teams-linux: Microphone stops after ~1min (Linux Mint 19.3)

Question

Hi,

we started using MS teams in our team ~1 month ago, but it fails almost everytime on my machine with Linux.
The problem: After ~1 minute (most of the times) an purple alarm dialog appears, telling the microphone does not work and I need to switch the device. My teammates directly tell me, that my microphone stopped working and tell me that they can't hear me. I can still hear them, no other problems.
So I need to quit teams, even restarting pulseaudio and maybe it does work again for another minute. Not always. Switching the device in the teams settings maybe helps for some seconds, but then it fails again. This happend about 20 times since we are using that. But also not every meeting / everyday (we also had video-chats about 1h and no problem). Sometimes restarting teams/pulseaudio ("pulseaudio -k") did not heal it, so restarted my machine, where it afterwards worked quite well on long calls and sometimes only for 1minute.

I am the only Linux user and it just happens to me. We then switch back to other solutions (jitsi, zoom). And even after those problems in teams, my microphones (both) work in jitsi and zoom (just quitting teams, without restarting anything), also I can see the input in the audio-control.

My setup:
Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia (based on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver)
pulseaudio 11.1
teams 1.3.00.5153
Microphones:

• primarily HyperX Headset (see details below):
• also tried: built in mic on laptop (Asus UX550VD)

As far as I have seen, there are no start options for /usr/bin/teams (nothing with "--help", "-v").

I watched the log file "~/.config/Microsoft/Microsoft Teams/logs.txt": started the app and a team-call, waitet ~1min until it happend: nothing written here! Thats also bad: an alert-dialog in the UI should cause some lines in the log file, doesn't it?

from "~ sudo lshw", describing my headset:
* -usb:0 Beschreibung: Audio-Gerät Produkt: HyperX Virtual Surround Sound Hersteller: Kingston Physische ID: 3 Bus-Informationen: usb@3:2.3 Version: 0.30 Seriennummer: 00000000 Fähigkeiten: usb-2.00 audio-control Konfiguration: driver=usbhid maxpower=100mA speed=12Mbit/s

Any help appreciated, even on how to generate more debug/log information.

The strange part here is, that it happens after 1min. Maybe some buffer is filled and then the service quits? It even happens, while not talking.

other found threads with problems on audio devices seem to suffer under permissions. So I differ from them, as I got working audio devices which quit after a while.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3011/microphone-is-not-working.html
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3015/microphone-for-teams-on-linux-not-working.html

Thanks in advance,
Sebastian

Answer 1

Again tried using Microsoft's (of course latest) client for the last 4 working days.

Because of this microphone issue, I now switched back to the open source one from https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases.

The open source client is rock solid when it comes to audio. Maybe someone at Microsoft could look into that one and check, how pulseaudio stream processing is done there? It even supports switching audio devices in a running call, completely flawlessly. Drawback: Teams does not support multi participants view with that client. That's why I want do use the Microsoft client.

What breaks functionality and frustrates me with Microsoft's client is:

• This is not related to audio hardware, the alsa driver nor pulseaudio as such. The pulseaudio audio stream source is working completely fine. You see the microphone audio level in pavucontrol all the time. And you can record with audacity all the time. While MS' client seems to get no audio. Folks, you can stop messing around with your settings and stuff. The pulseaudio client in Microsoft's Teams client needs to be fixed!
• This could relate to the sample rate of the audio source and audio stream precision caused by conversion. What is the native sample rate and format please? Could proof that with doing conversion BEFORE providing the stream to the client.
• This also depends on the signal processing state in Teams. During the last working days, I experienced more audio issues when I had video activated. I joined a call with some participants, we talked for one hour, I switched on video - bam! microphone audio was dead in teams. And it WAS still displayed in pavucontrol and it WAS still available in audacity.
• Not 100% sure but this may also relate to the number of participants and (audio/video) streams being processed by the client. Had less issues with small groups it seems.
• This depends on the state of the Teams infrastructure. In my region (Germany) we had issues with the Teams infrastructure yesterday. Screen sharing was not possible for several participants yesterday. This was regardless of the clients they used (Mac, Windows, Linux). But during that time the audio issue with Microsoft's client was worse (failed more often) than before.

I would really appreciate if Microsoft would investigate this. As a starting point: Grab an AMD64 notebook, run Ubuntu 20.04, plug multiple USB audio devices in, join a call with more than 3 participants and check why switching devices works rock solid with https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases but fails with the Microsoft client.

Answer 2

The workaround for me was to select audio input before starting the call using Settings->Devices (from the Teams program menu), and never open the device chooser from within the call.

If I open the device chooser from within the call I soon lose the microphone and cannot re-enable it. Until I restart the program, of course.

Answer 3

I have this same issue. It seems that it happens when you have a bluetooth microphone set as the audio source, then you disconnect it at some point (turn it off and on again) while Teams is running. However, it's not completely reproduceable that way either. My setup is PopOs (based on Ubuntu 20.04).

Something that I am going to try is to set it on the default devices and then manually reroute the audio via the panel in KDE once the call is started.

Answer 4

I have the same issue as well, Ubuntu 20.04. Mic suddenly drops out after a few seconds. @JimmyYang-MSFT Do you know whether this is being looked into?

Answer 5

Same here
Everything works fine until there is a call
I will try to setup audio before call and then not touch it
(Every time I had this issue I was messing around with device settings, will try to avoid it)