Snipping Tool not recording audio (WASAPI Mode problem)

Question

Can someone help me fix an audio recording issue in the Windows 10 Snipping Tool? It's not picking up any audio and says WASAPI mode is active. I've already unchecked the 'exclusive mode' boxes in the sound control panel, but that didn't work. Any solutions?

Answer 1

I found that there were three things I had to adjust to get snipping tool to record from the microphone:

1 - I had an music player (foobar2000) running in the background, idle. To avoid conflict, I closed this program.

2 - My Microsoft Teams was configured, under Devices, to use the my bluetooth headset as both the speaker and the microphone. After I configured Teams to use other devices, I no longer received the error 'If an app is using WASAPI exclusive mode, change it shared mode.' (fyi, nice grammer...)

3 - In the Sound app in Control panel, I had disabled Stereo Mix as a recording source. Since there was nothing else available, I had to re-enable this input so that I could accomplish #2 above. Otherwise, Teams only allowed me to choose the headset as my microphone.

Prior to that, I had restarted the Windows Audio Endpoint Builder service which is all you need to do. Due to dependencies, this also restarts the Windows Audio Service. But that had no effect.

After recording from the microphone started working, I tried to change all the settings back to see if the problem reappeared--it did not. So, I'm not sure the precise thing which resolved the issue--I'm hoping these steps will give others ideas on how to overcome their recording issues.

Answer 2

Hi Ana Santos,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A Forum. I understand that Snipping Tool is not recording audio and shows WASAPI mode active on Windows 10.

Please try to follow these steps:

1, Check microphone access for desktop apps

• Open Settings > Privacy > Microphone
• Turn on Microphone access
• Turn on Allow desktop apps to access your microphone
• Confirm Snipping Tool appears under desktop apps while running

2, Reset the Snipping Tool app

• Open Settings > Apps > Apps & features
• Select Snipping Tool > Advanced options
• Click Terminate, then click Reset

3, Verify audio source inside Snipping Tool

• Open Snipping Tool
• Start a screen recording
• Select the microphone icon and make sure it is turned on before recording

4, Restart Windows Audio services

• Press Windows + R, type services.msc, and press Enter
• Restart Windows Audio
• Restart Windows Audio Endpoint Builder

5, Reinstall Snipping Tool

• Open Microsoft Store
• Search for Snipping Tool
• Uninstall the app
• Restart the device
• Reinstall Snipping Tool from Microsoft Store

6, Check system sound capture is not disabled by enhancement software

• Open Control Panel > Sound > Recording
• Right‑click the active microphone > Properties
• Open the Enhancements tab
• Check Disable all enhancements > Apply > OK

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