Orsola can't hear you?

What you are seeing

Voice will not start, a recording comes out silent, or the permission prompt you were expecting never appears.

The thing that confuses people most: a refusal is remembered. Say no once and the browser stops asking, so it looks as though nothing is happening rather than as though permission was denied. Undoing it is a setting, not another prompt.

Allow the microphone in your browser

Look at the left-hand end of the address bar — a padlock, a camera or a microphone icon. Choose it, find the microphone entry, set it to Allow for Orsola, and reload the page.

Two things worth knowing:

• Permission is per site and per browser. Allowing it in Chrome does nothing for Safari.
• A private window may not keep it, so you can be asked again every time.

Choose the right microphone

Allowed but still silent usually means the wrong input device — a monitor or webcam microphone across the room rather than the headset you are wearing.

Set the default input in your operating system's sound settings, then reload Orsola. Check the device is not muted at its own switch too; a hardware mute button on a headset defeats everything above it.

For recording a video call specifically, remember Orsola captures what your microphone hears. On headphones the other participants are not in the room — use speakers. No sound, wrong speaker, or no transcript? covers that case.

Allow notifications

Notifications work the same way, in the same place in the address bar, and a refusal is equally sticky.

Worth knowing before you chase this: in a browser, the bell inside Orsola is how you are told things, and it needs no permission at all. Push notifications go to the Orsola app on your phone, and that permission is granted on the phone rather than in a browser. Choose what you get notified about explains which channel carries what.

On a phone or tablet

There are two layers, and both have to allow it:

1. The app or browser needs microphone permission from the device — in your phone's Settings, under the app.
2. Orsola needs it within that, granted by the prompt when you first use voice.

If you refused at the device level, the in-app prompt will not appear at all, which is why nothing seems to happen. Fix the device setting first, then reopen Orsola.

Also check nothing else is holding the microphone — a call app running in the background will keep it.

Still stuck

Test the microphone somewhere else — a voice memo app, or any site with a mic test. If it fails there too, it is the device rather than Orsola.

If it works elsewhere and not here, get in touch with your browser and version, your operating system, and what you see when you open the permission icon in the address bar.