Windows Live Messenger Microphone and Audio Issues

[ddoss23]

I have installed Windows Live Messager and have walked through the setup for the audio and microphone, and it appears to work when I go through the set up. I can hear the sound through the speakers, and then when I talk I can see that the microphone in the webcam is working as I see the green, yellow and red indicators when I speak. However, when I connect to a video call, the person on the other end cannot hear me and I cannot hear them. Even the sound indicator in the webcam image window seems to be greyed out. I have tested the microphone to record a sound, and I can see through the camera just find. Any help anyone can provide I would be very grateful.

[Jeff]

A few questions that might help us debug your problem.

1. Has this webcam and mic EVER worked with Windows Live Messenger, or is this the first time you've tried it?
2. Do you have any other IM accounts, like Yahoo! Messenger? Do the webcam and mic work on them?
3. Have you tried just doing audio?
4. Have you tried just doing the webcam (not a video call)?
5. Have you tried a video call with several other people (possibly the problem is on the recipient's end)?

[ddoss23]

Thanks for responding Jeff, sorry for the long response on my end, but I just got back to the states tonight. Yes the webcam and the microphone worked at one point but their was an echo so I muted the microphone until I had to talk. The webcam seems to work great, they can see me but now they cannot hear me. I would like to test this but I don't know anyone else who has a webcam at the moment and my wife is out of town for the next two weeks. Is there another way I can test the audio, because as I stated before both the camera and the microphone in the camera seem to work just fine when performing the tuning, this is the same with the headset. I am completely at a loss as to why it does not work when I use MSN Messenger to video call. Please let me know if you have any additional ideas. Thanks.

[patndoris]

1. Are you using XP or Vista?
2. When you go to Tools/Options/Connection in WLM does it show a uPnP or non-uPnP connection?
3. Does your headset have a mic? If so does it work ok in an audio only chat? Or is it just the webcam having this issue?
4. Have you thoroughly checked your Windows Control Panel / Sounds & Audio settings to be sure nothing is amiss in there? I've had times when sound checks (in multibple messengers and tests) all completed ok but a profile did not release and sound/voice simply did not work properly unless I manually released the settings (and in the case or switching from bluetooth headset to regular I had to release them manually AND reboot) to get it back working.

I have some ideas but rather than have you try all sorts of things (one which might mess up another) I just wanted a bit of clarification first. If you've got a bit of patience I'm sure we can figure it out.

Doris

[googlebot]

sorry for this but i so happen to have the exact same problem!! my fiancee is at the states and i'm in central america please help me, i tried activating upnp because i saw that you mentioned something about it and i thought it might solve my problem without me having to bother you... i really need some solution though, it does not work, not even on voice calls, i have tried everything and it seems to work well to send voice clips but it simply stopped working for voip purposes... i am not very familiar with these sort of connections so i hope you can help me solve this issue, just yesterday i was happily video chatting with my soon to be wife

[patndoris]

If it was working yesterday, and today it is not - more than likely it is a server issue and will probably resolve itself on it's own.

From what I can see, there are some issues going on with Windows Live at the moment. I'd suggest just waiting a bit and seeing if it doesn't take care of itself.

Please feel free to post any time you have a question. It is never a bother! That's what we're here for. If this doesn't resolve in a day or so please let us know and we can try to dig deeper.

(If you just can't wait it out (and believe me I know how hard that can be!) you could try Skype. Yahoo is notoriously flaky on video - but Skype is generally pretty good. WLM is my favorite, but in a pinch it doesn't hurt to have a backup!)

[googlebot]

thank you doris for your fast reply, i believe you were right in your assumption of it being some sort of server problem because we tried again today (i wanted to give it one last try before switching to skype, i really love wlm) and it worked perfectly, thank you very much for your help i think i would've panicked if it hadn't been for you

[patndoris]

I'm glad it worked out for you. I hope you'll take time to browse around the forums - we have a lot of information and a great group of people here!