Why Voice is not possible?

[Sonja Smedley]

I use the latest Phoenix viewer but I cannot use voice inworld.Why is that?

I only see a lock at this option.

Is there someting special I should change at the audio options?

I see no green waves above my ava and my lips do not move although it is green at the viewer bar when I click to talk.:0(

I hope someone could give me a tipp...would like to use voice ingame sometimes.

Thanks

[Raul Rehnquist]

Viewers play a minor part in voice functionality. The bulk of voice support is given by the external application called SLVoice, which is made by the SL voice provider, Vivox. Voice failures are almost always due to one of the following reasons:

• Your ISP is throttling or blocking the voice service;
• failure of the Vivox service;
• voice issues on the region you are on;
• voice being throttled by bandwidth set incorrectly;
• voice hardware (mic, headset) not configured correctly in your operating system settings;
• voice hardware not configured correctly in the viewer;
• another application has your voice hardware in use (example, Skype)
• your anti virus software has “mangled” the voice application; see here.

You can test voice by going to Voice Echo Canyon. If voice is working correctly for you, anything you say there will be echoed back to you.

[Storm Clarence]

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Raul Rehnquist wrote:

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Hello Raul, long time no voice.  Is it because:

 

• Your ISP is throttling or blocking the voice service;
• failure of the Vivox service;
• voice issues on the region you are on;
• voice being throttled by bandwidth set incorrectly;
• voice hardware (mic, headset) not configured correctly in your operating system settings;
• voice hardware not configured correctly in the viewer;
• another application has your voice hardware in use (example, Skype)
• your anti virus software has “mangled” the voice application; see here
  or other?
  Welcome back.  

[Raul Rehnquist]

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Storm Clarence wrote:

---

Raul Rehnquist wrote:

---

 

Hello Raul, long time no voice.  Is it because:

 

• Your ISP is throttling or blocking the voice service;
• failure of the Vivox service;
• voice issues on the region you are on;
• voice being throttled by bandwidth set incorrectly;
• voice hardware (mic, headset) not configured correctly in your operating system settings;
• voice hardware not configured correctly in the viewer;
• another application has your voice hardware in use (example, Skype)
• your anti virus software has “mangled” the voice application; see 

  here
  or other?
  Welcome back.  

---

 

Hey whats up Storm. Thanks for the welcome back. But I really never left.

[Ricky Shaftoe]

Is this the right place to ask about technical questions with voice?  I can get voice to work -- mostly.  While doing a voice Call, the other speaker can hear me fine, but the other speaker's voice comes through my speakers, not through my headphones.  That's annoying to the other speaker.  

More worrisome, in local chat, people could hear me, but I couldn't hear them, even though I could see their "radio signal" light up over their heads.  It didn't matter whether I used avatar-distance or camera-distance as the setting for voice volume.

I'm using a headset with two miniplugs, Win 7, RealTek HD Audio Manager, Logitech speakers with optical connection to a master volume knob, SL Viewer 3.  No amount of configuring or reconfiguring in Windows 7 seems to help.  I've got voice volume to max in SL's settings, and when I look at the hardware-settings screen, I see green lights when I speak.  RealTek does have an option to "mute the rear output device" when a headset is plugged in, but when I enable this, I don't hear anything at all.

I'm going to run out and buy a USB headset, but other than that, I'm at a loss for what to do.  I'd welcome any suggestions.

[Qie Niangao]

(I use Linux, so I'm probably not going to be of much help, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to reply to somebody I remember from my earliest days in SL!)

Have you explored the alternatives in Me / Preferences / Sound & Media / "Input/Output devices" ? (For me, both Input and Output are long lists of obscure Linux ALSA gibberish, but I'm hoping they may make more sense in your case.)

[Ricky Shaftoe]

Hi Qie, wow, nice to hear from you!  Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I've spent a couple hours staring at that input devices/output devices screen.  It took a while, in fact, before I was able to get the green boxes under "output devices" to light up.  But at last I did.  

I did get two-way voice going.  My main problems were: (1) in a "Call," the other party's voice was delivered to my speakers, not my headset, creating echo effects for the other speaker and annoying both of us; (2) in local chat, I couldn't hear anyone talk at all, whether through speakers or headset.  In both cases, all other SL sounds played fine through my headset.

[Ricky Shaftoe]

Just an update: I bought a USB headset, and that *may* have cured the problem.  At least I can now hear others in my headset, albeit rather faintly.

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