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lilithd73730887
Participant
April 23, 2019
Question

Flash blocks access to mic

  • April 23, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2063 views

Hello,

I have been trying to allow my mic on Chrome for months, but it really does not work. Here is my problem:

On this website, I'm trying to use my mic. Here is what happens whenever I'm trying to use it (the message means "The authorization to use the mic was denied") :

Now, it is the same on facebook, and the same on any website in Safari. However,

          1. I have activated my mic AND flash on the website (cf. pic)

          2. I have downloaded the last version of Flash and it says that it's activated

          3. My computer allows access to mic

          4. I tried to go on Flash Settings, but no website appear on my list, and no authorization is asked when I try to use the mic.

What else can I try? Where does this problem come from? I haven't found any answer yet, despite looking for hours.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

jeromiec83223024
Community Manager
jeromiec83223024Community Manager
Community Manager
April 24, 2019

If you haven't, a fresh install of Chrome might not hurt.  It may just be in a bad state or something.   If you're signed into a Google account on Chrome, it will restore all of your settings and history when you sign back in, so it's not *too* painful. 

One of the big changes to the web in general that's happened in the last year is that all the major browsers now enforce that in order to access the camera and microphone in a browser, everything on the page needs to be served over HTTPS.  This ensures that people aren't sending video and audio streams over the network in way that anyone along the network path could intercept and watch them without also having to break the encryption.  That's where a lot of the traffic on our forums about camera/mic not showing up are coming from.  Flash can't even see the camera and microphone unless the browser exposes them to us, so like in Chrome's case, it actually makes the security decision first, and if it doesn't like the situation, Chrome tells Flash that there are no camera/mic devices present.  It seems like a lot of content providers don't keep up (you'll see some frequent fliers if you look through the post history), and it's not clear to me why those problems are left to persist.  I assume it's because there's not money/staff/interest in most of those cases.

It may be that in this particular instance, Firefox is more forgiving about some specific situation than Safari and Chrome are, or maybe you've accidentally set some global security preferences or those preferences are corrupted on disk or something (which takes us back to weird == low-level problems). 

jeromiec83223024
Community Manager
jeromiec83223024Community Manager
Community Manager
April 24, 2019

If you haven't rebooted, I'd start there.  My guess is that something else has the Microphone reserved, or it's in a bad state.  Rebooting should resolve that.

Also, as far as I can tell, Dictanote isn't using Flash.  See the Chrome Task Manager screenshot below.  You should talk to Dictanote about the technical issue you're experiencing. 

L
lilithd73730887Author
Participant
April 24, 2019

Hi,

It has nothing to do with Dictate, as the mic does not work anywhere else on the internet. However, it works perfectly off-line (garage band, dictate on word or anything else really).

I have rebooted like 10 times, this problem has been going on for months now. I have even re-downloaded Flash.

jeromiec83223024
Community Manager
jeromiec83223024Community Manager
Community Manager
April 24, 2019

Agreed.  What I'm saying is that it's not Flash.  In the instance you provided, Flash isn't even in play -- the website is using the browser's native audio facilities, but it's not working.

Your microphone doesn't work in the browser.  If it doesn't work in the browser, it's not going to be available to Flash. 

I don't know why your microphone isn't available in the browser.  You might try alternative browsers, to see if it's specific to Chrome, but what I can say with reasonable certainty is that looking at Flash for a solution isn't going to be helpful.

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