No recording device detected, no tray icon (desktop app on Linux Mint Cinnamon)

[axellieb]

Version 5.1.2 of the desktop app on Linux Mint Cinnamon 21.3 (installed from the .deb file).

1. In /Settings/Recording, the drop-down menu shows none of the available microphones. When I try to record something regardless, I get an error message from the app saying "The request is not allowed by the user agent or the platform in the current context, possibly because the user denied permission." Yes, I have confirmed availability of these devices in Pulse Audio Control and with arecord. And yes, I have updated the webkit dependencies. Starting the app as super user also doesn't help.

2. When trying to record, the app also shows these error messages: "Could not set tray icon to idle icon" and "No such file or directory (os error 2)". And indeed, the app's icon does not appear in the system tray.

3. Also, as noted by others, the app is now called "app", not "whispering".

[technicznyblog]

Same here on Ubuntu.

[nealeu]

Same for me on 6.4.1 - do I even bother with trying the AppImage?

[andreabolandrina]

I'm on Arch Linux and Whispering is not detecting the mic. The mic is from my BT headset, using PulseAudio, so maybe it's trying to use ALSA by default?

I have not found a way to toggle between PulseAudio and ALSA. I'm running v6.4.1 too.

The app looks really nice otherwise.

[atopheim]

+1 endeavour arch linux: aur/whispering-bin 6.4.1-1

No Microphone Found We couldn't connect to any microphones. Make sure they're plugged in and try again!

[geka-evk]

Same problem! Here's which error I see on Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS

{
  "_tag": "WhisperingError",
  "variant": "error",
  "title": "Error enumerating recording devices and acquiring first available stream",
  "description": "Please make sure you have given permission to access your audio devices",
  "action": {
    "type": "more-details",
    "error": {
      "_tag": "WhisperingError",
      "variant": "error",
      "title": "🎤 Device Access Error",
      "description": "Oops! We need permission to see your microphones. Check your browser settings and try again!",
      "action": {
        "type": "more-details",
        "error": {}
      }
    }
  }
}

my system details:

[davidkube]

I have the same issue. When building from source it persists. When I checkout main, there is a new feature which allows you to select the recording method: Browser API or Native (Tauri). When selecting Native (Tauri) I am able to get a list of devices, but the application freezes if I go back to browser and try to load that again.

So after switching to Native I can select pulse as my mic. When I record then, I got a sampling error as it was the incorrect format. I was able to fix this using Cursor in the RecorderService.tauri.ts file. When I record after that it works, but the recording is sped up. I think this is because my mic is configured at 48khz and the recording is defaulting to 16khz? Made some further changes using cursor which fixed that issue as well, but the changes are far beyond my understanding of how this works.

Anyone interested in the changes I've added them here https://github.com/davidkube/whispering/tree/fix/audio-recording-sample-rate

But with regard to the main issue in this thread, I believe it is at least partially fixed by the ability to select Native Tauri

[braden-w]

Hey @axellieb, thanks for reporting this! Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, was experiencing some burnout earlier regarding launching.

This is the same root issue as #558-the Navigator API doesn't work properly with certain Linux desktop environments. I'm closing this in favor of #558 where I'm tracking the fix. I had native recording enabled before but disabled it in a previous release; I'll be planning on restoring it or making native recording the default in the next release.

The missing tray icon is hopefully resolved too in the next release (please make a new issue if it persists)!

Please follow #558 for updates on the fix!