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Troubleshooting

Common issues and fixes for mic passthrough. See setup.md for initial configuration steps.

Mic doesn't appear in host's Recording tab

Symptom: mmsys.cpl → Recording tab does not show "Microphone (Steam Streaming Microphone)" at all, even after starting a stream.

Causes and fixes:

  1. Steam audio drivers are not installed. Run tools/install_steam_audio_drivers.bat from the Apollo install directory as administrator, then check again. The device should appear within a few seconds without a reboot.
  2. Apollo is not running. The virtual device only registers when Apollo's service is active. Confirm Apollo shows in services.msc as Running.
  3. Wrong Apollo build. Stock Apollo (ClassicOldSong/Apollo upstream) does not include the mic receive path. Confirm your Apollo build is from JimothySnicket/Apollo on the moonlight-mic branch or a tagged release from this project.

Toggle is enabled but no audio activity on the host

Symptom: "Microphone (Steam Streaming Microphone)" is present in the Recording tab but the level meter doesn't move when speaking.

Causes and fixes:

  1. One or both ends are not patched. Check the version string in Moonlight Qt's About screen and in Apollo's web UI. Both must be patched builds. A patched client + stock Apollo: the host receives 0x5510 packets but has no handler — audio is silently dropped. A stock Moonlight + patched Apollo: no packets are ever sent.
  2. Toggle is off or was changed after stream start. Open Moonlight Settings → Audio → confirm "Stream client microphone to host" is checked. If you changed it while a stream was running, stop and restart the stream.
  3. No default microphone on the client. Moonlight uses SDL2 to open the OS default recording device. If the client OS has no default mic configured, capture silently does nothing. Check mmsys.cpl → Recording on the client and set a default device.
  4. Capability negotiation fell back. If the host did not advertise SS_FF_MIC_INPUT in its SDP, the client suppresses all 0x5510 output as a protocol safeguard. This should not happen with a patched Apollo, but if the Apollo config was recently changed or the flags file is corrupt, restarting Apollo resets the negotiation.

Audio sounds choppy or has a helicopter-chop artefact

Symptom: Audio plays but sounds staccato, repeating, or has a rapid dropout pattern.

Background: The proof-of-concept had a known bug where SDL2-compat returned 960-byte chunks instead of the expected 1920-byte frames, causing the accumulation loop to send half-frames and produce chop. This was diagnosed and fixed in the rewrite.

Fixes:

  • Confirm you are using a build from this project (JimothySnicket/moonlight-mic) and not a manually patched build derived from the POC.
  • If the chop persists on a release build, file an issue with your client OS and SDL2 version (visible in Moonlight's log output), and include a capture of the audio timing if possible — the accumulation diagnostics log to the client console.

Capture works but other apps on the host don't see it

Symptom: The level meter moves in mmsys.cpl but Discord, OBS, or another app shows no audio from "Microphone (Steam Streaming Microphone)".

Causes and fixes:

  1. App cached the device list at startup. Many apps — including Discord and OBS — enumerate audio devices once at launch and do not re-scan. Start the stream first, then launch the app (or restart it) so it picks up the active device.
  2. App is set to a different input device. Check the app's audio input setting explicitly — "Default" may resolve to a different device depending on the OS default. Select "Microphone (Steam Streaming Microphone)" by name in the app's settings.
  3. Exclusive-mode conflict. If another app has opened "Microphone (Steam Streaming Microphone)" in exclusive mode, shared-mode readers are blocked. Check that no other application is holding the device exclusively (rare with a virtual Steam device, but possible with some ASIO or WASAPI exclusive-mode hosts).

Stream connects but Moonlight immediately disconnects or errors

This is not a mic-specific issue. Check Apollo's web UI log and Moonlight's log output (%APPDATA%\Moonlight Game Streaming\Moonlight.log on Windows) for the underlying error. Mic passthrough is established after the stream handshake completes — if the stream itself fails, mic is not involved.

Further help

Open an issue at JimothySnicket/moonlight-mic. Include:

  • Client OS and Moonlight build version (Settings → About)
  • Host OS and Apollo version (Apollo web UI → About)
  • Whether "Microphone (Steam Streaming Microphone)" appears in mmsys.cpl at all
  • Moonlight client log and Apollo server log excerpts around the time of the issue