Tag: tech support

The real fix to hearing your mic in your headphones

Tech

If you want to skip ahead, dear reader, the answer is down there.

It is infuriating to have a technical issue that you know you’ve fixed previously, but when you search the ‘net for the solution you know exists, all you get are results for the incorrect fix. I am posting this to document the problem I had yesterday and the real fix for it, in the hope that it might save someone else in the future, or even me if it comes up again and I forget what the fix is.

This past weekend I upgraded my computer, going from an Intel Core i7-7700 to a modern AMD Ryzen 7 7800x3D because gaming. Because I was doing a CPU swap I wanted a nice fresh install of Windows 10 instead of porting over all the cruft of my previous installation. I wrote a step-by-step for the whole thing just to help my neurodivergent brain, and I will post that at some point now that it’s done.

But because it’s a fresh install, I ran in to a problem that I’ve had before. When I put my headphones on to play the game that prompted all this nerdery, Dragon Age The Veilguard, I could hear my microphone playing in my headphones. In audio terms I was monitoring my mic.

I went to Start > Settings > System > Sound, clicked on Sound Control Panel, and went to the Recording tab. I selected my microphone (Yeti Classic) and clicked Properties. And lo and behold, the “Listen to this device” box was unchecked. That means it shouldn’t be coming through my headphones. There must be some other fix.

So off I went to generically google the solution. And I found page after page after page of people saying the solution was to uncheck the “Listen to this device” box. But it’s already unchecked! I even found people, like me, asking what to do if the box is already unchecked. And the answers wandered off in the direction of reinstalling the audio drivers or using Microsoft’s useless troubleshooters. That ain’t it, chief.

The answer, dear reader, is this:

The Real Answer to Not Monitor Your Mic

You have to check the “Listen to this device” box, click Apply, then uncheck it again, and click Apply again.

Yes, you have to turn it on and off again. That did the trick. I don’t remember how I came up with this the last time it plagued me, or if there was a page that mentions this annoying bug that has fallen out of the top 20 or 30 search results (thanks, Google), but now it’s documented.

I had so much frustration with this. I want to spare you, the reader, any future frustration. Maybe this is only in Windows 10, so it will eventually stop being a thing when support ends for Win10 in a year. But at least now, I’ve done my duty and shared it. Now go share this so others can find it. Thanks for listening.

22nd Blogiversary

blogiversary

Today marks the 22nd year of this blog. As long-time readers will know, because I mention it frequently, my first post was made on 2 November 2002. It was about an ex for whom I still held hard feelings. Those feelings have faded and now I wish them nothing but happiness. Time heals all wounds.

I knew this day was coming but I wasn’t sure how to celebrate it. I am still writing 500+ words a day but not posting as often. I have a post that is almost ready to post but I want to give it a rewrite. But the longer I take to do that, the less timely it is. I might not post it in its current form.

In the meantime, I can tell that there are people out there reading my words. Not a lot of you, but you’re out there. And you browse the archives, if the referrers mean anything. So thank you! Hopefully you’re finding my best stuff.

Today I am working on upgrading my computer, primarily the CPU. Dragon Age The Veilguard came out last week and it turns out my computer struggles to play it. I’ve been eyeing an upgrade, so that convinced me to purchase an AMD Ryzen 7 7800x3D, the best CPU for gaming out there right now. I’m not building a whole new PC from scratch; I’m trying to do this smartly. But new CPU did mean a new motherboard and RAM. And since I’m switching architecture (Intel x86 to AMD) the smart thing to do is a fresh Windows install.

That surprisingly lead me to a new problem. My current PC runs Windows 10. I don’t really want to upgrade to Win11 just yet. But when I created a boot drive to install Win10 from Rufus gave me an error that I’m using an ISO with a revoked bootloader.

What the what?

Many hours of research and testing later, and I found out that the most recent installer for Windows 10, straight from Microsoft, using the Windows Media Creation Tool, is not patched to mitigate against the bootloader virus Black Lotus. Huh. What this means, in short, is that if I use a thumb drive I create with that ISO to install Windows 10, it probably won’t boot with Secure Boot turned on. I spent so much time on this because I really wanted to keep using Win 10 until the absolute last minute. Honestly, though, I should bite the bullet and install Win11. I just don’t have a key for Win11 but I have one for Win10 Pro. Sigh.

The second roadblock to upgrading my computer brain is my own damned fault. To save money I just figured I would use the same CPU cooler I have on my ancient Intel chip. But I forgot that the mounting bracket for AMD sockets (AM5 in this case) is different than Intel chips. My cooler came with both kinds but I tossed the one I didn’t need, which really isn’t like me at all. So now I have to wait for another CPU fan to show up before I begin the operation.

I wrote up a whole step-by-step process for the upgrade last night, just to make sure I have everything to hand and understand the whole thing. This is how my brain works; it helps me to know the trip before I start. It’s why I know I don’t have the right bracket. I do, however, have a stack of thumb drives, full of all the drivers and installers I need, and multiple backups, and logins and passwords. I am more than ready. I’ve even benchmarked my current system so I can compare it to the newly upgraded computer!

That’s what I’ve been doing last night after work and most of today, along with grocery shopping and going for a walk (while waiting for a user profile backup to finish) instead of planning something for my blogiversary. Hopefully you don’t mind, dear reader.

Once the upgrade is done I should post my step-by-step as a technical article. This blog isn’t just about living with my aging dad, after all.

Re-focusing

Tech

Got a lot on my mind tonight but it’s not really gelling into one cohesive story. I’m just going to let my fingers run as fast as my brain will let them across the keyboard and see what happens. I’ve got a good feeling about this.

I had a breakthrough at work this week. I’ve been very tense and anxious about my performance with basic tech support issues. I poked around, feeling the customer’s frustration. I feel things deeply. That led to me not being able to think through the basic steps and work toward a fix. I felt their frustration and it fed into my doubt. Wasn’t good. My brain was foggy, unfocused, dull.

Late yesterday afternoon, I had two different calls scheduled for customers with various problems. One of the clients was one I had talked to, tried to fix their issue, and had to end the call saying “I will need to research this and get back to you” and they very much gave me the impression they weren’t happy with that, for whatever reason. So I was already uptight about wanting to do well and solve the issue, as well as reverse the impression of incompetence I’d given previously.

On top of that, the client had added a second, unrelated issue, one with many potential causes and solutions. Thinking about working through all the steps to troubleshoot it on top of the other issue gave me time-pressure-anxiety, which should totally be a German-style compound noun.

On top of those, Thursday’s call had been a rescheduling from the day before, adding another layer of delay to the situation. I was caught up in a much-longer-than-expected site visit and was unable to live up to my word in calling on schedule.

The second client had what could be a very tricky problem involving their network connection from home, and I had enough experience to mentally enumerate the many potential causes of that kind of issue: home network, wifi, VPN, unstructured environment compared to an office setting… also the client was an engineer, and they are notoriously picky (said the tech support person, knowing our own reputation.)

My sense of duty forced me to make the first call… and within a few minutes I had demonstrated the solution to the first question for this client, and they had accepted it without argument. I pressed on, and being more focused and methodical, found the cause of the second issue almost immediately; they had two versions of the same software installed. After showing them, gently and diplomatically, that they would lose nothing when I removed the extra program, I found I’d also fixed the issue.

I’d scheduled 30 minutes for this, and I finished in 15 minutes. Easy peasy. I got to close two tickets with one phone call. Confidence returning.

The second call? When the client demonstrated the issue to me, I recognized the problem because I had been setting up VPN connections for this specific company last week and discovered that some settings didn’t stick until you set them twice. The call started at 4:04 PM; I solved the problem by 4:08 PM.

My swiftness impressed the customer; “that would have taken me weeks to figure out!” they said. Felt good. Closed another ticket.

I am good at my job. I just needed some wins to remind myself.

Fixing OBS Game Capture for Fallout 3

Gaming, Tech

Quick post to document a problem I had and the solution that worked for me.

When streaming/recording Fallout 3 using OBS Studio, if I used Game Capture, OBS would show the game briefly but then freeze up, or worse, just show a black screen. Tried every setting in OBS that I could change for Game Capture, tried running OBS as administrator, even uninstalled and reinstalled OBS. Just could not get it to work. Didn’t want to use Fullscreen Capture for aesthetic reasons (it would capture my desktop, or notifications unrelated to the game, that kind of thing.)

So I broke down and read the documentation. Wouldn’t you know it, they had a solution to this.

I had to disable/close RivaTuner Statistics Server. That did the trick. Turns out having that overlay breaks Game Capture in OBS. I seriously would have never thought of that if I hadn’t gone in and found the OBS support docs.

Good documentation saves lives! Or at least prevents stress wrinkles.

I am my own technical support

Tech

Wrote up a long and detailed support request to Discord for the voice/video chat issue I was having yesterday and sent it off. I tried everything I could think of, but bottom line, it was affecting multiple computers on my home network, so everything pointed to it being a network issue.

I quickly got a response back from Nelly at Discord Support who listed a few other things I could try, some of which I had already done but forgot to put in the ticket. One, though, stood out:

4. **Whitelist Discord on Your Network**:
– Make sure that all required ports for Discord are open on your network. Especially UDP ports ranging from 50000 to 65535.

Reading that is when I remembered that I had tightened up my home router’s firewall, closing off a bunch of incoming ports. Sure enough, opening up UDP 50000 to 65535 fixed my Discord issue.

I emailed Nelly back, thanked them for the help, and wished them a great rest of their shift. Problem solved (it was me, I was the problem.)