I don't know how to get my microphone working

Framework Laptop 13
1

So my microphone doesn’t seem to work. The video seems fine. I can play sounds-- like music and YouTube videos. So I think it’s just the mic?

I received my laptop quite recently, and I put Fedora 42 on it. I’m trying to use the Camera to test the video and audio. I thought I’d joined video calls before on this laptop, but when I had a Zoom meeting this week, the audio wasn’t working. So today I spent a couple hours trying to understand. (I was basically just using ChatGPT. I’m not sure if that’s kind of… lower quality than trying to search Google myself and browsing forums or something.) Anyway, I check the sound settings. I played around with… well, I’m not even sure what-- I seemed to be doing things with PipeWire and AlsaMixer. I updated the kernel, I think. And… nothing. And what’s really odd to me is that at some point earlier when I was just recording videos, one of the first videos did record and play. initially, it wouldn’t play sound. but then an hour later or so i just tried playing it again, and it worked! but recording a new video… again, didn’t work. And I’m not even sure I’m seeing what I’m supposed to be seeing in Alsa Mixer. I’m happy to share the ChatGPT link, but I’ve been using the same thread since I received the laptop so the first half or so of messages… are not about this audio problem.

Any chance this is a known problem? Or that someone might be able to help me understand what’s going on? I’m tired of feeling frustrated for today. Maybe I’ll try again another day. Maybe I’ll just ask a friend if he can sit with me and help.

2

I couldn’t get the microphone to work in video calls on Fedora either. The microphone tested OK in sound settings, so clearly not a hardware issue. I’ve since switched to Ubuntu (there were a few other things I couldn’t get to work), where everything works fine. So you’re not the only one, but I can’t offer a solution for Fedora I’m afraid.

1 Like
3

I also have this issue. Running Arch Linux, and cant get the microphone to pick up anything.

EDIT: Got it to work. It seems like the sound card wasn’t configured correctly? I use wiremix for managing all my audio devices, because its straightforward. Under configuration, I had to select a different option, then the microphone was working. I assume, before it defaulted to something else (some non existing emulated mic or something)

1 Like