphone is detected as slient or near silent (see 6 examples above), and we’re not notified in any other way (there’s no onmute event).
The Threshold
We made 30+ tests across various audio input devices (built-in microphones, USB headsets & microphones, Bluetooth headsets, AirPods, etc.) and device types (desktop, mobile, tablet), and measured the silence level in a silent office room. The default threshold is set below that silence level, and it catches all 6 situations above. The threshold is set to 0.00002 on the 0-1 RMS scale.
Changing the Threshold
The threshold can be changed through the pipe-rmsthreshold embed code option.
Disabling the Green Warning
If you’d like to disable the green low-volume microphone input warning, set the embed code option pipe-disableaudiowarningmsg to 1.
Devices With Very Low Microphone Input Values
Some microphone input devices may output extremely low signal levels. During testing, the only devices that produced non-zero values below the threshold were AirPods 4 (ANC) paired with an iPhone 13 Pro, the OBSBOT Meet 2 webcam microphone, and an analogue Skullcandy headset connected to a PC. These were tested in a silent office room. This is normal behavior and not a hardware issue. The recording client correctly identifies these near-silent periods and displays a green warning message if the average value over a 5-second interval remains below the threshold. Once speech resumes, the warning disappears immediately.
Muted Devices
Sometimes, we know, at the browser level, in the recorder, that the microphone has been muted (the JavaScript onmute event is triggered). Our recording client handles this event in one of two ways depending on the browser and how the mute occurred.
Non-Blocking: Yellow Warning
In some cases, we just show a non blocking message (“Your microphone is muted”) on yellow background. Here’s how we can easily replicate this scenario:
- Muting microphone devices through a Logitech keyboard’s mute key (regardless of when the mute event happens: before or after initializing the recorder)
- Muting all microphone devices, or the device selected in the recording client, through the macOS MuteKey app (regardless of when the mute event happens: before or after initializing the recorder)
- On Chrome on macOS, muting an active microphone by seting the input volume to 0 in the System Settings (regardless of when the mute event happens: before or after initializing the recorder)
- In macOS, switching to a device that’s already muted by setting the macOS level input volume to 0 for it
Other notable scenarios:
- Safari seems to unmute devices
- Some devices do not trigger mute events when muted therough their own mute buttons (replicated with the HyperX SoloCast USB mic, Jabra EVOLVE 20 MS headset and the Audeze iSine 10 Lightning cable v2 connected to an iPhone 13 PRO)
When this happens, a yellow warning message appears at the bottom of the recording client stating “Your microphone is muted.”. This warning is non-blocking, recordings can still be started and continued. The microphone can be unmuted at any point during or before a recording without causing any issues or errors in the recording client.
Blocking: Pausing the Camera and Microphone in Safari
On Safari, the onmute event gets triggered when you pause the camera and microphone. This can happen by clicking the red camera icon in the address bar and pressing Pause, Safari does not allow pausing the camera and microphone independently.
If this happens while not recording, because both devices are paused, the recording client shows a blocking error: “You blocked camera/microphone access. Click here to unblock or try unblocking them from the browser UI.”. To recover, you can either click on the error message to regain permissions, or click the red camera icon in the address bar and press Resume.
If the camera and microphone are paused while a recording is in progress, the recording does not stop. However, the section during which the camera and microphone were paused is discarded. When you resume, the recording continues normally, and the section with no audio and video will not be present in the final recording.
Unavailable Devices
Blocking: Permission Denied
If camera or microphone permissions are denied when first prompted, the recording client displays a blocking message: “You blocked camera and microphone access. Unblock from the address bar to try again”. On Chromium-based browsers, there is no way to grant permissions after the initial denial without resetting them from the address bar and refreshing the page.
Permissions Revoked After Initial Grant
If you revoke microphone permissions at the browser level after having initially granted them, the microphone icon in the recording client will turn red. If you revoke camera permissions, the video feed will turn black. To recover, you need to reset permissions from the address bar and refresh the page.
Here’s how the red microphone icon looks in the recording client UI:
Device Disconnected or Removed
If the active microphone becomes unavailable—for example, if a wired USB microphone is physically disconnected or a Bluetooth microphone disconnects or loses power—the recording client automatically attempts to switch to the next available microphone device.
If no other devices are available, the red microphone icon (shown above) will appear. This scenario is common on systems with no built-in microphone, such as:
- Mac Mini computers
- Windows PCs
- Windows devices where all other input devices have been disabled
No Microphone Available
If there is no microphone available on the system at all, the red microphone icon will appear along with the message “Connect a microphone or camera with microphone to record audio or video”. This can be differentiated from the other red microphone icon scenarios by the presence of this specific message.
This scenario is common on systems with no microphone devices available (see above).
Screen Recording Issues
Screen Sharing Permission Denied
When using the recording client in screen recording mode, the browser will prompt the user to select a screen, window, or tab to share. If the user cancels this prompt or denies screen sharing permission, the recording client displays an error: “Permission was denied. Could not get screen stream”, along with a Click here to retry button that reloads the recording client without having to refresh the entire tab.
This error can appear in the following situations:
- The screen sharing permission prompt is dismissed (clicking “Cancel” or pressing Escape)
- Attempting to start a new recording when the previously shared screen is no longer available
In all cases, clicking Click here to retry will reload the recording client and prompt for screen sharing permissions again.
Configuration Issues
Invalid Host
If the recording client is embedded on a domain that is not included in the account’s whitelisted hosts, the connection will be rejected and the recording client will display a blocking error: “The Pipe recorder is not allowed to record from this host.”. There is no retry option for this error.
To resolve this, add the domain to the list of allowed hosts in the Pipe dashboard.