Voice Message Recording does not work with Headphones (AirPods)

[Anghostdy]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• [x] I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• [x] This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

Bug description

Voice message recording always uses the iPhone Microphone for recording, not the connected headphone's microphone (in my case AriPods)

Steps to reproduce

• Connect Headphones, such as AirPods and open Signal
• Record a Voice Message from a Signal Chat with your AirPods, walk away from your iPhone
• Send the Voice Message
• Play the voice message, you will recognize that the microphone from the AirPods are not used, so your voice won't be recorded anymore after walking away from your iPhone

Actual result: Describe here what happens after you run the steps above (i.e. the buggy behaviour)

• A Voice Message gets recorded but the microphone from the iPhone is used, not the headphone/airpods microphone
• This does work without a problem in e.g. WhatsApp
• I also tested this with Signal for MacOS. In this case the AirPods are used as a Microphone, working away from the Mac does not result in not recorded voice
• I dont know if this is a AirPods issue or Headphone issue in general, i only could test it with AirPods Pro

Expected result: Describe here what should happen after you run the steps above (i.e. what would be the correct behaviour)

• The microphone from the connected headphones are used, not the iPhone Microphone

iOS version: iOS 15.5

Signal version: 5.42.0.12

[sashaweiss-signal]

Thanks for reporting! We're reproing this internally as well and tracking it, and will hopefully be able to take a look soon.

[Anghostdy]

@sashaweiss-signal any News on this issue? 🙂

[ospfranco]

Pinging this issue

[altosilencio]

Issue still persists with signal 6.9.0.12 on iOS 16.2 (20C65) on iPhone pro 14 with AirPods Pro gen 2 - please fix this

[kaleidoscopique]

This issue exists for years now. :( I hope you guys will fix it because it's a massive objection for friends to move to Signal.

[matt-beamish]

Without muddying the issue, can confirm this happens with Signal 6.16.0.7 on iOS 16.3.1/iPhone 11 Pro with Airpods Gen 2, but also that it happens on the same phone/pods with Apple's own Voice Memos, and a third party Audio Recorder app. May be an underlying OS issue. Can anyone else test other voice memo apps?

[Anghostdy]

Without muddying the issue, can confirm this happens with Signal 6.16.0.7 on iOS 16.3.1/iPhone 11 Pro with Airpods Gen 2, but also that it happens on the same phone/pods with Apple's own Voice Memos, and a third party Audio Recorder app. May be an underlying OS issue. Can anyone else test other voice memo apps?

I can't confirm this. I've tested it with voice memos from apple (which i'm not using in my daily life), it's working fine with my airpods pro. Also it works with whatsapp without any issues. Signal is the only app which is causing issues for me.

[MaxDaten]

I can't confirm this. I've tested it with voice memos from apple (which i'm not using in my daily life), it's working fine with my airpods pro. Also it works with whatsapp without any issues. Signal is the only app which is causing issues for me.

Second that! Either it is not an iOS Issue or every other app is able to work around it.

As a donator to the app: If the Signal Org is lacking capacity the Org could raise a bug bounty.

This should be a higher prio bug. This is a risk for the adoption of the app because it causes a lot of frustration for a lot of users.

Scenario: Voice messaging someone with the phone in the pocket results in an inaudible message. This is a time waste for the sender and hinders communication between people. The main use-case of the app.

Secondary use cases (aka stories and payment) are probably nice business cases, but no user would use these features if the main use case is broken.

I can't actually recommend Signal to other iOS users because of this issue (and other big usability issues like Storage Management). This saddens me as a donator and supporter of the idea.

[matt-beamish]

Was able to work around it for every non-Signal app by specifying the AirPod microphone as Left/Right rather than leaving it to Auto. Signal remains a problem.

Agree with @MaxDaten that it is an adoption issue; my particular scenario is that I tend to use Voice messages to message people when I'm driving, so as to be able to continue to work hands-free.

[cannona]

This is also an accessibility issue. When using VoiceOver, audio starts coming through the phone speaker, which means that every message I send has VoiceOver talking over it, since it is also recording from the phone speaker.

I'd really appreciate a fix for this.

[tebokkel]

Same problem, iOS 16.4.1 on iPhone 14 pro, latest Signal version. Only workaround is recording audio with any other app and sharing that through Signal. Very annoying.

[PalmTamino]

Wow, this is now here for a year….!

[pitibalrog]

Hi, Is there news about this issue ? I have the same issue with Apple airpod pro and Bose QC. Both are used as microphone when using Whatsapp, but none when using Signal.

[Anghostdy]

Hi, Is there news about this issue ? I have the same issue with Apple airpod pro and Bose QC. Both are used as microphone when using Whatsapp, but none when using Signal.

unfortunately not. @sashaweiss-signal I'm also looking forward to a fix since more than one year now. :(

[basings]

On android it's closed as not wanted https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/12016

Anyway, you can use a wired lavalier microphone in addition to your bluetooth headphones in order to work around this on android. Besides, all wired headphones with microphone work as well. On element it's still open as well https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android/issues/2487

You can also use an app like https://f-droid.org/de/packages/com.github.axet.audiorecorder/ which works with bluetooth microphones on android and then share it to signal/matrix