Voice help needed

[Keres Bikcin]

Hi.

I use Firestorm viewer. I use voice regularly on SL and no problems with it. Yesterday I was in a call and all was fine. I had to hang up the call for a few minutes. I tried to call my friend again, they didn't answer so I hit the cancel button. Now I have no voice at all. It just stopped working. I have toggled it on and off numerous times. I have restarted SL. I have rebooted my computer. Rebooted my router. I have made SLVoice an exception on both my firewall and my anti virus. It isn't blocked anywhere that I can see. I even added all the proxys to allow SL and voice.

I reinstalled firestorm. Upgraded firestorm to the newest version. Tried using an old version of firestorm I have on my computer. I did a full complete reinstall of firestorm. Deleting all the files a typical reinstall doesnt delete. Back to complete basics with it, but still no voice. I installed the regular SL viewer and no voice there either. I tried a system restore on my computer. I am at a complete loss now.

I will say, when I was trying to get it to work tonight, I deleted all allowed SL voices from my firewall, (from previous versions used), and readded just the one I wanted again. SL voice worked. Once. As soon as I restarted firestorm it was gone again. And numerous tries later, and numerous readding to firewall, has had no effect.

Anyone have any ideas what else I can try please?  I'm baffled. :smileysad:

[Yingzi Xue]

What are you using as a device to communicate?  Is it a USB headset?  Is it a mic/headset plugged into your mic jack on your sound card?

Without loading Firestorm, go into the Control Panel and Sound.  Under the Recording tab, see if your device is checked as the active device.  If not, set it as default.  Then click Configure and go into the settings.  Ensure your mic is turned up.  Go through the microphone setup and ensure your mic is working properly.  If you do all these things and can't get sound out of it, it could either be a bad headset/mic or you could have a driver issue with your device.  You could try reinstalling drivers from the maufacturer to see if that fixes it.  Some devices come with their own set of controls.  If yours does, run the software and check the settings for the mic.  If you get the mic running in Windows, but not Firestorm, edit the settings via Preferences - Sound & Media - click Audio Device Settings button - Use the dropdowns to set up your input/output devices.  If they are grayed out, your device isn't being detected and it could be a hardware/software issue.

If all of this fails, borrow a mic or headset from someone just to try.  OR, buy a cheap mic or headset from Wal-mart or even Goodwill (although there's a chance a Goodwill device will be bad) and try it.

This should help narrow down your problem.  It sounds like your hardware or drivers to me.  Either the headset died, the drivers got messed up or the sound card mic port died (if that's what you're using).  In the case of a bad sound card mic port, just get a USB headset, problem solved.

[Keres Bikcin]

I use a mic/headset USB connection. I've tested my headset and it works fine on everything else. I did the test call on skype and works perfect there. It is just on SL that I can't get voice at all. Drivers are also up to date.

Not sure it can be my firewall or anti virus as I have turned both of those off, logged in and still no voice. Really at a loss to what it is.

[Keres Bikcin]

Also, SL voice does appear in my processes on task manager as running. And when I use the audio device settings on SL prefs, the drop down boxes are set to my headset, and the mic volume slider there works when im using my mic. If I talk into my mic, the boxes move so SL is picking up my headset, yet still no voice!

[Yingzi Xue]

I know you said you have an exception on your firewall for SLVoice, but just to make sure it's not the exception that's configured wrong, try turning off your firewall and anti-virus software and see if SLVoice works.  That's the last thing I know to check if your headset is working with everything else.  Make sure Windows Firewall is off too.  If this doesn't fix the problem then I don't know, you've tried about everything.

I just thought of something.  Does your internet modem have a built-in router?  It's possible it could be blocking the port(s) involved.

[Keres Bikcin]

I did try turning firewall and anti virus off and still no voice. And yes i do have a router like you said. Why would it suddenly start blocking it? One minute was fine then not. And how do i check if the router is blocking it?

[Whirly Fizzle]

Did you try logging directly into a different region?

It's horribly common for a region to have broken voice lately.
When you login directly to a region broken in this way, you will have broken voice for the rest of the session. However people who logged in elsewhere and teleported to the broken region will still be able to use voice.

Try logging in directly to some different regions and wait there for a few minutes and see if voice connects.
I checked voice on my region at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Veil%20of%20Shadows/188/67/29 and it is currently working correctly here so you can use this region for testing if you like.
If this problem does turn out to be isolated to logging into a particular region then this region needs to be restarted.

[Yingzi Xue]

Each router is different.  Check with the manufacturer website for the manual.  Some use a local web address that points to the router, others use software to configure.  Then it's just a matter of looking at the settings.  Here's an excerpt from a thread where someone had the same problem and fixed it.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Technical/Voice-not-working-tried-everything/qaq-p/1754063

I had a similiar problem with voice suddenly not working any longer. My issue turned out to be a problem with my home network. I had to reset my router back to factory settings and I replaced a network cable that wasn't making a secure connection. Despite this being what fixed it, it wasn't affecting any other programs.

[Keres Bikcin]

Thanks both for the help. It wasn't the region either Whirly. I had logged in to numerous different places. I checked a webpage which tells you what ports your isp may be blocking. Two of the ones that use SL voice were on there. So, I rang my isp folk up and spent far too long trying to explain the situation to different people who had no clue what I was talking about. Eventually I lost my cool with a guy who was entirely useless and spent an hour telling me about stuff that was no good to me. Told him the ports might be being blocked and all I want is them bloody well unblocked. He didn't have a clue still but would tell his manager about my issue.  I was getting used to the idea of having no voice at all anymore, when later that day it just started working again. No clue if it was an SL issue that got fixed, or my isp. I'm sorta leaning towards the isp thing. Just seems a little suspicious it starts to work after I complain about it. Who knows though. I'm just happy it's finally working again! :matte-motes-confused: