No microphone audio in studio after recording

[MerijnRaaijmakers]

Description

While recording microphone audio, during the recording it shows the mic as active and getting audio, but then when I go into the studio after the recording no waveform and audio appears to be there. This is happening with multiple mics.

Reproduction

See description above.

Additional Context

• Cap version: v0.4.84
• Operating system, version: MacOS Sonoma 14

[linear]

CAP-684

[tembo]

This issue appears related to #1696, where multiple users report that microphone audio shows as active during recording (levels meter works) but isn't audible in Studio Mode afterwards. In that issue, users confirmed the audio files (audio-input.m4a or audio-input.ogg) exist inside the .cap package but the editor doesn't load them.

There was also a user report in #1535 describing the exact same symptom on v0.4.83 with camera-only mode.

Debugging steps that would help:

1. Check inside your .cap recording file (right-click > "Show Package Contents") and navigate to content/segments/segment-0/. Look for audio-input.m4a or audio-input.ogg. If the file exists, check its size.

2. Look at the recording-meta.json file in the package. Specifically check if segments[0].mic contains a valid path reference or is null.

3. The recording logs (recording-logs.log in the package) may show any errors during the audio remux/finalization process at crates/recording/src/recovery.rs:650-694.

Relevant code paths:

• Mic pipeline setup: crates/recording/src/studio_recording.rs:1430-1452 writes to audio-input.m4a in fragmented mode
• Recovery/finalization: crates/recording/src/recovery.rs:650-694 transcodes fragments to .ogg
• Metadata population: crates/recording/src/recovery.rs:918-937 only sets the mic field if the .ogg file exists and is >500 bytes

If the audio file exists in the package but the metadata is missing the reference, that would point to a bug in the finalization step.

[aspectrr]

I ran into this issue as well, anyway to recover the audio or do I need to go back a version

[aspectrr]

there is no audio file in segment-0/, I don't see an audio file mentioned in the recording-meta.json file either.

[aspectrr]

Okay so audio works when recording a window, not when recording just camera, or area or display

[aspectrr]

nvm it looks like audio works one time on cap restart and then fails after that, not sure why

[kud]

I've got the same issue here. Version 0.4.84 (0.4.84)

[tyler-berggren]

FYI I had the same problem on 0.4.84 (M4 Mac Mini). Rolling back to 0.4.5 got mic recording working, but no system audio.

[electerious]

Same issue. It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. There's no audio file in the package when it doesn't, but you will only know after the recording.

Edit: It seems to work for the first record, but the second record has no audio input. You have to toggle the microphone on and off in the UI so it records again. Even when it says that it's on.

[marcindyguda]

Same issue here, tried multiple times, doesn't work. I thought it was permissions maybe.

Claude found this thread for me - thank you AI.

[schuon]

To me it works in Studio mode with capturing a screen. If I run studio mode without a screen (or any instant setup), it does not. Logs show has_audio=false . This is super annoying, because you only find out after a long recording session

[jeremylynch]

This is very frustrating - I am getting the issue also on Version 0.4.84 (0.4.84)

[Kat-May-Kat]

Same issue on Windows 11, Cap v0.4.84 — so this isn't macOS-only.

In my case the mic audio is captured: the .m4a exists in the recording folder and plays fine in a media player. The failure shows up in recording-diagnostics.json as a muxer finalization error rather than a missing file:

{
"track": "microphone",
"stage": "runtime",
"error": "Muxer finish failed: Unknown error"
}

So there may be two failure paths here producing the same "no audio in studio" result: one where the audio file is never written (no entry in recording-meta.json, as @aspectrr saw), and one where the file is written but the muxer fails to finalize/register it (my case). Possibly related: #1588 (mic stream not released cleanly after recording on Windows 11).

I was really excited trying out the tool but now I'm stuck. Hope you can fix this.

[dennyschroeder]

Same Problem here with Version 0.4.84